The American Clean Energy and Security Act will create millions of new clean energy jobs, save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars in energy costs, enhance America’s energy independence, and cut global warming pollution. To meet these goals, the legislation has four titles:
* A clean energy title that promotes renewable sources of energy, carbon capture and sequestration technologies, low-carbon fuels, clean electric vehicles, and the smart grid and electricity transmission;
* An energy efficiency title that increases energy efficiency across all sectors of the economy, including buildings, appliances, transportation, and industry;
* A global warming title that places limits on emissions of heat-trapping pollutants; and
* A transitioning title that protects U.S. consumers and industry and promotes green jobs during the transition to a clean energy economy.
The Energy and Commerce Committee will complete consideration of the legislation by Memorial Day. The preliminary schedule follows:
* Week of April 20: Energy and Environment Subcommittee Hearings
* Week of April 27: Energy and Environment Subcommittee Markup Period Begins
* Week of May 11: Full Energy and Commerce Committee Markup Period Begins
Documents
* American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 Discussion Draft Full Text: http://energycommerce.house.go…
* American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 Discussion Draft Summary: http://energycommerce.house.go…
that some House Dems are deadly serious when it comes to implementing the agenda they’ve had to wait on for so long. When I interviewed Rep. Markey at the convention in August, I was impressed at the commitment and specificity of the things they wanted to introduce as a majority.
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p>Needless to say, we should seek to lean forward on climate change legislation; thanks to Markey and Waxman for seeking carbon control on a faster schedule than the President’s plan.
I’m only 1 of 300M U.S. citizens, but I have strong opinions on the details of this legislation, all of which are incredibly insightful and worthy of the Committee’s attention (or something like that).
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p>What’s the best way to communicate my feedback? What’s the best way for citizen groups to counter certain entities that will seek to weaken and/or scuttle this bill?
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p>For starters, here’s a bunch of questions:
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p>Why a renewable electricity standard vs., say, reasonably favorable feed-in tariffs for renewable generation? The former feels very command-and-control to me, while the latter makes it easier for developers of all sizes to determine the economics of a project.
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p>What happens if an entity (state? utility?) does not comply with the standard? What’s the enforcement?
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p>How are municipal utilities affected by this legislation?
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p>At the risk of starting a holy war, is a carbon tax/rebate system really a non-starter politically? I’m not passionately opposed to cap-and-trade in theory, but I’m very worried that the details of the implementation will minimize its effectiveness and allow some people to game the system. Shoot, I’ll game it if I can figure out how to.
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p>The phrase ‘net metering’ does not appear in the draft legislation. Why not?
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p>How on God’s green earth are we to interpret:
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p>Does anyone out there know about any sites or utilities that attempt to splice together revisions across bills and laws? I realize this is how things are done, but the amount of inherent obfuscation, and thus lack of transparency, is incredible.
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p>I hereby pledge eternal fealty to anyone who enables the public to be able to read such revisions in the form of a coherent document (with deleted text appearing in strikethrough, and new text appearing in color, both with annotations to the source of the revision)- like any decent word processor.
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p>By the way, a PDF reader that shows all occurrences of a search term (like Preview on a Mac) is a really useful thing to have for documents like this.
Today’s Waxman-Markey global warming bill defines “biomass” to include the following in Section 610(a)(2)
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p>”(B) Planted trees, brush, slash, an all residues from an actively managed tree plantation located on land that was cleared prior to the date of enactment of this section and is not Federal land.
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p>(C) Pre-commercial-sized thinnings, slash, brush and residue from milled trees, from forested land that is not-
(i) old-growth or mature forest;
(ii) identified under a State Natural Heritage Program as rare, imperiled, or critically impaired; or
(iii) Federal land.”
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p>We all know that burning wood releases oodles of carbon. The inclusion of biomass in renewable energy legislation is based on the theory that it is “net” carbon neutral – that is, that within 50-100 years the trees will grow back and resequester the carbon, so there is no “net” increase in carbon releases. Based on this theory, legislators are supporting and taxpayers and electricitiy ratepayers are subsidizing the construction of a fleet of biomass power plants from Hawaii to Florida.
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p>The problem is, climate change expected to result in catastrophic impacts within a much shorter time frame than that. In fact, these new power plants would have the exact opposite of their intended effect.
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p>In Massachusetts there are four large-scale biomass power plants proposed. Each would produce about one and a half times the C02 per megawatt hour of the worst coal polluter in the northeast. Building these four would be like building a new coal plant in terms of carbon releases, and no one can argue that the effect will be anything but a great increase in carbon releases until the trees grow back.
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p>People have been making this point to Governor Patrick, Ian Bowles at EEA, Philip Giudice at DOER, and many others for years and have received nothing but polite silence and an ever-increasing pace at which these facilities are moved forward along greased skids. This is a really big fly in the ointment of our efforts to reduce carbon emssions.
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p>Biomass power plants will greatly increase carbon emissions for the forseeable future – the exact opposite of what we all want from this type of legislation.
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p>I wish this was an April Fool’s joke, but I am sorry to say it is all quite true.
Precisely where the biomass comes from has enormous implications in using biomass to generate electricity.
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p>If the biomass is coming from old growth forests which are being wiped out to be replaced with subdivisions as far as the eye can see, that’s a major problem with respect to carbon emissions, both directly and indirectly.
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p>However, if the biomass comes from:
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p> * agricultural waste (corn stalks, etc)
* pulp and paper waste
* lumber mill waste
* managed foresting practices (eg cut 2% of the mass every year for a forest which grows trees on a 50 year lifecycle)
* using grasslands or other annual crops (switchgrass, etc)
* land that is formerly not generating biomass (grassland-ish)
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p>then your concerns are eliminated. As long as the biomass either (a) exists as a waste product anyway, or (b) is being grown as quickly as it’s being burned, it’s carbon neutral in every 365 day time frame and certainly displacing carbon emissions from burning coal. Additionally — and this is really important — many coal power plants can be cheaply converted to biomass power plants, which both (a) reduces the opposition from the owner of the power plant, and (b) allows biomass to come on relatively quickly and cheaply because both the permitting and the construction times are greatly reduced. Additionally, Massachusetts produces no coal. We do have land that can generate biomass, as does the rest of New England (except maybe RI). That means that we’ll necessarily create local jobs to harvest and transport the biomass, and we may even preserve more forest land in the process because the product of the land itself will have more value, making it economically feasible to say “no” the the developers who want to build another golf course or McMansion subdivision.
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p>So, with respect to the legislation, (B) covers the last two bullet points, and (C) covers bullet points 1, 2, 3, and 4 while explicitly excluding old growth.
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p>
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p>Biomass is a beautiful thing. It was also responsible for more electricity nationwide than solar, wind, and small hydro combined in 2008. Finally, it’s really important to note that the Southeast doesn’t have particularly good solar potential and even worse wind potential. Their potential to use tides/waves doesn’t extend to the non-coastal South. However, they have great biomass potential, and so biomass is really essential to requiring each state generate more renewable energy in a way that is fair to all regions of the country and doesn’t create a price shock for electricity prices.
Biomass power plants burning whole tree wood chips or contaminated waste are not clean, nor green, for the reasons listed below and need to be eliminated from the RPS standards to avoid expected and valid claims of greenwashing. Cutting down forests or burning contaminated waste and selling it as “green” and “clean” energy will add to public cynicism and threaten the important effort of using government subsidies and policies to promote environmentally friendly technologies.
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p>Current proposals for building 5 biomass plants would:
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p> Target public lands to provide 532,000 green tons of wood annually, requiring clear-cutting 6,200 acres, or partially cutting between 11,000 and 31,000 acres each year. Historical 1980-2006 public land logging averaged 1,250 acres partially cut. 1.8 million green tons of additional trees, or 8 million more trees, would have to be cut annually, meaning forest cutting volumes would have to more than triple on all Massachusetts forests, public and private. At this rate, all Massachusetts forests could be logged in 25 years. Clear-cutting would spread across the landscape and is already occurring on public forests, See: www.maforests.org Think about that next time you faithfully recycle your envelopes.
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p> Burn 2.4 million tons of wood and release 3 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, an 11% increase over current statewide power plant CO2 emissions. The proposed Russell biomass plant would release 50% more CO2 per mWhr of energy produced than the worst CO2 emitting power plant in the northeast. These plants are not carbon neutral despite such claims by proponents and the media.
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p> Increase air and water pollution in already polluted regions of Massachusetts
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p> Require about 600 logging truck trips per day, or more than 184,000 trips per year, at about 6 miles per gallon for trips up to 100 miles, mostly on narrow rural roads
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p> New power produced from these 5 plants would only increase generation capacity 1% more than today’s capacity. Basic conservation measures could reduce electrical use 33% Conservation measures cost 3.2 cents per kWhr versus 8.9 cents per kWhr for new production.
