A new study has determined that renewables could economically fully power a utility scale electric grid 99.9% of the time by 2030 - and without government subsidies, if the proper mix is implemented.  This new study affirms what we've been saying for a decade now: we don't need nuclear, coal, oil, gas, biomass/incineration or other dirty energy sources.  We can meet our energy needs with conservation, efficiency, wind, solar and energy storage... and it'll be reliable and cheaper than our status quo.   See the press release or the full study.

Dear Biomass Opponent,

Thank you for being a part of the national Anti-Biomass Incineration Campaign. As I’m sure you already know, over the past few years our grassroots network across 32 states has shed light on the harmful health and environmental impacts from biomass incineration at the local, regional, national and international level.

Industrial-scale biomass energy has gone from being a so-called “clean and green solution” in the eyes of many Americans to a health hazard, climate disaster, and threat to forests. Before the national Campaign ramped up just a few short years ago, many environmental groups were singing the praises of biomass—now most of them are coming out against it. Dozens of biomass proposals have been defeated—including Traverse City, Michigan, Valdosta, Georgia, Scottsburg and Milltown, Indiana, and Pownal, Vermont—the developers chased out of town due, in part, to the resistance of network members like you who insist that clean energy does not come out of a smokestack.

The Biomass Monitor is the only newsletter in the U.S. reporting exclusively on the impacts to public health, climate, forests, watersheds, and communities from industrial-scale “biomass” energy. However, without ongoing funding, the days of this unique publication—the official newsletter of the national Anti-Biomass Incineration campaign—are numbered.

Please CLICK HERE to sign you or your organization up today as an official sponsor of The Biomass Monitor for a small, tax-deductible contribution of $10 a month (33 cents a day) and help us get our message out to thousands of readers!

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

Massive emissions of greenhouse gases in the form of carbon dioxide make biomass and coal burning facilities major contributors to climate change. Yet one large source of climate pollution that’s been flying under the radar has been pulp and paper mills—until now.

International Paper's Ticonderoga Mill , New York (photo: itsgettinghotinhere.org) 

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

For many people, nothing typifies the American Dream more than buying a house in a small town to start a family. Five years ago school teacher Robert Hughes and his wife purchased a home in Rothschild, Wisconsin, population 5,000 and had two children, now three years and three months old. Today, the Hughes’ dream is about to literally go up in smoke with a biomass power incinerator under construction directly across the street, a facility that would add more asthma-causing particulate matter and carcinogenic volatile organic compounds to the air per unit of energy than a coal plant.

The Hughes family, their neighbors, and many Rothschild residents fear for their health and the health of their children——the incinerator is a half mile of a 2,600 student elementary school—as the 50 megawatt Domtar and WE Energies wood-burning power facility comes closer to completion. Developers aim to have the incinerator operational by the middle of 2013, smack dab in the middle of this low income and middle class community.

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

A new report released by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) details yet another in a long and growing list of ecological and economic threats from industrial-scale biomass energy: the risk of bioenergy crops becoming invasive species.

Growing Risk: Addressing the Invasive Potential of Bioenergy Feedstocks discusses the negative impacts on the environment and the economy that are likely to result from the cultivation of certain plant and tree species to supply an expansion of biomass electricity and transportation fuels in the US.

- by Rachel Smolker, Managing Editor, The Biomass Monitor

A recent article published in Business Week exposed European utility Drax’s plans to convert its massive UK facility from coal to wood. Doing so would require harvesting an area four times the size Rhode Island each year. One facility, for one year.

Much of that wood is supposed to come from tree plantations in the southeastern US where, as reported by Dogwood Alliance, new pellet plants are popping up all over. Scientists have detailed the key role forests play in regulating climate, hydrological cycles, and weather, as well as housing much of global biodiversity. Yet, instead of protecting them, we are cutting them down and burning them for electricity? This is nuts, and awareness of that is growing.

- by Josh Schlossberg, The Biomass Monitor

Three medical doctors and a scientist presented the first-ever Congressional briefing on the health hazards of biomass incineration in the U.S. Congress in Washington, D.C. on September 25, 2012. The briefing was arranged and sponsored by Save America's Forests and the presentations can be viewed online here.

Pediatricians William Sammons, M.D., of Massachusetts and Norma Kreilein, M.D., of Indiana, William Blackley, M.D. of North Carolina, and Rachel Smolker, Ph.D., co-director of Biofuelwatch, educated the attending staff of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on the toxic air pollutants emitted from biomass incinerator smokestacks and their impacts on human health. 

[Left to right]: Dr. Rachel Smolker, Carl Ross, Dr. William Blackley, Dr. Norma Kreilein