By Shoshana Hebshi
Redwood Chapter Communications Coordinator
Daniel Barad, Biomass campaign representative for Sierra Club California, presented to Sonoma Group Conservation Committee and members of the public on Monday, Oct. 7 on the problematic situation with biomass powerplants throughout the state.
Barad, who has been studying this issue since 2017, said since the tree mortality crisis began in 2010, the State of California has allowed and provided subsidies for biomass powerplants to remove dead trees from public lands. The powerplants transport the trees to their facilities and incinerate them to create electricity.
“129 million trees died between 2012 and 2017,” said Barad. “Gov. Brown created the tree mortality task force in 2015, which could have done a lot of good things, like drawing attention to forestry management. It could have addressed the risks of dying trees, and it could have funded tree removal projects on the most dangerous trees and figured out how to use the trees in the most efficient ways. Instead, Brown propped up six biomass facilities, which were about to lose their contracts. They were not in the best locations, and they used this crisis to get new contracts.”
Biomass plants emit three times as much carbon as natural gas (methane) and 1.5 times as much as coal. Its emissions include fine particulate matter, which is very toxic and causes significant health issues, including asthma, among people who live near the plants.
Three of these plants are located in the Redwood Chapter region in Humboldt County.
Not only are these biomass plants a form of dirty energy, they also are expensive to operate. Trucks must transport the wood, grind it into wood chips and then burn it. Because of the expense, facilities look to find the cheapest and closest fuel, which includes nearby agricultural waste and green waste trucked out of cities. They also use material from commercial logging operations and clear-cutting operations.
The high cost of this energy generation is passed on to the ratepayers when we use electricity.
Sierra Club California recommends spreading the word about the problems with biomass incineration by contacting your local state legislators, writing letters to the editor or op-eds or participate in in-district lobbying.
Read more about biomass on the Sierra Club California website.