Back in the early 2000s, most people thought biomass power plants seemed like an excellent renewable resource, but now we know better.
Burning excess construction materials and/or wood scraps and pellets — the typical “mass” in biomass — releases an unhealthy level of fine particles, aka permiculate, into the air. It produces 150 percent more carbon dioxide than coal plants, according to the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and 300 to 400 percent more than natural gas.
The scientific jury is still out on how much CO2 is produced when plants converting biomaterials into electricity. But we know that greenhouse gas emissions from the plants equal the CO2 fuel sources scrubbed from the air during their lives as trees. Proponents say this makes biomass a net-neutral emissions form of energy. Opponents ask why we want to replace old pollutants with new ones.
The final nail in the biomass coffin should be this fact: it’s not a sustainable energy resource. Sure, as long as people are building structures and using cardboard and paper, there will be wood waste to burn. But many people in the scientific community believe the amount of biomass power plants need to churn out energy will soon exceed the supply of excess material and encourage clear cutting.
Yet here we are in 2016, fighting a battle in East Springfield to keep a biomass plant out of the city. There shouldn’t be a fight. We know biomass holds little promise to improve the nation’s energy independence. The federal Environmental Protection Agency needs to get off its complacent ass and address the health hazards caused by biomass plants. And the Massachusetts Department of Protection needs to get serious about setting biomass emission standards that won’t allow the plants to foul the air and damage people’s lungs.
Inaction could cost many Springfield citizens their health and possibly some lives. And in that city, the fight goes on.
Palmer Renewable Energy, a joint venture of Caletta a partnership between Palmer Paving and Barletta Engineering of Canton, has been negotiating since 2008 with the city and numerous state courts to build a $150 million 35-megawatt wood to energy plant on the grounds of Palmer Paving off Page Boulevard.
While many city officials and people in the community have opposed the project, the city in 2008 issued a special permit for Palmer Renewable Energy’s plant. It was quickly revoked. In 2011, the city’s building commissioner issued a permit for the plant, and the Zoning Board of Appeals rescinded it. Court battles ensued and, in the end, Palmer Renewable Energy prevailed. Now the energy company is battling Springfield’s Public Health Council, which is seeking to assert authority over the permitting process due to the plant’s potential to harm residents’ health. And Palmer Renewable Energy is threatening to slap Springfield with a $200 million lawsuit if the council thwarts it.
Sadly, the Public Health Council is likely to lose this fight. There’s a whole series of state court cases that side with the plant’s ability to build. And asserting the plant will be a health hazard will be near-impossible because the state Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have failed to set healthy standards for biomass.
The EPA has taken a back seat to big business in setting biomass plant regulations; this includes exempting biomass plants from carbon emission standards for three years, 2011-2014, as a way to see what impact the plants would have on people and the environment. At the conclusion of those three years, the EPA issued guidelines, which were more like a promise of future guidelines that would provide greenhouse gas exemptions for “waste-derived feedstocks and from non-waste biogenic feedstocks derived from sustainable forest or agricultural practices.”
That’s pretty damned broad.
And the DEP let us down when it approved the Palmer Renewable Energy project back in 2011 and issued an air quality permit for the plant.
Springfield citizens have been fighting the Palmer Renewable Energy plan for more than seven years by putting up roadblocks and delays where they can — the sole tool a community can wield when a large project of any sort comes to town. It’s long, exhausting work full of setbacks, but the reward is a cleaner, healthier city. Greenfield fought a similar battle against a biomass plant plan from Madera Energy submitted in 2009. It took a couple of years, but the community was able to eventually halt developers on a technicality when Madera missed the opportunity to sign an amendment. Madera, of course, could have refiled, but perhaps officials there were too worn down by Greenfield’s efforts to bother.
Keep up the good fight Springfield; a better future is a realistic reward.•
Kristin Palpini can be contacted at editor@valleyadvocate.com.
