They came for Biomass everyone was silent. Then my stove?

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Tylervt

Tylervt

Member
Nov 11, 2013
61
Vermont
Kind of strange tax credits for Biomass then biomass is bad. As it stands now hydro, solar, wind and biomass, all considered renewable generation.
Could Biomass soon be gone? What next,they don't want to stop there.

So when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine, biomass can fill in the energy gap, similar to burning fossil fuels. Biomass plants also have the added benefit of being one of the only markets for waste wood.

But there is tension over whether biomass has a place in Vermont.
www.wcax.com

Is burning wood really renewable? Reconsidering biomass in Vermont

While Burlington's McNeil Generating Station continues to pump out electricity for the city, Green Mountain Power and other utilities, the fate of biomass hangs in the balance. Our Kevin Gaiss reports.
www.wcax.com www.wcax.com
 
There has been pretty steady dumbeat against biomass in VT for 20 plus years. once BERCs founders went away and the remains got sucked up by Efficiency VT, advocacy for biomass went away. Two of the largest utilites in VT are owned by Canadian Firms with access to "hydro" of questionable provenance, so they would much rather sell more power sourced over the border than doing the responsible thing. There is also a lot of money being pumped into trying to ban logging in the GMNF. And even more money is pushing large landowners in locking up the land in carbon storage despite really questionable proof that it works.

BTW VT used to heavily subsidize school and municipal biomass boilers, unfortunately they did not do their homework and allowed systems to be installed with no emissions equipment. They had particulate issues in several areas of the state. I think a lot of schools now are burning the precision dried chips or high graded chips by a broker which helps but does not solve the issue.
 
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There's also some evidence that biomass is not really a sustainable fuel for energy production.
 
There used to be several biomass plants in our area and they closed simply because they were not economically viable when compared to other options.

Especially once the pellet plants opened up in the area creating competition for the waste wood
 
I thought biomass just got added under the new climate plan part of the IRA. It's been powering Seattle's steam plant downtown for several years now.
 
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