Vermont Group Receives Grant to Map Biomass Logging Projects
Contact: Josh Schlossberg, 802-223-5844, biomass.greenwash@gmail.com
Biofuelwatch, an international organization with North American headquarters in Hinesburg, Vermont and Washington, D.C.-based Energy Justice Network have received a grant from Fund for Wild Nature to collaborate on an online mapping project monitoring logging operations fueling Burlington, Vermont’s McNeil biomass power incinerator, Vermont’s biggest polluter.
The mapping project will be the first of its kind in the U.S. to visually depict the actual acreage of forestlands required to fuel a large-scale biomass power facility. The project will utilize maps from Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department to show the annual forest footprint of the 50-megawatt McNeil generating station, jointly owned by Burlington Electric Department, Central Vermont Public Service, Vermont Public Power Supply Authority, and Green Mountain Power.
The McNeil generating station burns an estimated 400,000 green tons of wood per year (76 tons of whole-tree chips per hour, 30 cords per hour), according to Burlington Electric Department. The materials fueling McNeil consist of 91% trees and woody materials directly from the forest within 100-mile radius [click here for pictures of trees awaiting McNeil’s chipper, from its Swanton, VT log yard], 7% from residues (chips and bark from local sawmills), and 2% from recycled wood.
Vermont currently has two operating large scale biomass power facilities (McNeil and Ryegate) with another four proposed in the state for Fair Haven, Pownal, Springfield, and Ludlow. A 29.5-megawatt biomass power incinerator for Fair Haven, VT has just received its draft air pollution permit from Vermont Agency of Natural Resources, showing higher levels of greenhouse gases, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, and volatile organic compounds than a coal plant.
In addition, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York are moving forward with several biomass power proposals, some of which would log Vermont forests.
A February 2011 report by the Cary Institute, “Forest Biomass and Bioenergy: Opportunities and Constraints in theNortheastern United States,” suggests that past studies have overestimated the amount of forest available for energy in New England, citing 63% of net forest growth already being logged annually.
A 2010 study by Harvard Forest at Harvard University, “Wildlands and Woodlands: Avision for the New England Landscape,” documents a loss of forest cover in New England following 200 years of forest regeneration, warning that “rising pressures for wood-based bioenergy to supply the region and other countries may intensify adverse harvesting practices and substantially change the timber economy.”
“Burning trees for electricity is wasteful, inefficient and dirty. We need our forests now more than ever to provide us with clean air, pure water, fertile topsoil and a livable climate,” said Dr. Rachel Smolker of Biofuelwatch. “The amount of wood required to feed facilities like McNeil and the proposed Fairhaven incinerator is huge. As we have already learned, these facilities rely not just on “wastes” but on logging whole trees.”
An estimated 255 biomass power incinerators are currently operating in the U.S. with another 234 proposed.
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