carbon sequestration – Enviro Updates

SuzanneApril 24, 2024May 8, 2024Air, Climate Change & Energy, Forestsair pollution, biomass energy, carbon sequestration, greenwashing, trees

Op-Ed: The growing threat of the biomass energy industry

Jenny Blaker, SONOMA COUNTY PEACE PRESS

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Update – good news on legislation!

We need to understand the insidious, growing threat of the biomass energy industry, specifically forest-based bioenergy. Bioenergy turns forests into electricity, liquid biofuels, and fuel pellets for export on the international market. Touted as renewable, it is not clean, renewable or carbon neutral. It is devastating to human health and communities, to forests, watersheds, and wildlife habitat, and only worsens the climate crisis.

Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR) plans to build two massive fuel pellet processing plants in Tuolumne and Lassen counties, targeting 1 million tons of wood pellets per year for export, via the port of Stockton, to Europe and Asia. On June 30, 2023, 109 organizations, including scientists, doctors, environmentalists and others, wrote to GSNR vehemently opposing the project because of its potential impacts to climate, communities, and forests.

On February 28, 2024, GSNR ratified an MOU with the giant UK energy company Drax, the second largest biomass energy company in the world. Drax already runs 18 fuel pellet plants in the USA and Canada. Now it is targeting California, which has 33 million acres of forests.

In a shocking exposé of Drax in October 22, the BBC revealed that Drax is responsible for the destruction of millions of acres of mature and old growth trees in Canada and southeast USA. The company’s assertions that it uses only waste wood were proven to be false. Drax is by far the largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the UK. It is subsidized by UK taxpayers to the tune of around £1.4 billion (about $1.8 billion) in subsidies up until last year.

Continue reading “Op-Ed: The growing threat of the biomass energy industry”

SuzanneOctober 12, 2023November 6, 2023Climate Change & Energy, Sustainable Livingcarbon sequestration, heat islands, urban trees

Petaluma gets $1 million to plant more trees

Jennifer Sahwney, PETLUMA ARGUS-COURIER

The city of Petaluma announced it has received a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service to expand its tree canopy over the next three years.

The plan is to plant about 2,550 trees, said Wendy Jacobs of ReLeaf Petaluma, a local nonprofit that will undertake much of the day-to-day project management.

The tree-planting initiative is part of the Petaluma Canopy Project, a collaborative partnership between the city and local nonprofits including ReLeaf Petaluma, Daily Acts, Rebuilding Together Petaluma, Point Blue Conservation and Cool Petaluma.

The project will “plant trees around parks, schools, residential areas, and our riverbank, with the aim of restoring native species,” according to a news release.

Part of the strategy is to prioritize areas where the city’s low-income residents live and gather, “which typically have fewer trees than other parts of the city,” the release said.

More trees support the city’s climate goals, reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and decrease noise, water and air pollution. The shade they provide also lowers ambient temperatures, the release said.

SuzanneMarch 21, 2022March 21, 2022Climate Change & Energy, Forestsbiomass-burning, carbon sequestration

The myth of forest biomass energy

Jenny Blaker and Janis Watkins, SONOMA COUNTY GAZETTE

Please ask your Supervisor to ban the local processing of forest biomass to bioenergy, and prohibit the export of local forest biomass for bioenergy.

On January 20, 2017, Donald J. Trump assumed the Presidency. The forest product industry almost immediately pushed a lobbying campaign to fully legitimize burning forests for energy. In 2016, industry scientists claimed to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that burning forest biomass is carbon neutral. Independent scientists said burning trees for energy is dirtier than coal.

In 2018, Republicans passed legislation establishing biomass as a “carbon neutral” fuel. This act was implemented by successive EPA heads – disgraced Scott Pruitt and coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler – and MAGA stalwart Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, along with corruption-prone Secretary of Energy Rick Perry. Our nation’s climate policy was in thrall to industry.