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p>In order stop the threats to our environment from these large wood burning power plants, biomass energy projects using whole tree wood chips or chemically contaminated construction and demolition waste, municipal solid waste, and waste pallets need to be removed from eligibility to receive subsidies or advancement from taxpayers, electricity rate-payers, or any agents of the Commonwealth through any of the Renewable Portfolio Standard statutes.
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p>At this time of ecological and economic crisis, there can be no reasonable argument for forcing taxpayers to subsidize new polluting, CO2 emitting, forest devastating carbon based fuels for minimal amounts of cheap power. These policies will worsen air pollution, increase greenhouse gas emissions, deplete forests and drain our public coffers, the exact opposite of what we need to be doing right now. These tax-payer subsidies and other incentives should be redirected toward truly green technologies to produce clean, non-carbon emitting energy, and local jobs.
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p>Additionally, Massachusetts has committed to reducing global warming emissions and burning millions of tons of forest will fly in the face of this landmark legislation and cause a double whammy by releasing currently locked up carbon as well as degrading the forests ability to absorb CO2
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p>The proposals to use these fuels will add to our problems, not help them.
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p>Please see report for details, citations and photos. Downloadable at: www.maforests.org/Biomess.pdf
Public lands should not be involved in this biomass initiative. Any timber harvesting should use uneven aged management, single tree selection. Anything else causes permanent ecological damage to the land. (see the scientists information, and the save americas forest act, http://www.saveamericasforests.org) Ok, you wanted documentation, over 600 of the nations best ecological scientists weighed in and supported that bill. The forest ecology needs dead twigs, and limbs that decay and support growth and soil nutrients. Removing them for biomass removes growth, and thats more carbon negative. Look at the ammounts of wood these plants need. Its way more than the forests in Mass. can sustain. Then, note they supply 1-2 percent of the electrical supply if they all are built. So we trash our public lands and turn them into biomass plant machines, and get 1 percent? Whats wrong with this picture. Look at the number of trucks going to the Russell plant per day to support that operation. Talk about use of foreign oil? This is all a greenwashing scam.
DOER’s proposed “Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard” regulations define “biomass fuel” as “fuel sources including brush, stumps, lumber ends and trimmings, wood pallets, bark, wood chips, shavings, slash and other clean wood”. These regulations are before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy which must report back to DOER on April 19 with an opinion on the regulations.
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p>Burning wood, including “other clean wood” i.e. whole trees, will release more CO2 than burning coal, and is not net carbon neutral. There are four power plants proposed for Western Massachusetts that will burn wood, including whole trees logged for the purpose of incinerating them for energy production. The plants are being promoted as “green” and will be eligible for state and federal renewable energy tax credits and incentives on the premise that they will reduce global warming. By generating more CO2 than a coal burning plant, these biomass plants will actually promote global warming.
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p>Citizens have called upon the Joint Committee to hold a legislative hearing to allow a full and fair airing of the factual and scientific implications of the proposed RPS regulations. Let’s not go us down a path with serious negative CO2 implications: the regulation should redefine “biomass fuel” to exclude wood burning. There are parallels here to the rush to make ethanol from corn – which had very negative consequences.
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p>We’ve all been told to “save the rainforest” from the “slash and burn” methods used by subsistence farmers in third world countries because we need the rain forest to sequester carbon, and because “slash and burn” causes global warming. Yet, DOER is promoting slash and burn in the proposed RPS regulation.
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p>The use of wood as biomass deserves a thorough examination before we rush headlong into the development of this “magic solution” to global warming.
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p>Got a source for this? I’ve got 100s which show that by virtual definition of biochemestry, it is on the timescale of the life of the tree, say 100 years.
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p>Concerned about carbon in less than a 100 year timeframe? So am I. How do we deal with this? Consider the following made up and simplified example:
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p>I own land with 100 full grown trees on it as well as some extra space to support another 100 trees. It takes 100 years for a tree to become full grown, and they grow the same amount each of the 100 years. If I cut down one full grown tree a year to burn it for fuel and replant two saplings, then after 100 years how are we doing? We’ve gotten 1 tree worth of energy every year, and we have a lot with 200 trees on it (two each of age 99, …, 2, 1, 0). Now, what about the current carbon “locked up” in the trees? Well, it turns out that it’s got exactly the same amount of carbon as the initial 100 trees did. Why? Well, we started with 100 full grown trees, and now we have the biomass equivalent of 2(99/100) + 2(98/100) + … + 2(2/100) + 2(1/100) + 2*(0/100). That sum, sure enough, equals 100 exactly. We’ve got exactly the same amount of biomass as we started with!
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p>
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p>This idea that somebody is going to run around and cut down forests of old growth forests and burn them is asinine. The wood is worth more as lumber than it is for electricity. Biomass is all about burning scraps and other waste instead of simply letting it decompose.
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p>Got any actual evidence to suggest otherwise?
The 6 proposed biomass power plants would burn about 2.8 million tons of wood and release 3.6 million tons of CO2 emissions annually, a 14% increase over current statewide power plant CO2 emissions.
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p>www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat5p1.html U.S. Electric Power Indust. Estimated Emissions by State (EIA-767 and EIA-906) 2006 Emissions = 23,707,577 metric tons x 1.1 = 26,078,000 tons = 3,600,000 tons new / 26,078,000 = 14%)
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p>The proposed Russell biomass plant (and others like it) would release 50% more CO2 per mWhr of energy produced than the worst CO2 emitting power plant in the northeast.
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p>(Tighe & Bond. 2005. Expanded Environmental Notification Form, Russell Biomass Project, September 2005. p. 3, 12 600,000 CO2 tons per year, 380,000 MWhr per year, 600,000 x 2000 lbs/ton 380,000 = 3,158 lbsCO2 per MWhr, the worst CO2 emitting power plant in the northeast (including coal plants), C.R Huntley releases 2,100 lbs of CO2 MWhr p 1 http://www.policyarchive.org/b…
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p>Cutting and burning more than 2,000,000 tons of growing forest is not carbon neutral despite all the wishful thinking, blind delusion and repeated claims by industry. For a project to be carbon neutral, the forest cutting rate after the project cannot be higher than the forest cutting rate before the project. Additionally, the carbon from cutting trees is released now, but the new growth can take up to 75 years to replace what was cut.
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p>Furthermore, trees take up CO2 from any source, they do not distinguish between fossil fuels or biomass. So biomass has no more claim to the offsets from growing forests than do fossil fuels. In fact, biomass burning of trees is actually a double whammy because it not only releases stored CO2 in growing forests but it also reduces the ability of the forests to sequester carbon because of all the cutting.
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p>Only if the wood was all clean waste wood, and would otherwise decay immediately, could the idea of carbon neutrality for these plant even be entertained. However, there is not remotely enough “clean waste” available for these proposed plants. They will be lucky if they can get 20% of their fuel from clean waste. The “clean waste” myth is a red herring meant to mislead folks into believing that it is “green”, when in fact it is a huge PR push by the timber industry and the waste industries to cash in logging forests and burning C& D waste.
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p>Here are the numbers:
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p>A listing of the proposed and existing biomass power plants in western Massachusetts fueled by wood is as follows. All calculations are in green tons.
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p>Proposed Plants
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p>Russell 50 MW
Springfield 30 MW
Pittsfield 40 MW
Greenfield (Pioneer) 50 MW
Greenfield (Coop-Power) 20 MW
New Fitchburg 15 MW
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p>Existing Pinetree 17 MW
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p> Total 222 MW
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p>According to the DOER document “Biomass Availability Analysis -Five Counties of Western Massachusetts” On Page 11: 1 MW requires 13,000 green tons of wood fuel per year
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p>Thus, to provide fuel for 222 MW x 13,000 green tons = 2,886,000 green tons of wood annually
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p>According to the same DOER document “Biomass Availability Analysis -Five Counties of Western Massachusetts” On Page 31:
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p>There are 629,000 green tons of TOTAL available waste wood in all western Massachusetts, including Worcester County. (NOTE: this number includes C&D waste, and in reality is likely to be significantly smaller as it does account for contaminated wood, reduced land clearing quantities due to the housing market correction, and reduced timber residues due to the depressed industry conditions.)
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p>Thus, total wood required from whole trees (forest cutting) =
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p>2,886,000 green tons – 629,000 green tons waste = 2,257,000 green tons per year
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p>For perspective, the current average annual public and private timber harvest on public lands is about 500,000 to 600,000 green tons, depending if branches and tops left on the forest floor are included. Logging rates would have to more than triple on all Massachusetts forests to provide this wood, and would go way beyond “sustainable” levels to the point where all forests could be logged in 25 years.
