Biomass' Double Whammy
Proposals for numerous large-scale wood-burning electrical plants in western Massachusetts are alarming to those of us who are concerned about climate change. These are what you would build if you wanted to do everything possible to increase global warming, because they provide a double whammy.
First, they release copious amounts of carbon dioxide. Take the proposed Russell Biomass plant as an example: According to the developer's own estimates, the facility would emit 1.5 times as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated as the worst carbon dioxide-emitting power plant in the entire Northeast. Second, burning trees destroys carbon sequestration capacity. Just when we most need trees to soak up carbon dioxide, we would cut them down.
Biomass plants would be devastating to forests. Despite happy talk to the contrary, whole trees would be burned, and the state plans to sharply increase logging rates on public land. One can identify clear-cut areas, which are already extensive on State Forests and Parks before even one biomass plant is built, by viewing infrared satellite imagery where the clear-cut areas contrast sharply with the vegetated areas.
Biomass is not carbon neutral. How could it possibly be, when petroleum would be used—and carbon dioxide emitted—to cut the wood, chip it into tiny pieces, and haul it up to 100 miles in trucks that get less than 10 miles to the gallon, to a $150 million plant that would take significant energy to build, where it would then be burned with less than 25 percent efficiency? The only way this could be carbon neutral is if vegetation instantaneously grew back faster than it was burned at the facility. This is not going to happen.
If we allow biomass plants, future generations will rightly ask, "what on earth were they thinking?"
Ellen Moyer
Montgomery
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Harsh Toke, Hadley
Last night Hadley town meeting, in its wisdom, voted to increase the penalty for smoking marijuana in public from the state fine of $100 to $300. In doing this, a vote of 160 to 25 (no actual count was taken, and so this is only an estimate based on the 185 people who attended the meeting) overturned the desire of the 2,000 Hadley residents who voted in favor of the penalty reduction in the recent referendum. According to the town report, the referendum passed in Hadley by a vote of 2,000 to 1,024 with 79 not voting. This case of minority rule strikes me as both unfair and un-American. How can 160 people, in good conscience, make a law against the expressed will of over 2,000 people? As one woman said at the meeting, "Who cares about their so-called rights? They're just a bunch of pot smokers." With this type of attitude, it's not the rights of pot smokers that concern me; it's our democracy that I worry about.
Andy Morris-Friedman
Hadley