Forest “Health”

Trump is gone but his biomass legacy endures. Nationally and locally we are told the forests can be burned for “renewable” biomass energy because this helps improve forest “health.” Neither statement is true. We cannot trust slanted industry studies and models that claim we need forest treatments. They cherry-pick evidence and make questionable assumptions to reach pro-industry conclusions. The influence of money is driving the narrative recommending large continuing forest “treatments” to provide “feedstock” for biomass energy generation.

For example, the Forest Service’s budget depends on making money on logging. Its strategy for the wildfire crisis focuses on “thinning” (logging) on public lands to prevent wildfire intrusion into communities, targeting 80% removal in some areas. Many other scientists dispute this is the best way to mitigate community risk. “Thinning” makes the forest hotter, drier and windier – and more susceptible to wind-driven fire. Still, the industry pushes for more forest “feedstock” to fuel experimental biomass plants sited in the forests.

In 2022, the State of California issued a Roadmap targeting over 1 million acres of forest lands annually for “treatment.” This vast initiative also targets Emerging Opportunities for Forest Biomass, including biofuels.

SuzanneMarch 3, 2022March 7, 2022Forests, Sustainable Livingcarbon sequestration, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, logging, redwoods

For 70 years, a Mendocino forest has been used to promote logging. Is it time to change its mission?

Mary Callahan, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

MENDOCINO COAST — Even in the fading light of dusk, a 200-foot-tall redwood known as the “Mama Tree” is an exalted presence.

Her imposing height and girth show she has been on earth far longer than anyone who might find comfort in her shade.

Near her base, a downed log serves as an altar, displaying stones, a seashell, pictures, a pink crystal triangle and a bird’s lost feather — talismans left by visitors who travel along a well-used trail nearby.

In Mama Tree’s branches, 65 feet above ground, a tented wooden platform occupied by a variety of committed protesters last year is vacant, waiting, a long banner hanging just below it.

“Save and Protect Jackson State,” it says. “The Forest of the People.”

For more than a year, this spot in the sprawling Jackson Demonstration State Forest has become a rallying point in an intensifying battle over the future of the nearly 50,000-acre expanse of public land, an area nearly twice as large as the city of San Francisco.

The forest, which extends east from the central Mendocino Coast about 100 miles northwest of Santa Rosa, was set aside seven decades ago to extol the virtues of responsible logging.

Now, however, activists say it’s time to rethink its purpose. Each massive redwood that is cut down can no longer absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere and becomes one less weapon in the battle against climate change.

SuzanneOctober 14, 2021October 21, 2021Forestscarbon sequestration, Jackson Demonstration State Forest, redwoods, timber harvest plan, tribal land

How a California state forest became a battleground for logging redwoods on public land

Ashley Harrell, SFGATE

A century-old redwood — California’s most revered tree — lies dead on the forest floor.

Its trunk has been sawed into two large sections, a message scrawled on its stump in red marker: “STOP.” Beneath, the stump’s diameter is recorded: 55 inches, about the height of a 10-year-old child. Lower still, in smaller letters, another message: “This is not fire prevention.”

Surrounding this tree are other redwoods that have been felled or girdled, meaning large swaths of their bark have been carved away from their trunks. More redwoods are marked blue — they too are slated for a timber harvest. Dead foliage and piles of branches abound.

The wounded and dead trees look like casualties left behind on a battlefield. And in a way, that’s what they are.

Welcome to Jackson Demonstration State Forest, a 48,652-acre forest managed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire). Although it’s little-known outside the coastal Northern California county of Mendocino, Jackson has become ground zero in an escalating war over the management of redwoods on public land, with catastrophic wildfires and global climate change necessitating urgency and raising the stakes.

SuzanneApril 25, 2021April 25, 2021Climate Change & Energy, Sustainable Livingcarbon farming, carbon sequestration, packaging, recycling

Clover Sonoma remade the milk carton to help reduce greenhouse gases

Bill Swindell, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Trying to combat climate change, Clover Sonoma is casting a wide net throughout its operations to curb greenhouse gases. That includes the dumpster.

