Category: Blog entry

  • AUDIO: Energy’s Water Footprint in the Western Drought

    Drought in the western U.S. is in the news every day, yet most media coverage ignores the impact from water withdrawals for industrial power facilities. While municipal and agricultural use are major drains on limited water resources, so too are biomass, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power facilities.  On August 20, EJN spoke with Stacy Tellinghuisen,…

  • If You Build It, They Will Cut

    Generating biomass energy doesn’t result in more logging, according to the biomass industry, whose spokespersons claim facilities only make use of “waste” wood already coming from existing logging operations. Ron Kotrba, Senior Editor for Pellet Mill Magazine, wrote in the May/June 2015 issue that biomass is the “most unlikely of the forest products to drive…

  • EJ Victory! Taking Responsibility for Where Your Trash Goes…

    – by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network I’m excited to open this issue by sharing our first victory of its kind: stopping a major city (Washington, DC) from signing a long-term incineration contract that was expensive, polluting, unhealthy, and racist. The worst thing that can happen with your waste is for it to be burned.…

  • Transform Don’t Trash NYC

    – by Gavin Kearney (Environmental Justice Director, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest) & Eddie Bautista (Executive Director, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance) New York City’s homes and businesses generate anywhere from 6 to 8 million tons of mixed solid waste every year – more than any other city in the country. And the manner…

  • New York City Outsourcing Incineration

    – by Dara Hunt Congratulations to Energy Justice Network and other organizations on stopping a Covanta contract to incinerate DC waste in an Environmental Justice community.  Unfortunately, we have not succeeded in stopping New York City’s plan, and a 20-year contract with Covanta Energy to transport and burn 800,000 tons per year, or more, of…

  • EXCLUSIVE: Biomass Energy and the Carbon Neutral Shell Game

    – by Brett Leuenberger, July 6, 2015 (Graphics by Brett Leuenberger) Who would have ever thought that clean renewable energy could come from a smokestack? And yet, according to our U.S. government and the biomass industry, that’s exactly what’s happening when you burn trees (biomass) for energy. I don’t know about you, but when it comes…

  • Biofuels Company Won’t Pay State of Mississippi After Bankruptcy

    – January 10, 2015, Fuel Fix Bankrupt biofuel maker KiOR and controlling shareholder Vinod Khosla say the state of Mississippi is using legal tactics in an attempt to squeeze money from the company. KiOR, based in Pasadena, fired back Thursday at the Mississippi Development Authority’s December call to convert KiOR’s case from Chapter 11 reorganization into…

  • Remembering Marvin Wheeler

    – by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network  When we formed Allentown Residents for Clean Air (ARCA) in 2012, we couldn’t have kicked it off without Marvin Wheeler, who found us as an active member of the West Park Civic Association. As a retired school nurse, Marvin understood the health threat posed by the plan to burn 150…

  • Are Media Outlets Megaphones for Polluters?

    Are Media Outlets Megaphones for Polluters? Thursday, May 21, 2015 at 5pm PST / 8 ET Guest Speaker: Steve Horn, Investigative Journalist Are media outlets doing an adequate job covering the health and environmental impacts of dirty energy corporations and other polluters? Not according to Steve Horn, a Madison, Wisconsin-based freelance investigative journalist and writer for DeSmogBlog. Steve…

  • $355,375 Grant to Install Biomass Heating in Massachusetts Elementary Schools

    – Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, May 5, 2015, Biomass Magazine The administration of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito has announced grant funding for Heath Elementary School in Heath and the Hawlemont Elementary School in Charlemont to convert to highly efficient biomass boilers from their existing oil heating systems.…