Category: Blog entry

  • Covanta Settles for $536,211 in Lawsuit Over Biomass Ash Testing

    -December 11, 2014, Bakersfield Californian District attorneys from eight California counties announced Thursday the settlement of a civil environmental enforcement action against three subsidiaries of a New Jersey-based company. The settlement covers Covanta Energy LLC’s Kern County biomass energy facility in Delano, along with other company facilities in Mendota and Oroville. Kern County will receive about…

  • Study: Thinning Forests for Bioenergy Can Worsen Climate

    A new study out of the Geos Institute in Ashland, Oregon concludes that selectively logging or “thinning” forests for bioenergy can increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and exacerbate climate change. The study, “Thinning Combined With Biomass Energy Production May Increase, Rather Than Reduce, Greenhouse Gas Emissions,” by D.A. DellaSala and M. Koopman, challenges…

  • Zero Waste to Landfill: How Incinerators Get Promoted

    – by Caroline Eader The incinerator industry promotes a false belief that the only choices we have in handling our waste is to either burn it for energy or to bury it in a landfill. The existence of what is known as a “waste-to-energy” (WTE) facility does not eliminate the need for a landfill. First,…

  • Biomass Power Facilities Idle for Months

    One of biomass energy’s main selling points is that it’s a baseload source of energy available 24/7, unlike solar and wind. Despite these promises–and hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies, grants and loans–several biomass power facilities across the U.S. have been sitting idle for months at a time, thanks to fires, equipment failure,…

  • College Trash Habits Cause Concern, as Does Incinerator in Chester

    – by Bobby Zipp, November 20, 2014,  Swarthmore Phoenix Two weeks ago, a group of the Green Advisors conducted a waste audit of Kohlberg Hall and the Science Center. The purpose of the annual audit is to create a visual representation of the amount of waste produced by those buildings and test how well the…

  • Compost Chicken Manure, Don’t Burn It

    – by Mike Ewall, December 19, 2014, Baltimore Sun  Dan Rodricks’ recent column urged the new governor to get a large-scale poultry waste incinerator built on the Eastern Shore (“Larry Hogan has a chance to be a green governor,” Dec. 13). This awful idea has been floated for 15 years now and has gone nowhere despite an array…

  • Biomass Energy Growing Pains

    Several biomass power facilities have come online over the last few years in Colorado, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, and Hawaii, but not without difficulties, including fires, inefficient equipment, lawsuits, and competing with the low price of natural gas. Gypsum, Colorado Eagle Valley Clean Energy, an 11.5-megawatt biomass power facility in Gypsum, Colorado started operating in December…

  • Water Abuse in the Fracking Process

    – by Alex Lotorto, Energy Justice Network Water is used in shale gas development from cradle to grave, however, most people don’t think about it beyond the issues of groundwater contamination. Procuring and bringing raw materials like silica sand, steel, cement, and fracking chemicals to the well locations requires an incredible amount of manufacturing, transportation,…

  • Energy’s Water Footprint

    – by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network In 2005, thermoelectric power plants (nuclear, coal, oil, gas and trash/biomass incinerators) were responsible for 41% of all freshwater withdrawals and 49% of total water withdrawals (including oceans and brackish waters) in the U.S. Much of this water (mainly used for cooling) is returned to local water bodies, but at a higher…

  • Eviction of Mobile Home Park for Fracking Water

    – by Alex Lotorto, Energy Justice Network Riverdale Mobile Home Park was located on the Susquehanna River in Piatt Township, Jersey Shore, Pennsylvania. Residents were ordered to leave the park in March 2012 by Aqua PVR LLC, a project of Aqua America, a private water utility, and Penn Virginia Resources, a natural gas pipeline company. …