In comparing football with baseball, George Carlin said "in football we
have the blitz, the bomb, and the two minute warning. In baseball, we
have the sacrifice."
In the global warming debate, I guess Big Oil and Big Coal might be the
football fans while the Big Government sycophants might be baseball
fans.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steven Springer
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 7:19 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: help defeat biomass plants
Mike,
I could not have said it better!
Steve Springer
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Leonard
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 3:53 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: help defeat biomass plants
Yeah Steve I should emulate Chicken Little and I may get
a better response.
Let's see global warming is responsible for more
drought, floods, hurricanes, forest insect and disease epidemics,
famine, wars, and pestilence.
Oh wait recent data shows the planet hasn't warmed at
all in the last decade, well then we won't call it global warming
anymore, we'll call it "climate change" and that will cover all the
bases.
This play on words reminds me of how brilliant comedian
George Carlin was in skewering those who abuse the English language.
Another favorite is how state governments don't say the word "deficit"
anymore. Now it's referred to as a "shortfall". Now that sounds better
right?!
Yes it is not good to be spewing out all these gases by
burning all this fossil fuel but why do we have a trade policy that has
shipped most of our industry overseas where they don't have strict
environmental laws? China and India will be producing 30-40% more CO2 in
the next 15 years which will make anything we do meaningless. So I say
let's just concentrate on slowing down deforestation and practice the
best silviculture we can and don't worry about all the rest.
Mike
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steven Springer
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 9:13 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: help defeat biomass
plants
Mike,
What is the big idea of arguing this
subject using logic and reasoning!? Don't you know to use emotion
instead of logic!!! :-)
Steve Springer
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Mike Leonard
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2009 6:00 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: help defeat biomass
plants
Phil and Lee Ann,
I'm one of the few foresters in the
state of MA who uses mechanized timber harvesting crews to supervise
biomass improvement cuttings on private forest land.
All of the chipwood they produce goes to
the clean burning 17MW Pinetree Power plant in Fitchburg. Having a
market for low grade timber is absolutely essential to improve the
productivity and species composition of private woodlots especially
those that have been subjected to devastating and destructive DCR
approved liquidation cuttings (aka high-grading). Because the operators
will take everything from a 1 inch crummy red maple up to a 30 inch big
bully white pine, this market has given me the most freedom to mark than
I have ever had and has allowed me to practice the best silviculture
possible. A few weeks ago I recently gave a tour of some of my clients'
woodlots to show what a great job these biomass improvement cuttings can
do (See attachment). Other foresters who saw my work gave it an A (like
the great Forestmeister Joe Zorzin) while a noted ecologist said it was
the best she'd ever seen. Landowners love the way their woodlot looks
afterwards and I now have a waiting list for landowners who want a
biomass improvement cutting for their woodlots.
However, the proposed gargantuan 50 MW
biomass plants in Russell and Greenfield will need to draw wood from a
radius of up to 70 miles which means their radii will overlap each
other. This might push the price of chipwood up which would be a good
thing but will there be enough supply? If not, will these big plants
resort to burning all sorts of construction debris and other material
which will give off toxic poisons like dioxin? In addition, I don't
trust Hull who won't pay enough for chipwood (he says he'll pay $20/ton
when we need at least $30/ton) and Hull is poised to earn a profit of 1
billion dollars over a 20 year period!
Why are we taxpayers subsidizing him
anyway??? The poor town of Russell will be flooded with diesel trucks in
their valley which could keep the pollution there for a while during
summer inversions. So bigger is not always better.
As I said, the operators I use sell
their chipwood to the very clean burning 17 MW Pinetree Power plant in
Fitchburg. These operators don't like to travel too much farther than 30
miles from their base or from that plant because of operating costs
(especially diesel fuel). When diesel was $5/gallon, they didn't want to
travel much more than 15-20 miles away. Fuel prices will be going way up
again when the economy recovers so rather than building these huge 50 MW
biomass power plants, we should be building smaller ones with the size
capped at 20 MW to reduce the supply radii for each. This will greatly
reduce trucking distances and all that diesel pollution from the diesel
trucks that EOEA has not accounted for.
There are some people who think
Massachusetts can build a biomass capacity of 500 MW. I disagree. I
think there is for perhaps 100 MW (5 20 MW plants including Pinetree).