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p>According to the DOER document “Silvicultural And Ecological Considerations Of Forest Biomass Harvesting In Massachusetts ” Page 21, 1 dry ton = 1.9 green tons
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p>Page 3, Availability of “sustainable” biomass from lands “likely to be involved in biomass harvesting” is 500,000 dry tons x 1.9 = 950,000 green tons.
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p>However, this report targets 44% or 418,000 green tons of that likely “available” 950,000 green tons to come from private lands over 100 acres (this would require a doubling of logging on private lands which is not at all certain), and 56%, or 532,000 green tons, to come from public lands annually.
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p>This amount of wood from public lands is entirely implausible as it would require state land logging to increase more than 10 times, or 1,000% higher than 1980-2006 historical averages of about 50,000 green tons per year. Already, attempts by DCR and DFW to increase logging on public lands has led to public outcry and if the state attempted to get 532,000 green tons of wood off public lands, there would likely be a public revolt. Already, Channel 5 news has aired a story on this current issue which can be seen at:
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p>http://www.thebostonchannel.co…
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p>Thus, if logging on public lands were to continue at 25 year historical rates, which can be assumed to be socially acceptable through experience, the likely private land availability and socially acceptable public land availability of whole tree biomass from additional logging is closer to:
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p>418,000 green tons private + 50,000 green tons public = 468,000 green tons
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p>This is only about 20% of the required 2,257,000 green tons of whole tree combined fuel supply for all these plants
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p>Additionally, many other small biomass power plants are proposed as well as heating projects and even bio-fuels gasoline from wood proposals are being worked on in Massachusetts.
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p>In any case, even waste wood on the forest floor is part of the forest process, and the soil is replenished from decaying wood. Try to ask the proponents of these plants to sign something saying they will not use whole trees or C&D and they will “poof” disappear. It is notable that the Pittsfield plant is proposed by the Crane Bros, a big timber company and the Russell plant is proposed by Hull, another big timber company in Massachusetts. These guys can’t wait to get their hand on all the public taxpayer subsidies for these plants and drive up the market for their trees.
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p>Yes, clearcutting will spread across the landscape and has already begun on our public lands. Just take a ride up to the four corners area of October Mountain State Forest. They have already started the slaughter there. To see photos of the clear-cutting occurring all over the state in our public forests go to: http://www.maforests.org/
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p>In the end, if they build these plants, Massachusetts will turn itself into “logging and burning central” and it will not be a pretty sight. It is a world where logging trucks are plowing up and down small rural roads, clearcuts spread across the landscape and the community is at war with itself between those that want to preserve the environment and those that want to save a handful of jobs, The timber industry laughs all the way to the bank. I know this because I lived in the Pacific Northwest where logging is big, and I eventually moved back here because the timber industry had devastated the place.
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p>You may think I am exaggerating, but I am not. &nb
sp;This industry always wraps itself in sheep’s clothing, touts itself with lots of eco-buzzwords, but once citizens figure out what they are really about , it is too late to do anything about it because the infrastructure has been created.
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p>
There is the documentation now in plain sight. You covered my point about “waste wood” well. Its a necessary part of ecology of the forest. Spend some money and grants on the excellent solar projects like the ones they are setting up and using in Europe. They work, and are REALLY carbon neutral, not old tech wood burning machines.
PS the increase in these wood burning and CO2 numbers from my previous post is due to adding the Co-op power 20 MW Biomass power plant and the existing 17 MW Pinetree biomass plant.
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p>By the way, they already use whole trees for the small existing Pinetree plant additionally laying to rest claims of mountains of “waste wood”.
On our radio show here in Massachusetts we often talk about false solutions to the climate crisis; solutions that arise out of perhaps both a sense of urgency as well as a business as usual mindset. As an example, we call the proposed Cape Wind project “the right project in the wrong place” because it is owned by a private corporation seeking to profit from using public space (Nantucket Sound) and because its’ proposed site is on the edge of the Great Atlantic Flyway.
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p>Another such false solution, to our way of thinking, is the new push here in the Commonwealth for Biomass plants which will burn whole trees (among other things) clear-cut off state and, perhaps private lands. Such biomass burning is often falsely identified as “carbon neutral” because of the potential for the trees to grow back. However, the time it takes for the trees to return to their former carbon sequestering size is beyond the scope of most climate change fix scenarios. In addition, once again public space (state land) would be sacrificed for private profit and our cherished forests reduced to mere fuel depots.
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p>False solutions won’t help us deal with the ongoing climate crisis. They will only exasperate an already devolving ecological situation. We need smart solutions that both work with the natural world we inhabit AND do not turn The Commonwealth into private wealth.
Tell me you are going to develop a solar, wind, hydro or geothermal system and I’ll be right there for you, but tell me you’re going to burn trees and I’ll work to stop that. The cutting that is happening and proposed to happen in service to this misguided endeavor is nothing short of a rape of our forests and shows a complete disconnection from understanding what clean and renewable energy is. This plan not only devalues the precious resource that our forests are in their INTACT state, it also demonstrates a lack of understanding of how these biosystems are an integral and indespensible part of the balance we are seeking to achieve by switching to genuine renewable power. The plans to burn our forests and then, when they’re all gone, import what amounts to other states’ unwanted building waste is heinous enough without even beginning to consider what a truly criminal amount of CO2 emmissions that would be produced. The people who vote for this forest-raping plan will not get my vote again – ever.
Predominantly, it would seem, of the so-called Concerned Citizens of Russell who don’t want a biomass power plant in their back yard.
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p>Now, I have no idea if the proposed power plant is appropriate for the setting chosen in Russell. I’ve never even been to Russell. I’m also not arguing that all forms of biomass harvesting are appropriate.
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p>But really, these folks are behaving koo-koo for Cocoa puffs. They sound just like the folks who opposed Cape Wind, grasping at any half-truth to support the opposition of a local power plant.
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p>
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p>Yes, it’s true that biomass can be done poorly. No question about it. It’s also true that it can be done well. I’m not a forestry expert so I have no sense if the regulations that this bill calls for are sufficient, but given that it came from the party that makes an effort to protect natural resources, my instinct is that it’s the best we could get.
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p>But come on people. You’re obviously showing up to BMG at the request of a fellow anti-Russell-biomass-plant activist, and you’re regurgitating the same nonsense.
1. Burning entire trees is not in itself a problem. Humans have been doing this for thousands of years. As long as the year-on-year biomass of the forest itself remains stable, plucking out full grown trees to burn is entirely sustainable in both the short and long term.
2. Ignoring the carbon cycle to claim that the carbon released is 150% more than coal is just plain stupid. As per (1), as long as the net biomass remains constant there is no increase in carbon year-on-year. Furthermore, burning trees does not cause permanent destruction of mountain tops and hollers, nor does it result in the release of massive amounts of mercury, arsenic, and assorted other toxins.
3. Biomass is by definition carbon neutral. It’s true that if you burn the mass from large trees now you release the carbon that was sequestered over the past 50-100 years, and it will take that much time to resequester it. It’s also true that with pine trees or other softwood that time frame is dramatically reduced. Loblolly pine reaches full growth in 20 years and Loblolly plantations have economic rotation in 30 years — that’s a much shorter time frame. But, to claim that it’s not carbon neutral is just plain wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. Wrong go take a freshman biology class wrong.
4. Over the past 50 years, more than 34 million hectares of trees have been planted in the United States. During this period of time, 68 percent of the planted area was in the 13 states of the southern pine region, 17 percent was in the three West Coast states of the coastal Douglas-fir region, and the remaining 15 percent was distributed among all other states. (Floyd, Kutscha, “Development of Softwood Plantation Timber in the United States”, Forest Products Journal, 2000). This means that the south coast (which has fewer wind, tidal, and solar opportunities) is primed for biomass, using land that was cropland 50 years ago and has the trees now. More productive biomass in the south might even be a local boon, allowing the conversion of marginal cropland to biomass, helping local rural economies.
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p>
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p>Now, you can argue that the rate of biomass harvest will exceed growth rate — that’s a legit argument. There are some hints of that below, and it’s an interesting and fact based discussion worth having. Nobody wants to end up like Easter Island or Ireland (which used to have many trees a few hundred years ago before Belfast shipbuilding decimated the nation’s forests).
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p>But this nonsense chicken little hoopla below is just people regurgitating the same grasping at straws as a direct result of NIMBYism. Again, I have no idea if a biomass plant belongs in Russell, but I do know that biomass is an important part of sustainability, dealing with climate change, mountaintop protection in Appalachia, and air pollution reduction, and is politically feasible and fiscally feasible in ways putting a solar cell on every house simply isn’t.
