To Ardee, I refer to the dirty coal retrieved from mountaintop removal in Appalachia, and I’ve read that 5-7 percent figure in many articles recently.  Most of them cite EPA for those figures.  On Ilovemountains.org they say that all this devastating destruction is for less than 5 percent of our country’s energy needs.

Bliss Doubt, August 5 at 9:47 am

I am curious as to your statistics, can you post a link to them?

Coal itself provides 57% of our energy to date.

http://www.powerscorecard.org/tech_detail.cfm?resource_id=2

I read that mountaintop removal for dirty coal provides 5 to 7 percent of our nation’s energy needs per year.  If only the mining of garbage for energy could be advanced quickly enough to cover that, the coal companies would have no apologetic for their abominable practice!

Wow, it’s nice to read some good news. Onion juice, of all things - and I thought it was just for breakfast!

hello. biomass is not garbage, it is recyclable composition. recycling is a green energy that could expand in today’s economy. nanotechnology applies embedded metals in paints so you can now actually paint solar receptors on your house. i agree that getting government out of the way and directing incentives to the user end of the energy spectrum could motivate investment that would put people back to work. redirecting even incrementally at first will eventually break the stranglehold of the fossil fuels industry. their biomass stinks.

Gives new meaning to “Electric Kool-Aid” doesn’t it?

Seems one of the easiest ways to reduce consumption is paint roofs white, except in extreme northern climes.

I received a sales pitch to “go green” by putting in a solar heating system. I tried to explain to the guy that my apartment was designed to catch solar heat so I didn’t need his expensive system. Rather than turn on the heat (and further degrade the environment) I open the curtains.

Why aren’t more houses built with passive solar? It seems like the best solution, to use less, because there’s always opportunity costs when you buy energy. Bio fuels are responsible for mass hunger in Latin America, where the price of corn has soared.

I applaud the small steps in forward thinking indicated by this article. I would urge michaellamb to footnote his criticisms in order to evaluate them.

I have noted in the past that, to replace our offshored industrial capacities we will lead the way in new technologies. This article shows that premise to have at least a bit of weight.

Every one of these plants has to be evaluated individually—“biomass” per se means nothing.  Of the three biomass plants proposed for Western Massachusetts, two will burn wood from our forests and have been designated carbon-neutral because in 40 years, another tree will mature and take the place of the tree that is cut.  I thought we didn’t HAVE 40 years to get control of global warming.

The third plant, proposed for Springfield, will burn up to 75% “construction and demolition” wood, which can be saturated with arsenic, covered with lead paint and worse.  Palmer Renewable Energy admits the plant will add an additional 4 tons of lead to the atmosphere every year. 

As a trade-off for our health and our forests, the plants will meet quite a bit less than 1% of Massachusetts’ energy needs.

We don’t need these plants, they’re a big scam, and we’re fighting to keep them from being built.

hello. 3mil in government and utility incentives- very deceptive. this onion plant is much better off, than the farmers that are knee deep in biomass, if they are able to invest 9mil. it is so small a scale, although incrementally it will help- still this does not present itself as a huge doable commitment that will help more than 1 million people across our entire country. this presents itself as the beginning of the propaganda, to pass ‘cap and trade’, to tax every homeowner $100/month on their electric bill. as the article mentioned- it just needs to squeak through the Senate. can you smell it? this is a good place for line item veto. i do agree algae holds the most promise for capitalization of biomass, and breaking the hold of the oil and natural gas barons is good for the present, as well as the future. this is remarkable to see the onion factory taking initiative, even if their motives were fueled by the bottom line.

Colorado Springs burns a train load of Wyoming Coal every 3 days for electricity thus generating 220 Lbs. of mercury in our air every year (ever wonder why we have so many Christian zealots?) We have 170,000 acres of dead pine less than 30 miles away from several fires that just rots and blows over in the wind. The power plant could convert in days and you know why they do not? The coal companys and the rail road would lose CONTROL and until the the re-newable energy congressional bribes out pace the standard energy company bribes it is STATUS QUO !!!

Obama calls for tire guages and gets ridicule, We could install small computers to read out our MPG second by second and turn driving into a video game that saves us money for about $100.00, white roofs to reflect the suns radiation into space, Plant trees to suck CO2. It is endless, people! but why not? The corporations want our energy for them selves. By putting solar panels on ones house, recycling waste water and driving lets say a Plug in Hybrid, One removes the control from the Corporation and this can not be tolerated, not today. I am planning a green house and a 120 MPG vehichle, YOU??

That’s great, really. But it has the same problem as using waste vegetable oil as feedstock for biodiesel production. That is, the amount that’s available is limited. Personally, I think micro algae shows the most promise.