Massachusetts regulators are seeking public comment on proposed new rules governing the state’sbiomass energy industry.
The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources said the new regulations followed more than two years of evaluation, public input, and careful consideration.
Regulators said they were looking for the best rules to govern the use biomass resources for energy — including trees — in a manner that is consistent with the state’s commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect forests.Environmental activists, many of whom had protested earlier versions of the regulations, said they support the new rules for wood-burning power plants in Massachusetts.“Massachusetts made history today,” said Mary Booth, director of the Partnership for Public Integrity (PFPI), an environmental policy organization that commented extensively on the regulations. “The Patrick administration sorted out fact from fiction when it comes to biomass energy. In the end, they sided with science, and with the people of Massachusetts.”
Booth points out that the regulations respond to concerns that burning wood releases 50 percent more carbon into the atmosphere than burning coal, and three times more than burning natural gas, per unit energy generated.
“Nothing puts carbon dioxide pollution into the air faster than cutting and burning forests”, explained Booth. “Governor Patrick’s administration deserves enormous credit for drafting the first science-based policy in the country and recognizing that high-emissions biomass power doesn’t belong in a renewable energy portfolio alongside no-emissions technologies like wind and solar power. ”
“Incineration of trees and garbage should not get ratepayer subsidies intended for ‘clean and green’ energy,” said Meg Sheehan, chair of the Massachusetts-based Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign. “These regulations are an important step to ensuring that when trees are burned for energy, it is done in the most efficient way that also preserves our forests. We will continue our efforts to protect forests and the public health from incinerators that try to disguise themselves as ‘green’ energy.”
“The new rules are a major step forward for the Massachusetts clean energy agenda,” said James McCaffrey, Director of the Massachusetts Chapter Sierra Club. “By raising the bar for what qualifies as truly green energy, Massachusetts will achieve significant greenhouse gas reductions compared to treating all biomass fuel as ‘renewable’ even when whole trees are cut from the forest and burned at only 20 percent efficiency.”
“The new rules are firmly rooted in science,” McCaffrey added. “Not industry rhetoric and outdated claims that burning trees for electricity is ‘carbon-neutral.’ Massachusetts is a leader on renewables and energy efficiency, and is now the first in the nation to update its biomass energy incentive programs to yield higher efficiency and less environmental impacts. These new regulations will create jobs by driving innovation in the renewable energy sector while curbing CO2 emissions, raising efficiency standards, and preserving our finite forest resources.”
“Massachusetts has had several large facilities proposed that could consume large swaths of New England’s forests while polluting the air and water of the Commonwealth. The new rules indicate that these large, inefficient, and polluting biomass power-plants will no longer be rewarded with ratepayer incentives, and hopefully will never be built at all,” McCaffrey concluded.
A 30-day public comment period will be held from May 19 to June 18.
The state expects to have final regulations in place this summer.
