Seven Days, Letter to the Editor

January 19, 2011

http://www.7dvt.com/2011letters-editor-0

Thanks for covering the issue of burning forests for electricity in Vermont, aka biomass incineration … While [Andy] Bromage writes a well-balanced article [“Biomass Busted? Why Wood-Fired Power Is Catching Heat in Vermont,” December 22], there are some inaccuracies. The article states that “depending on how it’s combusted and what pollution controls a plant has, biomass can produce lower net carbon emissions than coal.” While pollution controls can lower — but not eliminate — toxic air pollutants … you can’t filter out carbon dioxide.

Further, the Massachusetts Department of Energy’s “Manomet” study concludes that burning forest biomass for electricity puts out higher smokestack emissions than coal over at least a several-decades time frame — climate scientists insist we must cut our CO2 emissions now.

The article also claims biomass is “infinitely more renewable” than coal, which isn’t the case. Trees grow back, but forests are nothing without soil. The more you log, the more you compact, erode and impoverish soil — particularly with biomass, which robs the high-nutrient tops and branches. It’s time that we accept that infinite growth just isn’t possible on a finite planet.

Josh Schlossberg
East Montpelier
Schlossberg is editor of Biomass Busters newsletter.

U.S. Federal Government Pauses to Scrutinize Biomass Power

Many industries are complaining of regulatory uncertainty these days, and the troubled biomass power industry has now suffered a blow that could impact a decade or more of planning and development. As the U.S. EPA announced today that it will embark upon a three-year study of the carbon impacts of burning biomass for electricity, the beleaguered industry officially moves onto uncertain ground. Environmental groups are hoping that ground is icy cold (http://epa.gov/nsr/actions.html#jan11). Industry groups had lobbied extensively last year to avoid such regulation and scrutiny.

Burning biomass shares the same status and access to subsidies and tax incentives as wind and solar power in many states. Over 40 states have renewable portfolios mandating that utilities sell customers “green energy,” and none of them count the carbon dioxide emissions from biomass (http://www.dsireusa.org/). While most people think of windmills and solar panels as the primary renewable energy source, biomass burning currently generates roughly half of the power considered ‘renewable’ in the United States. In many cases that includes the burning of whole trees and chemically contaminated waste.

Until recently, the assumption of both industry and government had been that biomass burning is “carbon-neutral” – that is, it adds no net greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. EPA has now ruled that this presumed carbon neutrality deserves a second look, emphasizing that hard science will be the arbiter of the outcome. Recent respected scientific studies indicate that carbon neutrality is not supported by the facts, so the industry is likely to face increased regulation and scrutiny.

A 2010 study commissioned by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts demonstrated that burning biomass over decades puts more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than burning coal (http://www.manomet.org/node/322 ). Massachusetts thus announced in July 2010 that it would put stricter conditions on biomass under the renewable portfolio standard. Also, a comprehensive study published by the Environmental Working Group, “Clearcut Disaster: Carbon Loophole Threatens U.S. Forests," demonstrated that biomass power increases atmospheric carbon dioxide, while calling for government accounting. (http://www.ewg.org/clearcut-disaster)

According to Biomass Accountability Project spokesperson Meg Sheehan, "EPA has sound scientific grounds for challenging the conventional and scientifically unsupported view of biomass as carbon-neutral. We trust that the agency is setting a new course that will close the 'biomass loophole.' Governments must stop ignoring the carbon dioxide emissions from biomass." The head of the Biomass Power Association, Bob Cleaves, has said that regulation of biomass through the tailoring rule would effectively stop the industry in its tracks.

Read the full letter (PDF)

I am an environmental radiation monitoring scientist [A.B. Brown University in Chemistry, Master of Science in Public Health from UMASS Amherst in Air Pollution Control].  Professionally, I have been involved in conducting and assessing environmental radiation monitoring studies for over 20 years.

In the early 1990s, I initiated a study by radiation scientists all over the US who documented the levels of natural and man-made radioactivity in wood ash gathered from domestic wood burning of both hardwoods and softwoods from the East Coast to Georgia, South Carolina, Idaho, and California.

The study was initiated by a Feature Article I authored to the Health Physics Society's Newsletter [Volume XVIII, No. 4] titled "Preliminary Study of Cs-137 [Cesium-137] Uptake by Trees and Its Implications for BRC, Waste Disposal, and Dosimetry]. The Health Physics Society is an International Society of over 5,000 radiation safety scientists involved in environmental, medical, and industrial radiation protection.