Category: Blog entry

  • Proposed Incinerator a Bad Choice for Island

    – Linda Damas Kelley, August 6, 2014, West Hawaii Today Just having returned from a monthlong mainland trip, I found that the waste-to-energy controversy has reached a boiling point. I just read recent commentaries by Hunter Bishop and Nelson Ho; like them, I too worked for the Department of Environmental Management during the Mayor Harry Kim…

  • USDA Funds Genetic Engineering Research for Switchgrass Biofuels

    –  July 24, 2014, Farmers’ Advance Michigan State University (MSU) plant biologist C. Robin Buell has been awarded $1 million from a joint U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) program to accelerate genetic breeding programs to improve plant feedstock for the production of biofuels, bio-power and bio-based products. Specifically, the MSU College…

  • Tulsa, OK Chooses Incineration Over Composting

    – by Jarrel Wade, August 6, 2014, Tulsa World Trash board members voted Tuesday to begin the process of seeking bids for contractors to pick up curbside green waste and take it to the city’s burn plant. The recently introduced plan from the Tulsa Authority for Recovery of Energy is to send green waste to the…

  • Chester, PA Residents Air Concerns over Covanta Trash Incineration Plan

    UPDATE: despite strong organizing efforts, an outpouring of community opposition and strong research we’ve compiled to show how awful this plan is, city council voted unanimously on Aug 13th to approve Covanta’s plan that allows 30 years of New York City waste to be brought by train to Chester for incineration.  In fact, it’ll go…

  • Biomass Burning Kills 250,000 People a Year

    –  by Jo Nova, August 5, 2014, JoanneNova.com.au The headline at Science Daily is that wildfires and other burns lead to climate change. The paper itself asks: “As such, particle burn-off of clouds may be a major underrecognized source of global warming.” For me what matters are the deaths in the here and now: “We calculate that 5…

  • Residents Voice New Concerns on Gainesville, FL Biomass Incinerator

    –  by Morgan Watkins, August 5, 2014, Gainesville Sun Local residents worried about the biomass plant showed up Tuesday evening for a public meeting on its draft Title V air operation permit, which could be approved this fall, to make their concerns known. Folks milled around the Hall of Heroes Community Room at the Gainesville Police…

  • Residents Voice New Concerns on Gainesville, FL Biomass Incinerator

    –  by Morgan Watkins, August 5, 2014, Gainesville Sun Local residents worried about the biomass plant showed up Tuesday evening for a public meeting on its draft Title V air operation permit, which could be approved this fall, to make their concerns known. Folks milled around the Hall of Heroes Community Room at the Gainesville Police…

  • USDA Splurges Millions on Biomass Power Incinerators

    [More taxpayer money funding private corporations to log National Forests under the unscientific guise of “wildfire prevention.” -Ed.] –  US Department of Agriculture, July 23, 2014, Office of Communications Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has selected 36 energy facilities in 14 states to accept biomass deliveries supported by…

  • Behind the Colorado Fracking Betrayal

    – by Joel Dyer, August 7, 2014, Boulder Weekly So what went wrong with ballot measures 88 and 89? How could these popular citizen’s initiatives written to give local communities more control over drilling and fracking in their neighborhoods have failed to get on the ballot? Well, the first mistake Colorado citizens made was they trusted…

  • Forest Thinning Will Increase Wildfire Risk

    – by Charles Thomas, The Oregonian As fires again rage across the West, senators from John McCain, R-Ariz., to Ron Wyden, D-Ore., echo the refrain “thin the forests” to prevent wildfires. Unfortunately, most of the advocated thinning will actually stoke the wildfires of the future rather than lessen their occurrence and impacts. Thinning prescriptions proposed in…