… that the history has been one of decarbonization. That is, per unit of energy, wood releases more carbon than coal, and coal more than gas. It surely can’t be the case that the amount of carbon released per unit of energy is the same for materials with differing amounts of carbon in them, right?
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p>What am I missing?
Different bonds holding materials together result in different energy densities. Furthermore, the fuel isn’t 100% carbon of course — even coal contains impurities.
Different fuels burn at different temperatures. Different temperatures impact the efficiency of the heat transfer to the water to make steam.
Stomv, what’s wrong with someone from CCR posting on this forum? You sound like you’re shilling for biomass, should we be holding that against you?
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p>And what’s wrong with NIMBY’ism? I have a much bigger problem with people who defend polluting industries. If you don’t care about your own backyard, what do you care about? How do you call yourself an environmentalist?
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p>You state that “biomass is an important part of dealing with sustainability”. Yep… it’ll “deal” with it, alright! What can be called sustainable about ramping up tree cutting hundreds of times over current levels, and burning those trees at 24% efficiency, to produce about 1% of the state’s energy needs? And that’s ALL it would ever be.
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p>Why haven’t people in Massachusetts been offered the opportunity to conserve energy, rather than having these plants crammed down our throats?
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p>Your condescending tone is really inappropriate. You actually suggest that loblolly growing loblolly pine plantations are the answer, then can seriously say that views expressed here are “Wrong go take a freshman biology class wrong”?
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p>Get the facts. Biomass in MA isn’t going to replace fossil fuel generation in any meaningful way. We’re facing another 680 MW of gas/diesel/oil generation being built in the Pioneer Valley on TOP of the biomass that’s proposed.
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p>No one likes coal. But the answer isn’t burning trees. The answer is CONSERVATION as a “bridging” technology to get us to truly clean alternatives.
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p>
AFAIK, I have never been there. I do not want a biomass power plant in their back yard (or in mine, thanks). These plants do serve to lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, and that’s a good thing. They do not lessen our carbon impact, and that’s a bad thing. There are technologies that do both, and those should get the biggest share of our attention and funding. Burning stuff is a half an answer. Burning stuff that’s been transformed from alive to dead in order to have stuff to burn is a bad approach. I do not want to see that done.
Stormv, you wanted the evidence, its there in your face.
For the record, I dont live in Russell, and I don’t believe Christoforest does either, so thats a lame argument to make. My screen name might be a hint, my zip code is in it. They have already proved in Europe that putting “solar cells on every home” works, and is very feasable. Its a far better and more modern solution than cutting forests down for biomass, and burning them. And yes, its happening now. Biomass is about as sustainable as the forestry going on now, clearcuts of over 50 acres with no usable regeneration taking place. Check the facts not the industry hooplah.
stomv sez’:
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p>>>They sound just like the folks who opposed Cape Wind, grasping at any half-truth to support the opposition of a local power plant.<<
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p>Whoa! Glittering generalities AND hypocrasy. So, you KNOW all the opponents of Cape Wind? We don’t think so! How could you POSSIBLY verify THAT statement?? Are you positive that no opponent of the proposed Cape Wind project has a valid, truthful point to make?
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stomv, I’ll pose a couple of simple questions, and you let me know what the answers are.
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p>1. If 4-6 new biomass power plants are built in Massachusetts and they all start up in 2011, will these significantly increase the harvesting of live trees from local forests?
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p>2. At what point in time will one be able to make a reasonable scientific argument that building these power plants has reduced carbon emissions?
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p>3. What is the time frame in which climate scientists are predicting catastrophic impacts from atmospheric CO2?
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p>I understand that someone wrote that “biomass is not net carbon neutral.” You have been harping on that quite a bit. A better way to put it is that biomass wood burning is not carbon neutral in any meaningful sense when a planet is deep in a carbon crisis. Therefore it makes no sense whatsoever to subsidize this enormous increase in carbon emissions, write an RGGI that does not count those emissions, and then praise and reward this fiasco with every tool available to government.
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p>This is a POLICY FAILURE, pure and simple. It needs to be corrected.
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p>You yourself have not presented a cogent argument for biomass being carbon neutral in any meaningful sense in the short-term. Let’s accept the wildest theoretical advantages you have put forth. Let’s limit tree re-growth, theoretically, to just twenty years. Let’s give you your ‘extra’ piece of land where no trees are currently growing. Even then you would still have a net increase in carbon releases, and a decrease in sequestering capacity, for ten years. Do we want carbon release increased in even the next ten years? No.
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p>The question before legislators is not whether biomass burning should be allowed, or prohibited, or any such thing. The question is whether large-scale biomass power plants, cutting down live whole trees and producing power at 25% efficiency, should be subsidized and incentivized and have their infrastructure needs met using taxpayer and ratepayer monies that are meant to go to clean, renewable energy that will reduce carbon emissions.
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p>Related questions for this admininstration are whether these facilities should be favored. The status of biomass power plants in the Renewable Portfolio Standard and related legislation is simply unmerited. Taxpayers should not be paying for fuel storage profiling of public parks and forests, and should know that this administration will not listen to reason on this issue. This administration has ignored the realities and placed these dangerous, wasteful, inefficient, water-gobbling, heavily polluting, historically controversial, carbon-rich facilities on greased skids, pushing them through MEPA and DEP without sufficient environmental review. This is not a story of good policy encountering NIMBYism; it is a story of poor policymaking and extended, embarrassing, grim-faced patronage of the timber, incineration, and waste industries.
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p>That hypothetical is nonsense — no way 4-6 new biomass power plants can be up and running in 21 months. Time to permit and build exceeds that. But, I’ll play along anyway.
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p>It’s possible that they’ll increase harvesting local forests. It’s also possible that the biomass harvested can be pruned without harm to the health of the forest. It’s also possible that they’ll buy non-forest land and plant fast growing trees (softwoods) which result in new carbon sinks. It’s also possible that they’ll over harvest and cause real harm in the short run. The devil, of course, is in the details.
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p>Now. You just ignore the science. Biomass is in fact carbon neutral over the lifecycle of the plant in question. If we compare
A. Burning biomass, which has a life cycle of 6 months – 100 years depending on fuelstock, and
B. Burning coal, which has a life cycle of millennia or more
it’s pretty clear that biomass has reduced carbon emission.
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p>Now it’s true, if we build a biomass power plant, cut down our forests, and don’t replant, then we’ve had a net increase in atmospheric carbon. It’s also true that if we build a biomass plant, plant more trees on more land to serve as fuel, then we’ve had a net decrease in atmospheric carbon.
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p>Both (A) and (B) ignore the reality that for every MW of biofuel power plant, we’ve got one less MW of coal fired power plant. Now the biomass plant may or may not result in an increase or decrease in carbon in the atmosphere over the span of a year, decade, or half century. We know for certain that a coal fired power plant will result in increased carbon in the atmosphere over the span of a year, decade, and half century.
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p>Biomass power plants can result in an increase in atmospheric carbon if the fuel used isn’t harvested in a sustainable fashion. Coal power plants always result in an increase in atmospheric carbon.
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p>Catastrophic is qualitative; scientists tend not to make qualitative predictions at all. If climate change is positively correlated with increased hurricanes, then one could make the case that climate change has already resulted in catastrophe for New Orleans, but not for northern Alabama. There’s no question that time isn’t on our side here, and 2050 is a year bandied about quite a bit (I think for political rather than scientific reasons, but nevertheless). So, the question is, what can we do to reduce our carbon footprint ASAP? We can and must build wind turbines and solar cells and mass transit and less inefficient autos and more efficient buildings. We must do all of those things. But that doesn’t preclude biomass. Biomass can do something that neither wind nor solar can do now — operate on calm evenings and calm but cloudy days. Biomass is base load, and it can be turned on whenever needed — very different from solar or wind. Biomass is also the single largest source for renewable energy today. It’s also a source which can be effective in places of the US where other forms simply aren’t. For all of those reasons, biomass must be part of the mix because it can directly replace baseload coal, something no amount of solar or wind can do at this time.
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p>If you like the 40 year horizon window, then surely the more MW we can get of renewable up and running, the better. Is biofuel renewable? Again, that depends on whether or not the fuel is harvested sustainably. Here’s the thing though: if I sink millions and millions into a power plant, paid for with long term bonds and heavily regulated by the state, I want to make sure I can generate power over the lifetime of the power plant — and ripping out every tree I can find (and not replanting) sure as hell isn’t a recipe for success. I believe we will need to regulate the biomass harvesting techniques, and that we can do so reasonably well. As a result, I do believe we can support a significant increase in biomass facilities distributed throughout biomass-generating regions and replace coal with sustainably harvested biomass.
