Will Subsidies go Poof? EPA decision sends ‘chilling message’ to the biomass industry By Anne Stanton An EPA final rule issued last week did not exempt biomass power from greenhouse gas permitting requirements, sending a “chilling message” to the biomass industry, the New York Times reported last week. EPA’s final “tailoring” rule was issued last week and determined which polluters will have to account for their greenhouse gas emissions next January when the agency begins to formally regulate the heat-trapping gases with the permitting process under the Clean Air Act, wrote New York Times reporter Robin Bravender. “What does this mean for biomass electricity plants? It means they are no longer exempt from regulating their carbon dioxide. They can no longer call themselves ‘green energy,’ or ‘carbon neutral,’” responded Elisa Barrett, a conservation biologist and environmental scientist, who will speak at the Traverse Area District Library on Monday, May 24, at 6:30 p.m. about biomass and carbon levels. “It also exempts them from receiving funding as an alternative energy source from the stimulus money of 2009. Basically, the forward movement of the biomass plants in Michigan are slowed and could likely be stopped in its tracks.”
REGIONAL IMPACT The issue is especially relevant in Northern Michigan, where there are proposed projects to produce a total of 192 megawatts of biomass power, including plans for new plants in Mancelona, Gaylord, and Traverse City, according to Skip Pruss, director of Michigan’s Department of Energy. Each megawatt of power requires new growth from 10,000 acres of forested land. Carbon emissions from biomass plants are claimed as “carbon neutral,” yet burning wood releases the same level of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as coal plants for the same amount of energy produced, according to an October 23, 2009 Science article. The growing abundance of carbon in the troposphere—the closest layer of the atmosphere to Earth—is blamed for global warming, which scientists warn could potentially cause catastrophic damage to the planet unless significantly slowed or halted. The decision to not exempt biomass was cheered by Barrett, who believes the EPA decision last week could have implications for federal subsidies, which provide 30% of biomass plant construction costs. “When I heard stimulus money would be used for biomass, I was stunned. The stimulus money was intended for alternative energy like solar and wind and to upgrade the grid to make it more efficient so it can better utilize these sources of power,” Barrett said.
SUBSIDIZED INDUSTRY Biomass is growing in popularity across the nation because subsidies make it the cheapest alternative energy. Biomass can also provide baseload energy (electricity that is available 24/7 on demand) unlike wind or solar energy, which is intermittent. Revamping the national electrical grid is considered a high priority because it’s the only way to accommodate wind and solar sources of energy. Barrett testified in 2003 before the EPA in Washington D.C., urging it to regulate carbon under the auspices of the Clean Air Act. In her testimony, Barrett used air monitoring data to prove that catastrophic human events, such as the March invasion of Iraq, caused carbon levels to spike. In 2009, the EPA began regulating. Supporters claim that biomass is carbon neutral, because a tree absorbs the same amount of carbon as it releases when it’s burned. A big supporter of biomass is the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO). Its website explains the concept of carbon neutrality: “The EPA and the Department of Energy, through their own data collection, have long recognized that biomass combustion for energy does not increase carbon in the atmosphere. The EPA has concluded that there is a ‘scientific consensus’ that ‘carbon dioxide emitted from burning biomass will not increase CO2 in the air if it is done on a sustainable basis.’” “The United States is a world leader in sustainable forest management. As a result, our volume of growing trees has increased by nearly 50 percent over the last 50 years and each year our nation stores more carbon in its forests than it releases from them. That is why energy from forest biomass does not increase carbon in the atmosphere.” Meanwhile, NAOF has pressured the EPA to exclude biomass combustion from the requirements, arguing that the process is “carbon neutral.”
WHERE NEXT? “The question is, what is EPA going to do from here?” said David Tenny, president and CEO of NAFO in the NYT article. “This sends a bit of a chilling message to biomass producers.” Yet an EPA report acknowledges it takes hundreds of years for the planet to absorb carbon from burning wood. Emerging scientific articles assert that burning existing forests for energy does not lower carbon levels. “Replacing fossil fuels with bioenergy does not by itself reduce carbon emissions because the carbon dioxide released by tailpipes and smokestacks is roughly the same per unit of energy regardless of the source,” according to the October 23, 2009 Science article. “If unproductive land supports fast-growing grasses for bioenergy, or if forestry improvements increase tree growth rates, the additional carbon absorbed offsets emissions when burned for energy. However, harvesting existing forests for electricity adds net carbon to the air. That remains true even if limited harvest rates leave the carbon stocks of regrowing forests unchanged, because those stocks would otherwise increase and contribute to the terrestrial carbon sink.”
CUTTING TREES Marvin Roberson, a forest ecologist for the Michigan Sierra Club outside of Marquette, said that standing timber is the only foreseeable resource for biomass plants in Northern Michigan. “I’ve seen exceptions. In Grayling, there’s a sawmill we do support that makes dimension lumber, and they use their waste sawdust to produce energy to power the plant. That’s great. There’s also a place in Grayling that takes waste tires, which we don’t think is great, and logging residues. But the only reasonable source for getting 192 megawatts of biomass power is standing timber and that’s just a bad idea.” The EPA indicated that it would continue to seek comment on biomass emissions and issue guidance on how to best reduce carbon emissions with biomass technology, the NYT article said. Barrett, founder of Earth Rescue, a nonprofit coalition of 250 scientists and environmental leaders, said her talk on Monday will present scientific evidence showing that trees are essential to maintaining a healthy troposphere by sequestering carbon that’s exhaled by a growing human population. When trees die, they emit little carbon; they decompose into soil, habitat and sustenance for bottom feeders. Burning carbon-absorbing trees will upset the atmospheric balance and cycle of nature, she said. “As a point of order, the review of scientific literature completed in 2008 has proven invaluable and had clearly found a good definition that limited biomass. Nowhere in the scientific literature was there an inclusion of hardwoods or softwoods with the exception of poplar. The issue as it manifested in Michigan has put ‘use’ of biomass in direct conflict with all research and scientific writing to date. The scientific community never envisioned the use of trees for other than carbon sequestration. With that reality, [EPA Chief] Lisa Jackson issued the final decision regarding the ‘tailoring rule’ on controlling greenhouse gases.”
To receive informational emails from Earth Rescue, email elisa.barrett@gmail.com.
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