economics

Biofuels Project Pushing Thousands of People into Hunger in Africa

- September 4, 2013. Source: ActionAid

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"118","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 231px; height: 218px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;"}}]]A biofuels project praised by the European Commission as environmentally and socially responsible is pushing thousands of people into poverty in one of the poorest countries in the world, a new ActionAid report said today.

The report comes as MEPs prepare to take a critical vote on EU biofuel policies next week.

When Addax Bioenergy shortly begins exporting ethanol from a sugar cane plantation in Sierra Leone to the EU to be used in petrol, it will be the first biofuels to be exported from Africa to Europe in commercial quantities.

The EU claims that it does not import biofuels crops from Africa’s poorest countries because of the potential impact that its biofuel policies have on decreasing the amount of land that can be used to grow food and therefore increasing hunger.

Green company granted $4M from DOE after financier hosts Obama at DSCC fundraiser

- by Lachlan Markay, September 20, 2013. Source: The Washington Free Beacon

[Read "Cellulosic Ethanol: A Bio-Fool's Errand" to learn more about the biofuels company LanzaTech.]

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"116","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"331","style":"width: 333px; height: 304px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"363"}}]]The Department of Energy recently awarded a multi-million dollar contract to a green energy company financed by a major Democratic Party fundraiser and supporter of President Obama.

The $4,000,000 award for biofuel company LanzaTech came just months after one of its chief financiers and public advocates hosted the president at his Portola Valley home for a $32,400-a-head fundraiser for the Democratic Party.

The fundraiser took place in June. DOE announced the award for New Zealand-based LanzaTech, designed to support a gas fermentation system developed by the company, on Thursday.

DOE also awardedLanzaTech a grant worth more than $2.2 million in 2011 to develop biomass fuels.

Biomass Industry Fans Flames of Wildfire Hysteria 

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"115","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"270","style":"width: 388px; height: 260px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]California’s Rim fire, expected to be fully “contained” by October after igniting in Yosemite National Park on August 17, will ultimately benefit the forests it has passed through. While media accounts sensationalize such large wildfires as “catastrophic” and “disastrous,” science demonstrates that, to the contrary, fire is a vital component of western forest ecosystems.

Journalists mischaracterize the ecological function of wildfire as “devastation” or refer to forests that have experienced fire as a “barren wasteland,” exploiting emotions to sell newspapers. Yet media is only an accomplice to one of the masterminds ultimately responsible for fanning the flames of wildfire hysteria: the biomass energy industry.

USDA Announces Initiative to Expand U.S. Wood-to-Energy Efforts

- by Sue Retka Schill, September 13, 2013. Source: Biomass Magazine 

The USDA announced a partnership agreement to expand wood energy use, which will help improve the safety and health of U.S. forests. The new partnerships include USDA, the Alliance for Green Heat, the Biomass Power Association, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council and the Pellet Fuels Institute. Ag secretary Tom Vilsack also announced more than $1.1 million in grants to five organizations to form state-wide teams that will stimulate development of wood energy projects in Idaho, California, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Alaska.

"Today's announcements will help us find innovative ways to use leftover wood to create renewable energy and support good jobs in rural America," Vilsack said. "Wood to Energy efforts are a part of our 'all of the above' energy strategy. Appropriately scaled wood energy facilities also support our efforts to remove hazardous fuels and reduce the risks of catastrophic wildfires."

Waste-to-Energy Incinerator License Revoked in Scotland 

- August 27, 2013. Source: BBC News

The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) is revoking the operating licence of an energy-from-waste plant on the outskirts of Dumfries.

The notice was issued to Scotgen (Dumfries) Ltd on Friday and comes into effect on 23 September.

The £20m plant was the site of a major blaze last month tackled by more than 30 firefighters.

