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<\/a>\nHere’s an interesting\n<\/a>\nHere’s an interesting\nvideo interview<\/a>\nwith Dr. William Sammons,\n\nthe doctor who spoke in Traverse City just before that biomass plant was nixed.<\/a>\n\nIs it more important to reach the target … or to say we have new information\nand we need to revise the targets and what qualifies?\n<\/blockquote>\nHe’s talking\nabout potential billions of dollars of health costs from particulates,\nabout\n\n“waste” wood (what they say they will burn) vs. whole trees (what they end up burning),<\/a>\nand most importantly about sustainability.\n\nBiomass plants don’t have to report their CO2<\/sub> emissions,\nso if all the proposed biomass plants get built<\/a>\nwe’re talking about as much as 800 million tons of CO2<\/sub> from\nbiomass plants by 2020, 12 to 14% of total CO2<\/sub>\nemissions for the U.S. (not just power emissions: total national emissions).\n\nTrees don’t grow fast enough<\/a> to suck all that back out of the air in ten years.\n\n\n
\nHe also gets into the economics of how biomass has gotten piggy-backed\non top of wind and solar as a renewable energy source,\nleading to a grant gold rush for biomass proponents to\nbuild it and flip it.\n
\nYou could apply the same economics to a solar plant, with less\npermit red tape, and zero particulate emissions.\n
\nInstead of spending $100 billion of taxpayer money in the\nnext five year supporting biomass, why not spend it in\nretrofitting houses, deploying an electrical smart grid,\nand installing solar and wind.\n\nHere in south Georgia, if we used distributed solar like\nthey do in Austin, Texas,<\/a> we wouldn’t even need to revise\nthe grid first.\nAnd for jobs, how about reforestation,\nwhich produces twice as many jobs as biomass?<\/a>\n