Burning Biomass to Produce Electricity: Folly and Tomfoolery

My friend, Denny Haldeman, a longstanding Heartwood member, over a decade ago warned that biomass burning was an issue that had not yet come to fruition but to keep a look out for it. He took the lead on this; many others have recently joined him in opposing the biomass juggernaut heading for all of our lungs.

Over the years in Southern Missouri we warded off two attempts to install incinerators to burn municipal solid waste (one for the local communities and one for the waste from Ft. Leonard Wood) and most recently two years ago, a pyrolisis plant proposed by a Canadian company, Dynomotive, to produce heavy heating oil from “wood waste”. All three of these “wonderful” projects were attracted to the Missouri Ozarks because of our abundance of forests, forest products, wood waste and an unsuspecting population not familiar with the problems of such devices. As some of us attended public meetings, asked questions and alerted people to the seriousness of the potential health risks and environmental risks, these ideas were abandoned.

Enter: BIOMASS BURNING FOR ELECTRICAL PRODUCTION/ Liberty Green Renewables, LLC in Perryville, Missouri.

It sounds good at first. Liberty- everyone believes in Liberty; Green, now everyone wants to be “Green” in light of global climate change; Renewables-everyone wants “renewable and sustainable” to save us from our current energy gluttony and dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels. Mushy and ill-defined words all too often make for bad policies. Liberty Green Renewables proposes to build and operate a 32 megawatt electrical generating station in Perryville, ostensibly using only waste wood-sawdust, slabs and shavings- oh yeah and maybe small unmarketable standing timber such as hickory, hackberry, maple etc., etc. It is currently proposing two such plants in Southern Indiana, less than 40 miles apart. Each of these plants has a 75 mile radius of resource extraction possibilities.

Enter: Congress

Two Missouri delegates to Congress, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo-4th District) and Jo Ann Emerson-Gladney (R-Mo-8th District) have also sponsored legislation that will prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases like CO2 an NOX. This legislation will also expand the definition of “biomass” to include municipal solid waste, sewage sludge, building waste, wastes from CAFOs, plastic, medical waste and tires! (A chicken CAFO waste burner has been suggested for Northwest Arkansas. Arsenic in chicken feed would then go airborne- not a good development for NW Arkansas/Southwest Missouri.)

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the so-called Stimulus Package) released $787 billion to restart our damaged economy. Approximately $100 billion of that is to be invested in “renewable” energy. In the congressional world of unintended consequences and fuzzy language, this could spell disaster for the nation’s remaining forests and our collective health. It diverts scarce funds from real long-term energy solutions like conservation, innovation and efficiency.

It’s also an urgent and timely issue because we are fighting two wars over foreign oil/our soldiers are dying. The coal mining disaster in West Virginia where 25+ miners have died bringing us coal for our electrical power generation.

Enter: Dr. William Sammons, pediatrician, activist and 21st century Paul Revere

“Dr. Bill” is from Boston, Massachusetts, where he is a practicing pediatrician of some 30 years. A fly fishing hobby put him at loggerheads with several biomass burning to electricity projects in Western Massachusetts, which would severely impact some of the rivers in which he liked to fish. He began to educate himself on the topic. The more he learned, the more he knew he needed to learn. Little was actually known two years ago about the effects of biomass extraction and burning and it was apparent to him that a lot was ASSUMED. Much of what was known and assumed was based on decades’ old assumptions and very little study. Studies that have recently come to light do not paint a good picture of biomass burning.

Attacking this issue with the fervor of a student of medicine, Dr. Sammons has discovered that:
1) Biomass burning for electrical generation is about 30% dirtier than coal combustion per unit of energy produced. Bad for climate change and definitely not “green”.
2) The particulate matter released in biomass combustion is very damaging to human biology. PM-2.5 particles (2.5 microns) and nano particles (less than a micron) will be emitted by thousands of tons into the air. Asthmatics, people with emphysema and cardio-pulmonary diseases will be severely impacted. New medical information suggests that such material can even cause premature births. These diseases are expensive to treat and would exacerbate our already burgeoning health care costs. Preventing dirtier air is the better choice.
3) Previous assumptions about burning trees were that the younger fast growing trees sequestered more carbon than the older ones (200+ years). Recent studies in Canada and Alaska indicate that the opposite is true. Older trees store more carbon than younger ones and it takes a minimum of 20 years of new growth till the younger trees begin to sequester carbon and at least 100 years before the forest sequesters what is lost through clear cutting and the soil disturbance associated with it. Much of the carbon held in a forest is held in the humus in forest soils. This would be cutting off our noses to spite our forest face.
4) The economics of biomass burning are totally distorted and out of phase with normal “free-market” economics. Recent federal grants and subsidies in the so-called “Stimulus Package” are the cause of the proliferation of these plants. There are many people looking to make lots of money quickly. Plants that are begun in 2010 and are completed by 2013 will recover about 30% of their capital costs, courtesy of the American taxpayer. Here we go again-enriching a few at the great expense of the many!
5) Companies can also claim ZERO carbon emissions because there is a loophole in the “renewable energy rules” at the EPA that exempt counting the emission of CO2 in biomass burners. This is a deadly and dangerous rule based on false assumptions. Dr. Sammons and anyone who took a high school chemistry class knows that two things are always emitted from the combustion of organic matter-CARBON DIOXIDE and WATER. Claims to the contrary are false and foolishly dangerous during our discussion of global climate change and possible human influences. Liberty Green has made such claims in Indiana. Biomass burners must be treated on an equal footing with other forms of combustion to electricity plants. No exemptions based on false assumptions!

Dr. Sammons has been to Missouri twice now. He offered his presentations to the people of Perryville and West Plains and has met with government officials and environmental activists as well as members of the press. I’m sure this won’t be his last visit to Missouri. He is also meeting with congressional delegates, testifying before congressional committees and meeting with the EPA and other agencies, trying to update them and persuade them to take a fresh look at this issue.

We hear rumors of other biomass burners being planned in the Scenic Rivers Region near Salem and in Ava on the Bryant Creek watershed. Did I mention that these biomass burners are a boiler type that use upward of one million gallons of water per day. They leave the water dirtier and hotter than when they found it.
There is also the question of the toxic fly ash that would be left over after the biomass is burned. Depending on what was burned, we could be left with disposing of thousands of tons of lead, arsenic and dioxin-tainted ash. Some companies propose to sell it to farmers as “fertilizer”. They forget or are unaware that the Ozarks is a karst region, an area of thin soils, sinkholes, losing streams and caves. Our ground water is entirely vulnerable to what is placed upon the surface.

This issue is hitting fast and hard because there is a time limit on the government gravy train. Please do your own research and ask your own questions. If you need to contact Dr. Sammons, his email address is: drsammons@aol.com

Valuable websites:
www.scottsburgbiomass.com

http://www.nobiomassburn.org

http://www.flcv.com/biomass.html

-Tom Kruzen
Missouri Water Sentinel Volunteer