Why Biomass Energy is Important (Part 1) -- CO2 Emissions from Coal Use in Generating Electricity

Coal Use

My Grandfather used to tell me -- "Don't strain at gnats when elephants are running through your garden". The simple message is to focus on the big things first in dealing with a problem.We spend a lot of time talking about coal use in the U.S. to generate electricity, and we don't do this with any intent to bash the coal industry or electric utilities. We present coal data to explain to Policymakers and Environmentalists where the problem is (the...

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Sustainability -- Integrating Biomass Energy, Agriculture, and Land Use

Sustainability

In trying to answer the question "What does the Common Purpose Institute do?", sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.We are advancing sustainable biomass energy development, with a key focus not just on biomass technology (bio-gasification, ethanol production, etc.) and agricultural best practices (e.g., high crop yields) but land use integration as well -- with a critical emphasis on carbon management (sequestration, soil building, environmental...

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Green Energy -- Do Electric Utilities get a Grade of F in Trust?

Green Marketing

The N.Y. Times has an article today on "Green Energy" efforts of Electric Utilities -- specifically the very low participation rates on voluntary programs offered by electric utilities.The article cites that an extremely high percentage of proceeds coming from electricity customers is going to administrative and marketing/advertising expenses rather than capital investments of new renewable energy resources.An example was cited of the Florida Power & Light program where ~75% of customer payments...

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Environmental Groups Get F in Energy 101

Energy Policy

Let's face it -- Most Environmental Groups only begrudgingly accept biomass energy as truly green. In their view, energy options such as wind or solar are much "Greener". After all, although bio-energy can claim the "Carbon Neutral Argument", it still emits air pollutants such as greenhouse gas emissions, where solar and wind do not.The fatal flaw in these Environmental Group's perspective is their failure to understand basic Energy 101 involving electricity generation -- and how an integrated...

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Congress Gets F in Energy 101 (Part 2)

Energy Policy

Renewable Energy World has a current article on the value of the "heat" component CHP (combined heat and power) from biomass energy.The article has the following graph, illustrating the greenhouse gas benefits of the "heat" CHP component, like with using biogas for industrial product drying. Note the highest level of greenhouse gas benefits is the 3rd bar -- the scenario with the highest "heat use" component.But, lets look at how Congress views...

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CO2 Capture at Coal Power Plants

Carbon Sequestration

The New York Times has an interesting story on CO2 capture at coal power plants.To view the story Click HereA couple of points of the N.Y. Times story:For now, no one is sure what it will cost to capture and sequester carbon dioxide from coal plants because the first such project in the nation, at American Electric Power�s coal-fired plant in New Haven, W.Va., got under way only last month. At the moment, the process consumes 30 percent of the coal plant�s energy, but engineers are working to cut...

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