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p>I understand your standpoint, and I simply disagree. The time frame for softwood growth is on the order of 20 years. That’s well within the horizon we’re talking about, and that’s for wholesale cut and regrow. If instead we’re talking about thinning and replanting, the timeframe is effectively less. You’re right, if you go out and chop down trees that took 100 years to reach that size and replant, you’re doing it wrong. Here’s the good news: large scale biomass can’t pull that off, and it’s not even allowed in the regs. For biomass to be successful, they’re going to have to use plantations. Monoculture is a concern, but a massive decrease in megatons of biomass in forests just isn’t going to happen — the legislation doesn’t allow it and it isn’t economically feasible in this short a timeframe anyway.
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p>You’re worried about a scenario that simply won’t play out.
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p>Should we subsidize energy? A great policy question, worth having. The rest of your statement… is heavily loaded.
1. “cutting down live whole trees” is simply not a problem in itself. The question is how many. I know you love to tug on the heartstrings of we treehuggers, but this line is lacking of any intellectual credibility.
2. “producing power at 25% efficiency” is also a mindless throwaway. The first and second laws of thermodynamics put a pretty tough bound on all burning processes. Burning coal is about 30% efficient, for example. Again, loaded and not beneficial to the conversation.
3. “meant to go to clean, renewable energy that will reduce carbon emissions” which includes biomass, unless you happen to live near the site of a proposed biomass facility that you don’t want in your back yard. Doubly so if you’re a spokesperson for the organization and the wife of the president of that organization.
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p>Now let me ask you a question: were you opposed to biomass used as fuel before or after you learned of plans to put a biomass power plant near your home? The answer doesn’t undermine your arguments per se — a good argument stands on it’s own.
They arent building one near my home, but yes, based on the timber harvesting practices currently demonstrated by DCR, and the claims you can remove biomass wood without harming ecology Im more against them than ever. So your persistant attempt at saying Im biased doesnt work.
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p>I have seen what is going on, and its not pretty.
Seems a biomass plant in VT is under fire so to speak. People living near it have soot all over the place, and are experiencing respiratory ailments etc. Their children are getting ill, the whole bit. There was a nice video on that posted on youtube. A drive is underway to move some of the afflicted people out of there. So do we need that here in MA?
I’m someone who cares about our air, water, forests, and making wise choices to try to avoid catastrophic climate change, which scientists and governments agree is a crisis.
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p>Why is it a good idea to burn whole trees in Massachusetts, and to have tax payers and rate payers subsidize this as “green energy”? It just plain doesn’t make sense.
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p> Just because humans have been burning wood for heat and energy for a long time doesn’t seem to mean that we should keep doing the same thing that got us to this point.
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p>NIMBY or not, burning wood, including C&D, at taxpayer and rate payer expense seems silly indeed.
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p>Stomv
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p>Nimbyism is a term that was coined by industry to denigrate local citizens opposed to industry favored projects on the assumption that these projects are good, and that citizens want the project, just not near their homes. This simplistic label lacks the nuance to distinguish whether they are good projects or not. “Our backyard” is generally the only area we can affect any influence, so if a project is a bad project, and local citizens stand up to that project, because they know it is meant to enrich industry at the expense of the environment and the community, than I think these people are heroic.
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p>There is no hysteria, just the facts ma’am, and if you took the time to read the report you would notice every statement is backed up with calculations and citations drawn form the state’s own plans. You can see the report at: http://www.maforests.org/Biome…
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p>The Massachusetts grid has about 14,000 MW capacity, if they build all these plants it would add about 185 MW capacity, or a little more than 1% to the grid when basic, achievable and economic efficiency and conservation measures could reduce power use between 30 and 50%. That is not an exaggeration, it is a fact.
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p>A project can only be carbon neutral if the overall carbon situation is the same after the project as it is before the project. Now if you want to stand there and argue that burning 2,000,000 tons of forest each year is the same carbon situation as letting that forest just continue growing as it is now, I think we see who is really “koo-koo for Cocoa puffs” .
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p>You are neglecting to acknowledge that from a forest carbon standpoint in Massachusetts, while we may currently have a balance of “more growth than cutting and mortality” today, with your proposal of cutting more of that growth so that the new balance is “growth equals cutting and mortality” would represent a clearly net worsening of the carbon situation. Go back and look at the addition and subtraction section in your second grade math book.
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p>Also, why do you think biomass has any more claim to forest carbon offsets than any other carbon emitting source? You have to look at the whole picture, you cannot just isolate biomass emissions and forest uptakes. Biomass burning adds to the overall atmospheric carbon load just as fossil fuels do, and forests remove what they can from the atmosphere, but forests don’t distinguish and remove carbon from biomass production but not from coal production. It just so happens that biomass effects a double whammy by adding CO2 at a rate per MWhr of 50% higher than even the worst fossil fuels and then degrades the forests ability to sequester carbon.
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p>Furthermore building these plants will not save one West Virginian mountain top, they are just adding to the grid, just as they are adding to the carbon and air pollution.
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p>The only way any of your carbon arguments would have any credibility is if they took a currently non-forested area, planted a forest and then cut and burned it. But then you still have the soil issues, and air and water pollution issues.
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p>Chris Matera, P.E.
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p>**************************************
You are posing lots of profoundly unrealistic hypotheticals, trying to change the subject, name-calling, pouring out a flood of words and numbers intended to make people feel that this is complicated science that they cannot follow, and obfuscating almost beyond belief. That can only be because you are a vested interest well-practised in knowing how to throw people off the scent.
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p> Why should Massachusetts taxpayers and ratepayers pay through the nose to build a fleet of polluting power plants that will unquestionably increase carbon emissions by a huge factor for at least the next 50 years? Why?
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p> The beauty of this is that it is simple. Anyone who takes the time to grasp the ‘net carbon neutrality’ theory can understand it. When they understand that these power plants are going to increase carbon emissions, waste precious resources, and pollute the air and water, no one wants this except the desperate timber, waste and incineration industries and their friends in high places.
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p> I would love to hear you hold forth on how these biomass power plants are going to reduce air pollution! Would you be so kind as to explain that?
Stomv, many of us have put our names on our comments so we are accountable for what we say. What is your name and business?
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p>Chris Matera
if you’ve been around at BMG for more than 5 minutes and followed debate on multiple issues, you’d know who I was and where my skills and expertise lie (and where they don’t). Furthermore, if you were a member of the community for more than five minutes, you’d know that
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p>a. It’s flat out rude to ask people to “out” themselves. Some choose to use pseudonyms for all kinds of reasons, and their reason is none of your damned business. The issue is with their words. Got a problem with my claims? Refute them. I personally haven’t seen it yet.
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p>b. My name is readily available on this site. If you haven’t found it yet, it’s because you haven’t really looked.
it’s fine to use a pseudonym, and your page does list who you are. You are right about this issue.
So YOU are going to lecture people about being rude?????
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p>I didn’t realize spending lots of time on Blue Mass made you a better, more important person. I am not sure it is working for you.
PS I have refuted your claims, “if you followed the debate on the issues”, you would have noticed my refutations to your wishful thinking and impossible logic.
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p>Please respond:
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p>Do you really believe that cutting and burning 2,000,000 tons of forest each year is the same from a carbon standpoint as just letting that same forest continue growing as it is now?
I’ve patiently gone through your questions and answered them. Yet, you haven’t bothered to answer mine. Why is that?
I am trying to stick with the policy issue of whether these carbon-rich, polluting facilities should be bandied about and helped along as a clean, green, heaven-sent carbon-neutral answer to our energy problems. I have not wanted to get into other stuff until we talk this through.
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p> If you have questions about that issue that have not been addressed, please forgive me but I would need you to restate them.
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p> Sure there is lots of other stuff we could talk about, but it seems wise to just take one thing at a time. I’m willing to put off a big discussion on whether you’re a shill and I am a NIMBY while we talk about things that are slightly more important. I hope you are too. I do appreciate your willingness to discuss this in some detail. Because there is a lot to say about these policies and the beliefs that are driving them, I think it would be good if we could limit the issues to good policymaking for the time being. Ca va?
But to be honest, I haven’t really felt I’ve gotten honest debate in return. There are about three folks who have showed up to BMG focused on this issue, and they’re clearly reading from the same list of talking points. That makes it awfully hard to have a good debate, both because it’s like playing ping-pong 3-on-1 and because, frankly, it doesn’t seem like there’s any actual reading and response going on from the bio-opponents.