The Petaluma-based dairy processor has for years worked to improve its environmental stewardship. The effort took on even greater importance since 2016 when it became a B Corporation. Such companies are graded on their earth friendly measures, treatment of workers, overall relationship with the local community and business governance.

For Clover, the range of actions include working with the 30 dairies that send their milk to the processor to generate products from organic milk to cream cheese to butter. In addition, a new carbon farming test project is set to begin later this year.

The collaboration with the dairy farmers makes sense because the family-owned company found that about two-thirds of its overall greenhouse gas emissions are tied to farming practices, said Kristal Corson, chief revenue officer of the regional dairy powerhouse with about 260 employees and $235 million in annual revenue the past year.

“In addition to sort of helping farms figure out ways they can be more sustainable and doing those different efforts, we’ve also been trying to attack it on the packaging,” Corson said.

Clover Sonoma’s cartons, containers and wrappings are the second-largest source of its greenhouse gases at about 12%. That even outpaces transportation of milk with delivery trucks, which contribute an estimated 7% of emissions.

The spotlight on packaging led Clover to a notable achievement last summer, when it unveiled the first milk carton in the United States made from renewable sources. While it may not go back to the old days of the milkman picking up the used glass bottles in exchange for new ones, Clover intends to make a big environmental contribution by incorporating the new product design into all of its milk cartons by 2025.

SuzanneApril 6, 2021April 13, 2021Climate Change & Energy, Sonoma Coastcarbon sequestration, eelgrass, ocean ecosystems

Underwater meadows of California seagrass found to reverse symptom of climate change

Tara Duggan, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Eelgrass, a plant that grows in “underwater meadows” along the California coast and emerges like a floating carpet at low tide, is already known to be an important habitat for fish, birds and baby Dungeness crabs. It turns out it can also reduce seawater’s acidity back to preindustrial levels, creating refuges for animals who can’t tolerate that byproduct of climate change.

That’s the conclusion of a six-year study published recently by the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. It showed eelgrass meadows in seven California locations decreased ocean acidity by up to 30%. Because acidification, the result of the ocean absorbing increasing amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, has increased by 30% due to climate change, the plant has the ability to reverse the effects in its habitat.

The report, published in the journal Global Change Biology, is the most extensive study to show seagrass’ long-term ability to ameliorate ocean acidification. Its authors say it shows the importance of protecting seagrass meadows, which have shrunk in number and size globally because of pollution and development, so they may support wildlife as well as the production of farmed oysters, mussels and abalone.

“Because these systems are on the decline in many areas around the world, I would like this research to support many seagrass restoration efforts,” said lead author Aurora M. Ricart of the Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences in Maine, who was doing postdoctoral research at the Bodega Marine Lab during the study.

SuzanneMarch 27, 2021March 26, 2021Climate Change & Energy, Forestsbiomass-burning, carbon sequestration, deforestation, wood products

The ‘green energy’ that might be ruining the planet

Michael Grunwald, POLITICO

Here’s a multibillion-dollar question that could help determine the fate of the global climate: If a tree falls in a forest—and then it’s driven to a mill, where it’s chopped and chipped and compressed into wood pellets, which are then driven to a port and shipped across the ocean to be burned for electricity in European power plants—does it warm the planet?

Most scientists and environmentalists say yes: By definition, clear-cutting trees and combusting their carbon emits greenhouse gases that heat up the earth. But policymakers in the U.S. Congress and governments around the world have declared that no, burning wood for power isn’t a climate threat—it’s actually a green climate solution. In Europe, “biomass power,” as it’s technically called, is now counted and subsidized as zero-emissions renewable energy. As a result, European utilities now import tons of wood from U.S. forests every year—and Europe’s supposedly eco-friendly economy now generates more energy from burning wood than from wind and solar combined.

