By Gene H. Theroux
Special to the Southwick Suffield News

I am working on a very exciting ballot initiative that affects all of us. People are gathering signatures all over Massachusetts in an effort to curtail biomass subsidies. This ballot question would allow voters to stop paying through the nose to build and run biomass incinerators. This would be accomplished by limiting the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that biomass plants can emit in order to qualify as “renewable energy” under Massachusetts law.

CO2 is the most prevalent greenhouse gas and causes global warming. CO2 from biomass burning would be limited to 250 pounds per megawatt hour under this petition. Biomass emits approximately 1.5 times as much CO2 as the typical coal plant, as demonstrated by Massachusetts Forest Watch and the Massachusetts Environmental Energy Alliance. Biomass burning releases as much as 3,300 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour more than any other combustible fuel. Compare this to2,100 pounds for coal, 1,900 pounds for petroleumand 1,300 pounds for natural gas.

Right now, state law uses your tax dollars and a surcharge from your electric bill to build and run biomass burners. A 50-megawatt biomasspower plant burns 650,000 green tons of wooda year, about a ton every minute. Massachusetts Forest Watch reports that available central andwestern Massachusetts forests could be loggedin 9 to 16 years if the five plants are built.

Under current state law, biomass power plants can burn forests, tires, trash, and construction debris and qualify as “clean and green” renewable energy under the state’s renewable energy laws.

It is my hope that both proponents and opponents of biomass would want to sign this petition. We should all be in complete agreement that this referendum should be placed on the Massachusetts 2010 ballot. Surely the voters of Massachusetts should have an opportunity to decide whether they want to pay higher utility bills and subsidize these biomass incinerators with their tax dollars. Politicians are clearly not up to the job of solving the climate change crisis. Our state legislators have made a grievous error here in qualifying incinerators as green energy, and are spending our taxpayer and rate payer dollars on this. The governor refuses to acknowledge this mistake, so it is time for the voters to undo this mistake.

We have just a short time to collect tens of thousands of signatures. Information on this petition effort is available at http://www.stopspewingcarbon.com. If you see someone collecting signatures in your community, take the time to sign. Your signature could be the one that gets us to our goal. You can also call 1-800-729-1363 to join the Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign and to assist with this effort to place this referendum on the Massachusetts 2010 ballot.

This article can be found on Page 4 of the online version of the Southwick Suffix News publication.