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p>I’m a systems engineer. My background is economics, applied mathematics, and engineering. I’m not involved in energy at a professional level, however I am an energy geek and over the past 10 years have devoted (too?) many hours to energy’s relationship with climate and the environment, and that relationship with public policy. I think it’s fair to claim that I am the BMG energy policy wonk, at least as far as those who post regularly go. That doesn’t make me a ‘testify before Congress’ level expert, but I do feel that I’ve earned a solid, positive reputation on BMG with respect to energy policy. My first (and still only) diary about energy is Coal’s Stranglehold on Congress which was published on this site over two years ago. I’ve since lectured at universities and community groups about topics as varied as conservation, HVAC optimization, and the aggregate impact of diverse state Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) on federal generation. I’m currently working on two academic journal submissions regarding renewable energy.
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p>That’s my “about me”. Let’s lay out what we agree. If you disagree with any of these, please let me know.
1. We agree that climate change is a real problem, that CO_2 emissions contributes to that problem, and that we as a society ought to focus efforts, both private and governmental, on reducing our emissions.
2. We agree that solar and wind require some carbon emissions for manufacturing, but that over their lifecycle, a solar cell or a wind turbine results in far less CO_2 emitted than a coal, oil, or natural gas fired power plant generating the same number of MWh.
3. We agree that as trees grow, they pull CO_2 from the air and exhale O_2.
4. We agree that when trees burn or decompose completely, the amount of C they release into the atmosphere is exactly equal to the amount of C that tree pulled from the atmosphere during growth. Actually, slightly less because trees sink a small amount of C into the soil over time, but it’s perhaps a second order effect.
5. In addition to CO_2 and soot, coal fired power plants emit mercury, a toxin with all sorts of negative health repercussions for humans and other animals.
6. Solar and wind power generation is intermittent. With enough uncorrelated or even negatively correlated installations we can show a minimum amount of generation for any time in the day/month/year within an arbitrarily high confidence interval, but that minimum is far below total capacity and therefore it’s almost impossible to include solar or wind in base load calculations to a significant degree.
7. Battery technology is nowhere near being useful at the grid level. We do have some batteries in the form of pump storage in Massachsetts — Bear Swamp and Northfield Mountain, but those aren’t sufficient and there aren’t many opportunities to replicate those two sites in MA due to the unique geology and topography required.
8. Because of (7), the power being used now must be generated now, which means that we need to have at least some power plants which can be turned on whenever necessary. These are the base load plants, and from “most base” to “least base” they are nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas plants. Because biomass plants can be turned on and off without relying on a view of the sun or feeling the wind, biomass can be counted as base load.
9. Because of the physical nature of biomass and coal, they can act as substitutes with minor physical changes. In other words, we could convert a coal fired power plant to use biomass relatively cheaply; we can’t simply make a coal fired power plant a gas fired power plant or a nuclear power plant.
10. Wind, solar, and other renewable generating facilities are also a necessary part of the solution, as is conservation, which could shave consumption considerably.
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p>I think we agree on those four things for sure. Here are some other things I think we ought to agree on, but maybe I’m tiptoeing a bit because you may disagree.
11. If the biomass is waste from a process (eg sawdust, lumber mill waste, pulp & paper waste, agricultural waste like corn shucks), then whether the waste burns or decomposes, the amount of C put into the atmosphere is the same, and so we might as well burn it and get MWh of electricity which would have otherwise come from coal, natural gas, or oil.
12. The carbon released at the instance of burn is about 1.5 times more per MWh generated with biofuel than with coal. There is wide variance based on the type of biofuel and the power plant, but we can use that for a general rule I think.
13. The coal we use in MA power plants comes from Appalachia or from even further away. The biofuel would come from closer sources, many within the state. This means more jobs locally, and a stronger more diverse economy locally. Negligible to be sure (100s of jobs maybe?), but true nonetheless. Likewise, the carbon emitted in transporting the fuel itself is lower for biomass than coal for precisely that reason.
14. Biomass has the potential to be an absolute disaster. If we simply destroy woodlands, stripping all fuel from the area in a short period of time, there’s local damage. If we do this state-wide, there’s a bigger problem — an increase in the carbon in the atmosphere in the short term and, if those trees don’t get replanted, that increase doesn’t get removed from the air in 20-100 years as it would if the trees were replanted.
15. Biomass has the potential to be an elegant way to not only be carbon neutral, but to serve as a carbon sink. If all biofuel came from (11) or from trees planted specifically to serve as fuel for the power plant, than the net carbon impact would be negative — the fuel from (10) would have a net of zero in the short term and the trees planted for fuel would soak in the carbon before exhaling it again and wouldn’t have existed otherwise, therefore we get a slight sink from the trees which have yet to be cut as well as from the slow transfer of carbon from atmosphere to soil through tree respiration.
16. The reality will be neither (14) nor (15). It will be somewhere in between. Precisely where is the concern. Too close to (14) and we’ve got real problems. Too close to (15) and we won’t even have any of this carbon neutral electricity until 2030 or so.
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p>So, I think there’s plenty of room for debate, and I’d like to have that debate. Before we do, can we agree on 1-10? On 11-16?
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p>Additionally, I’ve got some open questions: per MWh generated, which generates more smog-forming NOx: biomass, coal, natural gas, or oil? How about SO_2? These are also legit concerns, and I haven’t found any good references about which does better/worse.
I’d like to have this conversation in a way that is easy for others to follow, and I’m not sure a lengthy prenup is the best way to do that. I should get back to work for today but I’ll look over 1-10/11-16 again tomorrow.
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p>For the moment, though I would definitely want to add biomass to #2!
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p>I would also want to discuss the critical aspects of the rate of release and the fact that other carbon-sequestering stuff grows on a decomposing tree in the meantime in #4;
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p>point out for #5 that the plan is to import and burn large amounts of contruction and demolition debris which has mercury and lots of other nasties in it;
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p>point out for #6 that I understand there is a reliable industry study showing that a mere 800 wind farms globally with a good interconnected grid system would provide all our electrical needs (covering baseload very nicely);
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p>point out for #7 that battery-powered cars run by residential solar are fabulous (if we’re going to include cellulosic biofuels in our considerations)- and that there are flywheels and perhaps other cool storage options;
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p>and point out for #10 that right now, as we’re all being prepped for emergency surgery by the timber industry & their cronies, conservation goals are far from being realized (and if I understand correctly are not funded by MassTech which is instead giving millions to develop incinerators for trash and construction and demolition debris and whole trees).
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p>As for the open questions, I don’t know most of that but wood-burning is very rich in NOx and is usually accompanied by lots of trucks providing excess VOCs for ozone formation. However, since we are in an ozone on-attainment area in Russell (maybe all of Mass, I don’t recall), Russell Biomass would have to purchase offsets resulting in a net decrease in NOx.
I know you wrote that you’d look over it again, but I thought I’d respond…
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p>If you mean put biomass in that same list as coal, nat gas, etc., I’d have to say “maybe”. It depends on the source of the fuel. That’s a key issue throughout this thread. The biomass could result in a net increase (cut down trees, don’t replant) or a net decrease (plant new forest, cut that down sustainably), or something in between. So no, we can’t add bio to the list with coal et al with certainty.
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p>Sure. But, my guess is that it’s pretty negligible because it doesn’t last long. Very loosely speaking, carbon is in cellulose, and the mushroom or worms or whatever eat the cellulose and exhale methane (CH_4). So, that carbon sequestration is negligible relative to the mass of the living matter.
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p>Legit concern. Will the biomass plants be able to filter out (not burn) or smokestack filter the nasties? I have no idea. That’s certainly something to keep an eye on.
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p>Got a link? Wind is my biggest focus w.r.t. energy, and I’ve never heard of that study. Let’s do the math. In the USA we used 3,816 TWh in 2005. The total wind electricity produced in the USA in 2008 was 52 TWh. That means that even if the wind blew exactly when we wanted it, we’d have to increase our current wind electricity production by 7300% to create the total amount needed, time of use concerns ignored. I have no idea what you consider a “farm” but for 800 wind farms in the USA to generate 100% of the USA’s electricity, each farm would have to generate 4.77 TWh per year — the largest wind farm in the USA (Roscoe), when complete, will produce about 2 TWh per year. In other words, we’d need about 1700 of the largest wind farm in America to simply power America, again with no regard to availability.
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p>800 wind farms won’t cut it unless by wind farm you mean “a set of wind turbines covering each covering land the size of 1/10th of Rhode Island.” And that’s just for America’s use. Given that the USA uses about 1/5th of the world’s electricity, 800 wind farms to support world wide usage would mean 800 wind farms each the size of 1/2 of Rhode Island. So, no. No way 800 wind farms could support that much electricity.