Biomass power is a fast-growing $50 billion global industry, and it’s not clear whether the climate-conscious administration of President Joe Biden will try to accelerate it, discourage it or ignore it. It’s usually obvious which energy sources will reduce carbon emissions, even when the politics and economics are tricky; everyone agrees that solar and wind are cleaner than coal. But when it comes to power from ground-up trees, there’s still a raging substantive debate about whether it’s a forest-friendly, carbon-neutral alternative to fossil fuels, or an environmental disaster. Even within the Biden administration, senior officials have taken different sides of that debate.

Biden’s answer will be extremely important, because as odd as it sounds during a clean-tech revolution driven by modern innovations like advanced batteries and smart grids, there’s been a resurgence in the old-fashioned technique of burning wood to produce energy. The idea that setting trees on fire could be carbon-neutral sounds even odder to experts who know that biomass emits more carbon than coal at the smokestack, plus the carbon released by logging, processing logs into vitamin-sized pellets and transporting them overseas. And solar panels can produce 100 times as much power per acre as biomass.

SuzanneNovember 11, 2020Climate Change & Energycarbon bank, carbon sequestration, climate action plans, electric vehicles, ghg emissions, ghg reduction

How Biden aims to amp up the government’s fight against climate change

Juliet Eilperin and Annie Linskey, THE WASHINGTON POST

A new administration would enlist departments like Transportation, Agriculture and Treasury to advance its climate goals

President-elect Joe Biden is poised to embed action on climate change across the breadth of the federal government, from the departments of Agriculture to Treasury to State — expanding it beyond environmental agencies to speed U.S. efforts to mitigate global warming and to acknowledge that the problem touches many aspects of American life.

The far-reaching strategy is aimed at making significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions even without congressional action, by maximizing executive authority.

“From the very beginning of the campaign, when President-elect Biden rolled out his climate plan, he made it clear he sees this as an all-of-government agenda, domestic, economic, foreign policy,” said Stef Feldman, campaign policy director for Biden, a Democrat. “From the very beginning, when he talked about infrastructure, he talked about making sure that it built in climate change, that we are making our communities more resilient to the effects of climate change.”

The vast majority of scientists agree that carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases released when humans burn fossil fuels is helping warm Earth. On the campaign trail, Biden proposed the most aggressive plan of any major party nominee to try to slow that warming.

In a sign of how Biden has already elevated the issue, he discussed the topic with every European head of state with whom he spoke on Tuesday, including the leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Ireland. Biden has started frequently referring to the climate “crisis,” suggesting a heightened level of urgency.

SuzanneMay 4, 2020May 11, 2020Climate Change & Energy, Forestscarbon sequestration, fire prevention

The benefits of headwater forest management

Lori Pottinger, PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA

The health of California’s headwater forests is in decline, leaving them increasingly vulnerable to major wildfires and droughts that threaten the many benefits they provide. Even in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic, California must plan for the upcoming fire season, and continue work to reduce its risks. At a virtual event last week, PPIC researcher Henry McCann described how improved management can make Sierra forests more resilient and avoid major wildfire-related disasters, and summarized the findings of a new report that identifies the benefits and beneficiaries of such management practices.

“Expanding on the pace and scale of long-term forest stewardship is going to be a heavy lift for private and public entities,” said McCann. “Developing a clear sense of the benefits and beneficiaries of improving forest health is key to motivating long-term stewardship and identifying the partners to support it.”

An expert panel moderated by study coauthor and UC cooperative extension specialist Van Butsic discussed how this translates into practice.

Watch the video here.

What does the science tell us about managing California’s wildfire- and drought-prone forests? “It tells us there are opportunities for win-win scenarios, where a forest treatment designed to reduce fire risk will likely also have other benefits—for carbon storage, biodiversity, wildlife habitat, water output,” said panelist Carmen Tubbesing, a PhD candidate in forest ecosystems and fire sciences at UC Berkeley.

Environmental Center of Sonoma County

Tag: carbon sequestration