Air/Climate Implications of Woody Biomass Utilization

Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm approved an energy package on October 6 that includes a requirement for 10% of the state's electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2015.

As the United States and other nations commit to the path of biofuels production, a group of scientists is calling for sustainable practices in an industry that will, as MBL scientist Jerry Mellilo says, "reshape the Earth's landscape in a significant way."

Air quality, emissions, EPA, fuels for schools, wood chips, particulate matter A study that initially showed air quality problems originating from a school complex heated with woody biomass harvested for forest restoration purposes was found to be in error.  The results with the correct stack height show no problem for PM2.5; the children at the school are not and were never at risk.

A newly minted 1.5 megawatt cogeneration plant capable of producing electricity for up to 1,500 homes was fired up Friday at the Rough & Ready Lumber Co. sawmill. In addition to producing electricity, the $6 million plant will create up to a dozen jobs, including two new jobs at the mill and seven to 10 jobs in the woods, said Jennifer Krauss Phillippi who, along with her husband Link Phillippi, manage the family-owned sawmill.

Public Service of New Hampshire has made the move to renewable energy-and significantly reduced emissions-with the $75 million conversion of a coal-fired power plant to a biomass power plant that is fired with wood chips.

Production time and the cost of fuel ethanol could be slashed using new patented technologies that are undergoing commercial development trials in Australia. Australia's Ethanol Technologies Limited (Ethtec), a Willmott Forests Limited company, today announced that work had begun on a three-year AU$20 million project designed to commercialise the patented fuel ethanol production process.

Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.