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p>I wasn’t considering cellulosic biofuels in this conversation since that wasn’t really the topic that struck a nerve. I think we’re best leaving that out of this kettle of fish. As for flywheels et al I’m not discounting the possibility, but there’s been economic incentive to roll those out for 50 years now and it just hasn’t happened. After all, it’d have been far cheaper to build more coal plants and flywheel the nighttime production surplus to meet the afternoon peak instead of sinking tremendous capital into peaking plants that are only on for 1000s or even 100s of hours each year. Battery tech on the scale of the electric grid just plain doesn’t exist, and won’t for the foreseeable future.
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p>The bigger picture is that wind produced about 1% of the electricity in the USA in 2008, biomass produced about 3%. If wind continues growing at it’s current rate and biomass flatlines, wind will pass biomass in GWh produced sometime around 2016 or 2017. We’ve got a long way to go w.r.t. renewable energy production.
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p>See, those aren’t facts. Those are interpretations and opinions. Those don’t get lumped in. As for the MassTech stuff, no idea…
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p>The delivery of the biofuel is a legitimate concern — as is the delivery of coal or the pipelines delivering oil or natural gas. It’s certainly part of the equation, both for it’s global impact and for it’s local pollution impact. Of course, much of that is application specific — a small plant on a river adjacent to lumber and paper mills using barge and local truck service is much different than a plant sourcing fuel from many 100s of miles away.
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p>I like this dialogue though — let’s hammer out what we agree upon, then it’s easy to figure out what’s leading us to so different a conclusion.
Okay ‘stomv’, I still can’t figure out why we’re working on this agreement. It seems like the logic is “biomass-better-than-coal-and-is-backed-up-with-hundreds-of-sources-supporting-the-carbon-neutral-fallacy-therefore-deserves-subsidies…”
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p>I submit that we do not need to discuss/agree on a lot of the stuff in the prenup. If we are just talking about whether biomass should be subsidized along with conservation, efficiency, and genuine clean, green, renewables, the good questions are,
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p>1: How does biomass actually compare with coal?
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p>I submit that biomass is SSOOOO BAAADDdd that it would be better to build a new coal plant than the 4-6 biomass plants proposed in Massachusetts right now. (No, I am NOT really arguing for a new coal plant, but using it to show how bad bad bad bad bad biomass is and how thoroughly it deserves to be yanked out of the state and federal RPSs.)
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p>2. Why should biomass be subsidized?
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p>If you say, “baseload,” remember that we are ONLY talking about why we should pay EXTRA for this. Biomass can compete without subsidies (especially if it replaces coal by co-firing in a coal plant), that conservation and efficiency provide “baseload,” and that no coal plants are shutting down any time soon. If you say, “carbon neutral” then by your own admission you would need to show me your extra planet where you’re going to grow all this biomass, plant your loblollies there, and get back to me in twenty years.
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p>Sorry about the all caps. I know one friend reading this will be cringing with disappointment in me.
I think you’re dead wrong on (1). With legitimate protections for harvesting and generation, biomass facilities are enormously better than coal facilities. It’s less carbon,* it doesn’t involve destroying mountaintops, doesn’t spew mercury, and it provides for local jobs. It’s also an essential element to getting national RPS legislation because there are at least a dozen states with weak solar and wind and tidal resources.
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p>Why should biomass be subsidized (2)? Good question. Maybe, if no other reason, to keep up with coal and oil and natural gas subsidies. There’s no question that we’ve got a subsidy mess with energy, and I’m absolutely in favor of scaling back/eliminating many energy subsidies on carbon emitting electricity generation, whatever it’s source. In the case of biomass, if the source is slash and burn forestry, than treat it like coal. If the source is C&D waste, industrial waste, agri-waste, or from forests created and managed to generate fuel for the plant, than it should be treated like wind and solar. A mix of the two? Scale accordingly.
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p>* You clearly disagree with me (and 10,000s of scientists, engineers, regulators, and legislators) on this.
That is what was making me confused in my earlier comment. How can it be less carbon? Doesn’t coal release less carbon per unit energy than wood, and therefor biomass? Or are you counting carbon released as part of the production process?
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p>I apologize in advance for not reading every detail on the discussion as it has happened thus far and therefore concede that my question may already have an answer that I was too lazy to find.
because the reality is we’re not slash and burning mature forests for fuelstock. We’re using wood and pulp waste, argi waste, and landfill trash (which was going to release that carbon anyway in the near term, so generating electricity from it results in 0 lbs more carbon.
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p>Ultimately, the question is where does the biomass come from? If at least 1/3 comes from waste matter, it’s certainly less carbon. In addition to that, you know the owners of power plants think long term. These investments have time horizons of decades or more. You can be damn sure that if a biomass facility is built then long term investors (think: insurance companies, pension funds, that sort of thing) will understand that there’s a long term demand for biofuel, and will make investments knowing that this market exists.
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p>Individuals won’t go out and buy a 1000 acres of land to sell biomass in 20-30 years… but the big boys will. If it’s profitable to own land to raise trees, folks will do it… and most of the time, there’ll be trees on that land.
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p>As long as (a) the biomass facilities have expected lifetimes of 30+ years, and (b) the state doesn’t give away land to be slashed, you can be sure that there will be private investment in land to raise biomass. That means land that will be forested in some form or another for most of any given 30 year window.
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p>If that happens, then you’ve got your carbon neutrality because the net change in biomass in the state as a result of electricity generation will be zero (or perhaps even an increase in biomass).
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p>At the end of the day, it’s hard to know what will happen. Maybe we’ll have total slash and burn. I doubt it. Maybe we’ll have 100% responsible sustainable forestry for biofuels. I doubt that too. I’m sure it will be somewhere in the middle, and my belief is that all of that room in the middle is a net improvement over coal.
Stomv,
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p>You say “We’re using wood and pulp waste, argi waste, and landfill trash”
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p>THIS IS FALSE.
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p>Based on their own numbers they will have to burn more than 2,000,000 tons of growing forest per year.
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p>I will ask you again:
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p>Do you really believe that cutting and burning 2,000,000 tons of forest each year is the same from a carbon standpoint as just letting that same forest continue growing as it is now????
stomv says:
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p>>>We’re using wood and pulp waste, argi waste, and landfill trash<<
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p>Oh, landfill trash. So, we’re talking garbage incinerators? Look how far we’ve come!
I don’t see why the trees in # 15 wouldn’t have existed otherwise, unless the tree farms are on currently-unforested land. This seems unlikely.
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p># 14 is true. We’ve created that disaster before by using wood as a power source. Every time I come across the phrase “old-growth forest” in this thread, I want to jump in and point out that there isn’t any of that in MA – we burned just about all the trees in the 19th Century. Let’s not do that again.
More than 34 million hectares of trees have been planted in the United States in the last 50 years on land that wasn’t forestland at the time.
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p>We can certainly plant trees to be used in biomass. Will it happen for future biomass? Obviously I don’t know. Could it happen? Most certainly. It happened post WWII.
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p>RE old growth in MA — agreed. I have no idea how long a forest has to exist before it’s called old growth.
Apparently the answer is one that an engineer can appreciate: “It depends.” Depends on geography, tree species, and a number of other factors.
http://www.nativetreesociety.o…
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p>Another site said definitions ranged from 120 to 170 years.
Actually there IS old-growth in Massachusetts, just not much. See:
http://www.nativetreesociety.o…
but no old-growth visible there. Maybe you could give a more specific target?
Answer this one Stomv…
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p>What about the hundreds of thousands of gallons/day the Russell plant wants to take from the Westfield River? and return only a small percentage of it warm? Do you have any idea what the effects of that downstream are? That makes it affect an awful lot of backyards. A lot of restoration programs are going to suffer the effects of that shenanigan.
Here is an article on the Markey-Waxman bill
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p>www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/02-8
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p>Same old story, industry works together with sold-out “green” groups to produce more industry friendly false solutions to real environmental crisis.
Stormv, I’m not sure you’ve got this one right. I am no mechanical engineer, but I do know that the Russell biomass plant is using fixed drive pumps to suck up to 885,000 gallons per day out of the Westfield River, and those nice expensive pump machines will burn out pretty darn quick if they turn them off and on in response to some sort of ISO demand spike.
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p>Oh, and by the way, do you know what the state charges the biomass companies to take water out of our “Wild and Scenic” rivers like the Westfield River: zip, zero, zilch – that’s right its free!
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p>I don’t want to divert the discussion on biomass off the carbon neutrality issue, but since the water topic was raised, thought I’d respond. Biomass uses up not only our trees, but sucks water from our rivers to cool incinerators and turbines, evaporates up to 90% of that water, and discharges the rest back as heated, polluted effluent. How does that make for a nice green renewable energy source? Help me understand, the world’s fish population is waiting for your answer – I promised I’d provide them a full and thorough explanation as to why it is OK to extirpate their endangered brethren living in the Westfield.