How Europe can Help Obama Achieve U.S. Climate Targets

- by Glenn Hurowitz, June 28, 2013. Source: Grist

As the global leader of climate action, European governments want to know how President Obama’s major climate speech affects Europe – and particularly whether the actions he outlined can allow the United States to reach its commitment to reduce emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels (or even exceed that level).

The big picture: Obama’s speech amounted to the first time that President Obama had given voice to the environmental movement’s core narrative at length. Suddenly, he wasn’t just talking about energy security and the economy and “all of the above” – he was talking about protecting the future of life on the planet against very real threat of climate change.  Watching the speech, I felt like I’d just woken up from 12 years of Bush-Cheney, and yesterday was the first day of the Obama administration.

E.U. Agroenergy Policy: A Foreseeable Disaster

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"109","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"height: 499px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left; width: 275px;","width":"353"}}]]In a misguided attempt to allegedly tackle runaway climate change, the European Union (E.U.) is implementing policy that would increase carbon dioxide emissions, displace native peoples, threaten public health, and degrade forests and watersheds.

A new report, A Foreseeable Disaster: The European Union’s agroenergy policies and the global land and water grab, demonstrates that schemes to convert plants and trees into electricity, liquid fuels, and heat, a.k.a. agroenergy or agromass, will do more harm than good.

The report, written by Helena Paul and published in July 2013 by Transnational Institute, Centre for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America (FDCL), and Econexus for Hands off the Land Alliance, challenges an expansion of European agroenergy by “critically analysing the origins, claims, and effects of the European Union’s (EU) transition to a new bioeconomy.”

Agromass, a subset of biomass, consists of “so-called wastes and residues from agriculture and forestry (for example, waste products from oil palm plantations: oil palm shells, empty fruit bunches, palm fronds, trunks, palm kernel shells and mesocarp fibres).” Major components of agromass are wood chips and pellets—which utilize whole trees, treetops and limbs—grasses, agricultural crops and agricultural residues. Agromass can also include municipal solid waste and sewage.

How to Stop a Biomass Incinerator

- by People for Clean Mountains

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"106","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"458","style":"width: 275px; height: 262px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]On July 22, 2013 the Transylvania County, North Carolina Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to enact a one year moratorium on the development and permitting of any biomass facility producing any output. This was the culmination of four months of effort by the citizens and officials of our community.

What was originally viewed as a NIMBY response to a proposal to bring “cutting edge” technology into our county, evolved past the notion of “Not In Anyone’s Back Yard” to a viewpoint of NOPE, Not on Planet Earth. Biomass incineration is a global issue, spewing tons of toxic chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere, destroying our environment through both pollution and choices of feedstock, from the introduction of invasive species of grass to feed the burners, to GMO trees and the decimation of our precious forests, up to and including the lunacy of burning garbage. 

Australia to Reverse Ban on Native Forest Incineration

- by Jenny Weber, Huon Valley Environment Centre  

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"105","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"width: 300px; height: 400px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;","title":"Photo: NSW Wires","width":"360"}}]]Australia’s New South Wales (NSW) state government has announced plans to allow native forests to be logged and burnt for electricity generation. Removing a ban on burning native forest wood for electricity would give a green light for the construction of electricity plants powered by native forests, proposals that attempt to prop up the collapsing export wood chipping market. 

The NSW Government has opened a submission period through the Environment Protection Authority for comment on this plan to amend the regulation that currently prohibits use of native forests for bio-energy. The Protection of the Environment Operations (General) Regulation 2009 currently prohibits the use of “native forest bio-materials” to generate electricity. 

The O’Farrell government is proposing to amend this regulation to enable the following vegetation on public or private land to be burnt for electricity generation: areas approved for logging for pulp products; vegetation that has been approved for clearing; offcuts and ‘waste’ from the timber industry. 

This amendment would increase logging and devastate NSW’s remaining native forests. Far-reaching damaging impacts on native wildlife survival, the health of communities and the state’s carbon emissions are likely consequences of the logging industry based in burning native forests for bio-energy.