Limiting total capacity and individual plant size to these amounts for
now will allow the industry to be built up slowly so we can fix forest
policy FIRST to insure that all chipwood comes from well managed
woodlots rather than from big clearcuts or liquidation cuttings.
It should also be noted that burning
wood to generate electricity is far less efficient than using wood for
heat to displace oil (25% versus 75%), so we should be thinking about
using more wood for heat to displace oil rather than to generate
electricity. Although right now I don't care where the chipwood goes as
long as I can still sell improvement cuttings.
Lee Ann, I'll try and write a brief for
the Greenfield Recorder opposing the plant there by the end of the week.
Mike Leonard, Consulting Forester
www.northquabbinforestry.com
<http://www.northquabbinforestry.com/>
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Timbewolves
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 10:45 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] Re: help defeat biomass
plants
Lee Ann,
While this group is Pro
trees and I'm not educated about the Greenfield project, in my humble
opinion there are worse ways to create energy. There is currently a
project working on permitting in my town (Russell Biomass) of which I am
educated about. I Chaired a grassroots citizens group tasked with
educating the public with regards to both sides of the coin, and was a
member of the Planning Board. However, the opposition here grossly
misrepresented the facts and data and the media wasn't interested in
hearing otherwise-as confrontation sells.
Russell Biomass has
undergone a MEPA review, and extensive investigation by numerous Federal
and State agencies. Along with the Federal and State inquiries, the
town of Russell hired an independent company to investigate-and the
committee responsible for choosing the company and areas to research
were represented by all interested parties, including the opposition.
The report came back with a few things to look at but pretty much
backing what the experts had been telling us. While burning biomass
will create air particulates-and of the small size that is harmful to
the respiratory tract-burning coal isn't any better for the air or
environment. It really gets me that sections of the public become up in
arms about burning biomass for the impacts to the environment, but
nobody mentions the coal plants. During research for a paper I was
working on for my degree in Environmental Science I discovered that
Holyoke, MA possesses the third dirtiest power plant in the
state-burning coal-and yet there is nothing mentioned in the media at
all.
It's true that the
biomass projects would create less energy than currently being produced
by other means (the Holyoke coal plant is 350kw and the biomass project
in Russell is 50kw), but we need to start somewhere. Nuclear plants run
the risk of fall out and also create hazardous materials at the same
time. Coal is increasing the amounts of mercury in our waterways.
Burning any fossil fuels is detriment to the environment. There is
currently opposition to both wind and biomass energy being produced, but
in my view they are the lesser of the two evils-so to speak.
I've conducted much
research on the topic of biomass plants, have spoken with Federal and
State agencies, interviewed plant managers, and toured a plant in New
Hampshire. I know the opposition here was the cause of a lot of the
public confusion. I'm not saying I didn't catch the company proposing
the plant misrepresenting the facts, but they did to a much lesser
degree. I would be more than game to discuss this with you further, if
you desire.
Phil LaBranche
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lee Ann Warner
Sent: Monday, June 01, 2009 4:18 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ENTS] help defeat biomass
plants
Hello All, Sorry if you've seen this
already. I tried sending last night but potentially lost the message.
Bob Leverett told me that there might be some interest here at ENTS to
learn more about the five biomass plants proposed for western
Massachusetts and to help defeat one currently before the Greenfield
Zoning Board of Appeals. These five plants will impact our already
dismally rated air quality and they could decimate our forests. There
simply is not enough "sustainably cut wood." Three of these plants
would provide less than 1% of MA energy needs and pour hundreds of
thousands of tons per year of carbon dioxide and other pollutants into
our already saturated atmosphere. Yet, these plants are going through
without MEPA review with the help of our tax dollars because this is
considered a renewable energy and carbon neutral. Please take a look at
the info at http://www.massenvironmentalenergy.org for more info on this
issue. If you would like to help defeat the Greenfield plant, I invite
you to take a look at http://www.greenfieldbiomass.info for more
information on how you can help locally. Letters to the editor of the
Greenfield Recorder before the June 15 ZBA meeting would also be most
helpful in educating a confused Greenfield citizens about the downsides
of biomass because It seems that most elected officials and the editor
of the Greenfield Recorder are for this plant. Letters to state and
federal representatives would be helpful too. If you have any
questions, please feel free to get back to me. Thanks for your review,
Lee Ann Warner
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Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org
Send email to [email protected]
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To unsubscribe send email to [email protected]
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