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2. I never claimed that biomass plants are to be turned on and off frequently. I pointed out that because they can be turned on and off, they count as base load. This is different from solar and wind, which are intermittent beyond the control of the operator.
3. Regarding the use of water, all fuel based power plants, including nuclear, do this. The water is needed to become steam, and for cooling. The specific application — closed loop vs. open loop, number of gallons, variability, temperature differential, etc. — are location specific issues. Of course it can be designed poorly and of course there are inappropriate locations for a biomass facility, including with respect to its use of water. Each site must be considered carefully to ensure that it’s impact on local resources doesn’t cause damage “downstream”.
4. Effluent technically means polluted water, though it typically implies sewer water. Technically, warm water is in itself effluent. The water returned is certainly warmer than natural, but do you have any evidence that it’s polluted in the “containing some stuff that doesn’t belong in water” sense?
2. I never claimed that biomass plants are to be turned on and off frequently. I pointed out that because they can be turned on and off, they count as base load. This is different from solar and wind, which are intermittent beyond the control of the operator.
3. Regarding the use of water, all fuel based power plants, including nuclear, do this. The water is needed to become steam, and for cooling. The specific application — closed loop vs. open loop, number of gallons, variability, temperature differential, etc. — are location specific issues. Of course it can be designed poorly and of course there are inappropriate locations for a biomass facility, including with respect to its use of water. Each site must be considered carefully to ensure that it’s impact on local resources doesn’t cause damage “downstream”.
4. Effluent technically means polluted water, though it typically implies sewer water. Technically, warm water is in itself effluent. The water returned is certainly warmer than natural, but do you have any evidence that it’s polluted in the “containing some stuff that doesn’t belong in water” sense?
[I wish I could figure out how to quote you Tom, but I looked at the formatting tips & I’m still totally lost. Also I didn’t want things to get any skinnier so I moved my response down here.]
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p> Coal beats biomass hands down. A new coal plant would bring fuel by rail – as CSX reminds us, a ton of fuel moving four-hundred and something miles on a gallon of diesel. These proposed biomass plants in Mass would move biomass primarily by truck.
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p> Coal would have to sequester, offset, pay taxes on, and probably do public penance having some poor sob crawl on broken glass for its carbon emissions. Biomass would release far more carbon – yes, far more than would be released through decay, you have to admit, if you can ever bring yourself to confess that they will of course log like the Dickens for these wood-eating Frankensteins. Biomass would get a total free pass as if not a whif of carbon were anywhere in sight! As Globe columnist Drake Bennett said, “Biomass…emit[s] no greenhouse gases” NO greenhouse gases! How cool is that!
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p> Coal would have discreet toxins, including mercury and sulphur, that are known and watched carefully and would receive the best controls technology. Biomass would have many dozens, perhaps a couple of hundred different toxins in the emissions which are little understood and, due to industry resistance, inadequately tested.
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p> Environmental organizations would work tirelessly to make sure the coal plant was as harmless and short-lived as possible. The new biomass plants would have their own float in the environmental Rose Parade until devastatingly toxic depositions and cancer clusters show up in the soil samples of everyone living in a certain swath about five miles north, northeast, and east of the plants twenty years from now.
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p> A new coal plant would have to use dry cooling. Our new biomass power plants are getting a “Get out of jail free” card from Ian Bowles and Laurie Burt no matter how much water they want and no matter how valuable and fragile the fishery is. Coal beats biomass on all counts.
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p>Trucks get about 180 ton-miles per gallon (source). So, that’s worse, right? Except that the biomass will be driven a 100 miles or so, because it’s staying within New England. The coal has to move 600-700 miles to get from West Virginia to Massachusetts, and about the same from Ohio to Mass. So while it’s true that the fuel efficiency for the rail is higher, the fuel consumed to move a ton of fuel to a power plant in MA is less for biomass coming from New England than coal coming from the East Coast coal belt.
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p>no
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p>
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p>no
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p>the coal excise tax — which funds a trust to pay for black lung disease, caused by mining coal. So, in the sense of contributing something back to society…
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p>no
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p>no
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p>In fact, there’s two things happening. One: about 150 coal fired power plants were under proposal in a 2007 DOE report. About half of those were just plain denied or abandoned — you can’t make coal fired power plants safe for the environment… and so there’s widespread opposition to coal in any shape or form. The other 80 or so coal fired power plants? They’ll just get built. No sequestering, no offsets, no general revenue taxes, and no public penance.
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p>The political reality with coal is that in many parts of the country there’s severe push back and more won’t be built. The regulatory reality is that when they are built, there’s no carbon emissions controls and no tax revenue.
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p>Coal is a dead end. One of the realities of that dead end is that something(s) must take up the slack. “Clean” (i.e. less dirty) natural gas will take up much of the slack. But, natural gas pipelines don’t serve sufficient volume to all parts of the country, and furthermore doesn’t comply with current state or proposed state and national RPS standards. We won’t see much new hydro, and neither wind nor solar counts for base load. What’s left? Biomass, which already generates 3% of America’s electricity, three times as much as wind.
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p>no
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p>It’s the exact same amount of carbon emitted, be it through CO_2 or CH_4. The law of conservation of mass ensures this and, unless you’ve got your eyes on some nuclear decomposition process, exactly the same number of atoms of carbon will be released either way.
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p>Fun with hyperbole, combined with the expectation that coal is heavily regulated whereas biomass would be Ayn Rand’s free market dream. I just don’t see it playing out that way. This whole conversation started specifically because of a piece of proposed legislation (see above) which would regulate exactly what you worry won’t be regulated.
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p>OK, with all due respect, put up or shut up. You’re now claiming that biomass plants cause cancer. Show some data, a little analysis — hell, even a credible hypothesis by someone with research expertise in medicine.
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p>Coal beats biomass on one count. There’s not a proposal to build another coal fired power plant near you. I don’t blame you for not wanting a power plant in your back yard. You’ve already got Mount Tom 25 miles away. The particular biomass site may very well be a poor choice due to fuel transport, noise, or other disruption. It may even be trouble for the river (though you’ve shown no evidence that it would cause harm). It just strikes me as terribly obnoxious that you’re spreading Fox News style propaganda about biomass power plants because you don’t want one built near you, and it just reminds me so much of the folks on Cape Cod who’s windows on their own homes kill more birds a year than the turbines but suddenly are worried about the birds.
in the present case in Massachusetts primarily because it would have terrible impacts on our forests as Chris Matera has so throughly demonstrated, secondly because it would lead to an increase in importing and burning trash and construction and demolition debris, thirdly because it would release one and a half times more CO2 per megawatt hour than coal plants do, fourthly because no coal plant is shutting down as biomass plants go online (so you get the worst of both), and fifthly because the new power is not needed in Massachusetts.
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p>You may be right about the transportation Tom but you are straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel. You also keep pretanding that cutting and burning forests has the same carbon impact as letting them live. It is amazing to find you so passionately arguing against carbon releases elsewhere in this blog and then coming down here to swat at those of us who are trying to address the worst and most preventable carbon giveaway in the Commonwealth.
stomv
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p>You say:
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p>”But, natural gas pipelines don’t serve sufficient volume to all parts of the country, and furthermore doesn’t comply with current state or proposed state and national RPS standards”
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p>Perhaps you could explain that to Secretary Bowles: in March 2009 he approved a 400 MW natural gas/diesel power plant to be located in Westfield MA, just down river of Russell Biomass! More “effluent” or whatever you want to call boiler blowdown, to be dumped in to the Westfield River, our nation’s “Wild and Scenic” treasure. And more CO2 to blow northwest on the prevailing winds up to Russell.
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p>Not only that, but the Westfield power plant will evaporate about 2 million gallons per day of water instead of using that closed loop system you talk about.
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p>As far as “evidence” of harm to the Westfield River, talk to Mr. Bowles about that too: in the hearing on the Russell Biomass plant, his hearing officer threw out scientific testimony criticizing state’s failure to show that dumping the boiler blowdown was “safe” for the River. So that makes it easy for the developer and the state: just say there is no harm, without producing any evidence of “no harm” then when someone challenges you, just throw out the testimony.
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p>Makes one cynical about all those purported “safeguards” and laws that are there to protect our environment from the negative impacts of biomass. It’s hardly Fox News style propaganda, but something that is documented and on the record.
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Here is an article and report busting the myths of “biomass carbon neutrality” and “waste wood” availability. The waste wood is a report from the timber industry itself and the carbon neutrality myth busters are highly esteemed, peer reviewed scientists in Switzerland.
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p>http://www.maforests.org/Carbo…
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p>and
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p>http://www.maforests.org/NoWas…