Category: Blog entry

  • 2014: The Year of the Smokestack Smackdown [Energy Justice Now, August 2014]

    Prepare yourself for the August issue of Energy Justice Network’s new publication, Energy Justice Now! – “2014 a Banner Year for Victories” – “Derailing NYC Trash Train in Chester, PA” – “Vermont Yankee: Out of the Fission and Into the Fire?” …and more!!! Please share the August 2014 issue of Energy Justice Now with your friends, colleagues, neighbors, media, and elected officials! Subscribe to monthly…

  • Vermont Yankee: Out of the Fission and Into the Fire?

    – by Ann Darling, The Safe and Green Campaign The Vermont Yankee nuclear power station in southeastern Vermont will close in December of this year after operating for over 40 years. The owner, Entergy Nuclear, is based in New Orleans and is the second largest nuclear power company in the U.S. As a member of the Safe…

  • Biomass Rejected in Favor of Solar in Springfield, VT

    –  by Susan Smallheer, July 17, 2014, Rutland Herald North Springfield, Vt. — Out with biomass, in with solar panels. Winstanley Enterprises announced Wednesday that it was seeking state approval to build five, 500-kilowatt solar arrays in the North Springfield Industrial Park. Some of the land that will be used was earlier proposed to be…

  • Biomass Industry Lashes Out at Solar Subsidies

    [The heavily-subsidized, polluting biomass energy industry cries foul over getting a smaller slice of the taxpayer pie than smokestack-free solar energy in California. -Ed.]  –  by Bonner R. Cohen, July 15, 2014, Heartland The California Wind Energy Association and other renewable energy groups criticized a new law extending special tax breaks to the California solar power…

  • Wood Stoves a Major Contributor to “Unhealthy” Air Days in Clallam County, WA

    Read The Biomass Monitor’s coverage of the story behind these air pollution tests: “Tracking Biomass Air Pollution on the Olympic Peninsula”  –  by Arwyn Rice, July 14, 2014, Peninsula Daily News   PORT ANGELES — Air quality in central and eastern Clallam County is generally good, but wood burning for home heating and transportation-related pollutants are contributing to occasional “unhealthy”…

  • Council Concerned Over Reports of Land Contamination from Oklahoma Incinerator

    –  by Josh Newtown, April 23, 2014, Tahlequah Daily Press TAHLEQUAH — Negotiations involving the purchase of nearly 20 homes on 7 acres of land near Basin Avenue hit a snag Monday night when concerns surfaced over potential contamination of the area. Tahlequah Mayor Jason Nichols had proposed the city purchase the homes and duplexes as…

  • Group Calls for Probe of Nova Scotia Biomass Logging

    [The forest footprint for a biomass incinerator is massive. Will be interesting to see if any probe is done in regards to this facility. -Ed.] –  by Erin Pottie, June 27, 2014, Cape Breton Bureau A Cape Breton environmental group is calling for an emergency review of harvesting practices at Nova Scotia Power’s biomass plant in…

  • Cutting the Trees We Need to Save the Forest

    –  by Bob Berwyn, July 7, 2014, The Colorado Independent Even here, in a cool forest hollow near Tenmile Creek, you can feel the tom-toms. It’s a distant beat, born in the marbled halls of Congress, where political forces blow an ill wind across Colorado’s forests. Nearly every Western elected official with a clump of shrubby…

  • Shuttered Texas Biomass Incinerator to Reopen

    –  June 23, 2014, Bioenergy Insight InventivEnergy, an asset management firm, has selected NRG Energy Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy, to restart the Aspen Power biomass plant located in Lufkin, Texas. NRG will also operate and maintain the facility once it resumes operation. The plant first opened in August 2011 and was the…

  • Activists Shut Down Seneca Biomass Incinerator in Eugene, Oregon

    – by Cascadia Forest Defenders, July 7, 2014, Forest Defense Now Scores of activists with Cascadia Forest Defenders and Earth First! converged on the Seneca Jones biomass plant this morning to protest the company’s privatization of public lands in the Elliott State Forest and ongoing pollution in West Eugene. Currently several people have locked themselves to…