Tag: renewable energy

  • Bioenergy Capacity Continues to Increase

    – by Erin Voegele, September 26, 2014, Biomass Magazine The U.S. Energy Information Administration has released the September issue of its Electric Power Monthly report, indicating total in-service bioenergy capacity equaled 13,431.4 MW as of the close of July, up from 13,368.4 MW at the close of June. Overall, 313 MW of new bioenergy capacity was…

  • Reject the Exelon Takeover of Pepco

    Energy Justice Network testified in D.C. against Exelon energy corporation’s takeover of Pepco, electric service provider to Washington, D.C. and Maryland.  This takeover is a bad deal for the District of Columbia and is not in the public interest. It would hit DC ratepayers with higher electricity bills, would undermine renewable energy and would not…

  • WE WON!! Environmental Justice Victory in DC, as Mayor Pulls Incinerator Contract

    – by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network We just stopped Washington, DC from approving a $36-78 million contract that was awarded to Covanta to burn the District’s waste for the next 5-11 years. In a rigged bidding process, the city allowed just four incinerators (no landfills) to bid to take 200,000 tons of waste a…

  • Fossil Fuel Divestment: How to Evolve the Campaign Beyond its Shortcomings

    – by Mike Ewall, Energy Justice Network October 2014 Sometimes, environmental movement campaigns that become very popular aren’t the ones that are the most strategic. Trying to divert the fossil fuel divestment bandwagon to a better path hasn’t been easy (or well-received), but some critical examination is long overdue. As activists like to point out, we…

  • Spatial Justice Tests

    – by Aaron Kreider, Energy Justice Network  One of the main goals of Energy Justice Network’s Justice Map project is to demonstrate the role that income and race play in the siting of dirty facilities. You can use Justice Map (by clicking on Advanced Mode) to analyze the race and income of people who live within, say,…

  • Waste Done Right

    – by Ruth Tyson, Energy Justice Network In 2012, Americans disposed of 251 million tons of trash, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The Story of Stuff Project neatly lays out the way materials move through our economy from extraction to production, distribution, consumption, and disposal. Most consumers don’t think beyond the “consumption”…

  • Destruction of Demand: How to Shrink Our Energy Footprint

    – by Richard Heinberg, November 4, 2014, Post Carbon Institute The human economy is currently too big to be sustainable. We know this because Global Footprint Network, which methodically tracks the relevant data, informs us that humanity is now using 1.5 Earths’ worth of resources. We can temporarily use resources faster than Earth regenerates them only by…

  • $181,000 Fine for Ethanol Air Pollution in Albany, NY

    – by Brian Nearing, December 12, 2014, Times Union An oil terminal operator at the Port of Albany has been hit with a $181,000 penalty by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for air pollution violations that lasted nearly a year. Buckeye Partners failed to properly control vapor emissions from ethanol — a corn-based biofuel used as a gasoline…

  • 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…