The spin doctors on either side of the bioenergy divide have been hard at work spinning a recently released study on biomass sustainability into whatever the PR equivalent of gold is.
A few weeks back, the Pinchot Institute, a national conservation organization, issued a press release that began:
Washington DC, June 11, 2010 – “Bioenergy technologies, even biomass electric power compared to natural gas electric, look favorable when biomass waste-wood is compared to fossil fuel alternatives.” Thus concludes a study released this week by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, and by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources, which funded the study.
Ten days later, the Biomass Thermal Energy Council released essentially the same press release:
WASHINGTON, June 21, 2010 - The Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy Study, a recently released report commissioned by the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (MA DOER) and authored by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences, affirms the environmental benefits of using biomass for thermal energy.
What’s surreal is that during this same timeframe, anti-biomass organizations nationwide were using this same 182-page study to claim that biomass is worse for the environment than coal. And unfortunately for those who see biomass as a proactive fuel source, most media outlets seemed to glom on to this later version of events. Google the words “wood worse than coal,” then take a gander at all the news outlets screaming just that in their headlines (and we’re talking ABC news, CBS news, AP, not just Coal Industry News.) I had a different incarnation of the Manomet-says-wood-is-worse-than-coal story come up for the first 49 entries in my search, an unbroken stream of misinformation until chowhound.com broke the string with a lively debate on wood/coal vs. gas barbeque techniques.
To their credit, the Manomet Biomass Study Team has released a more crisply worded statement of their findings. (See it at: http://www.manomet.org/sites/manomet.org/files/Manomet%20Statement%20062110b.pdf ). In this clarification, they state unequivocally that ‘wood worse than coal’ is an inaccurate interpretation of their findings. They reaffirmed the conventional wisdom that while burning wood does emit more green house gasses initially than fossil fuels, these emissions are removed from the atmosphere as harvested forests re-grow.
We’ll see if biomass proponents can use this statement to lure the cat back into the bag.
In the meantime, we’re hard at work on a story that sets the record straight on biomass. Across our region, communities are grappling with how best to harness biomass energy, and we aspire to be a source of information that people can use. The piece will cover biomass basics, and explore some of the frequent questions that seem to be swirling around the debate.
I’d love to know, as we’re working on the piece, what you think, what you wonder. What questions do you have about biomass? What don’t you understand, or conversely, what do you understand that’s not being reported? Thanks for your insight, and stay tuned for this story in the autumn issue.
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