Category: Blog entry

  • Soil is Not Renewable

    – by Friends of the Wild Swan and Swan View Coalition Soils are the foundation of terrestrial life. Forest productivity is directly tied to soil conditions. Soil takes thousands of years to develop and is not “renewable”on a human time scale. Soil is an ecosystem in itself that must be healthy in order to provide…

  • Planned La Pine, OR Biomass Facility Hinges on Market

    – by Dylan J. Darling, March 17, 2015, Bend Bulletin A wood-burning power plant remains a possibility for La Pine, with the city now taking the lead on the project from Deschutes County and the company behind it waiting for a change in the energy market. “It’s just been on hold due to market conditions,” said…

  • RWE Drops Biomass Power, Adds Biomass Thermal, Wind

    – by Anna Simet, March 12, 2015, Biomass Magazine While RWE Group reported it achieved its earnings targets for 2014 and EBITDA was significantly better than planned, low electricity prices and unusually mild weather negatively affected business performance, which dropped 25 percent from 2013 to 2014. Peter Terium, CEO of RWE, said that currently, 35 to 45…

  • Landfill Keeps Rhode Island Incinerator Debate Alive

    – by Tim Faulkner, March 4, 2015, Eco RI News The seemingly annual debate about building a waste incinerator in Rhode Island resolved little on the issue this year, except that any such facility is too expensive and likely at least 10 years from ever being built. The sole advocate for considering an incinerator is the…

  • Procter & Gamble Fires Up Massive Biomass Investment

    – by Heather Clancy, March 3, 2015, Forbes  With companies like Apple and Google regularly stealing headlines for their solar and wind investments, it’s easy to forget “renewable” energy comes in many forms. For consumer products giant Procter & Gamble biomass continues to be highly strategic. Indeed, it’s working on one of the biggest corporate biomass plants in the United…

  • Hardwood Trees Chipped for Nova Scotia Biomass

    – by Roger Taylor, February 26, 2015, Herald Business Hardwood trees are being allowed to go up in smoke, and with them a number of rural manufacturing jobs that are hard to replace. It is easy to reach that conclusion after reading stories about several companies in rural Nova Scotia that have been making products from…

  • Wisconsin Governor Wants to Cut $8 Million from Bioenergy Research

    – by Thomas Content and Lee Bergquist, February 28, 2015, Journal Sentinel In an about-face from his first term, Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate funding for a University of Wisconsin-Madison renewable energy research center that has played a key role in helping land one of its biggest government grants ever. In his budget, Walker is…

  • Syracuse City Council Seeks Alternatives to Incineration

    – by Tim Knauss, March 2, 2015, Syracuse.com The city council today voted against a 20-year extension of Syracuse’s garbage disposal contract with the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency, citing a desire to pursue alternatives to trash incineration. Syracuse remains obligated under its existing contract to haul waste to OCCRA’s trash plant near Jamesville through June…

  • BLM Plan to Convert Nevada’s Pinyon Forests to Biomass Threatens Ancient Rituals

    – by Lisa Gale Garrigues, Indian Country Today Media Network For centuries the pinyon trees of Nevada have nourished the Shoshone, Paiute and other peoples, giving them pine nuts, ingredients for soup, milk and even a place to pray. Now it is about to become something else: a profitable source of biomass. The Pinyon-Juniper Partnership, a consortium…

  • Local Opposition Affects Oregon Biofuel Plant

    – by Al Maiorino, March 3, 2015, Environmental Leader In 2014, the United States Departments of the Navy, Energy and Agriculture awarded a $70 million grant to Red Rock Biofuels for the design, construction, commissioning and performance testing of a new biofuel refinery.  The biorefinery is planned for Lakeview, Oregon, close to the Fremont Nation Forest…