President Neil Seldman of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance will be here on April 29th to discuss opportunities for small business start up, new green jobs and an expanded local tax base.  Seldman is coming at the invitation of the Concerned Citizens of Gadsden County, Inc.  The evening meeting (6 to 8 p.m.) will take place at the Multipurpose Center of the New Bethel AME Church located at 23209 Blue Star Hwy across from the hospital in Quincy, Florida.

Seldman is a national and international expert in resource management, working with citizen groups and small business groups interested in expanding recycling and composting as an alternative to incineration and landfilling of garbage.  The Concerned Citizens of Gadsden County believe that that the information promoted by ILSR furthers our mission “to promote sustainable, self-reliant economic development for Gadsden County, Florida, that preserves residents’ quality of life, environment, and natural resources; and to oppose economic development that is contrary to these principles.”
The Institute for Local Self Reliance, based in Washington, DC, is a 35-year-old non-profit research and technical assistance organization focusing on the use of energy, agriculture, waste and retail policies that support sustainable local economic development.  Details of ILSR’s work may be found at http://www.ilsr.org on the Internet.
Neil Seldman works on enterprise start up, financing and joint ventures between industry, community development groups and government agencies.  He has worked for many cities and counties including Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Grand Forks, ND, Austin, TX, King County, WA, Hawaii County, HI, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; as well as numerous community development organizations and federal agencies.  Most recently he has been working in Florida for the counties of St. Lucie and Alachua.
In Alachua County, Mr. Seldman is assisting with the development of a 40-acre Resource Recovery Park for recycling and composting.  The project will create an estimated 200 direct jobs and help Alachua County meet a 75% diversion goal being considered by the Florida DEP and the Florida State Legislature.

All interested persons are encouraged to attend a Seldman workshop.  All meeting are free and open to the public.  For additional information please contact Concerned Citizens of Gadsden County, Inc. at biomess.net or 850-583-1017.

The truth: Adage will increase total source pollution by an average of 65% and truck traffic with mobile pollution (largely diesel exhaust) by 20-50% (NOT 2%). See below!

Adage claim: Gadsden County has 54,000 tpy of air pollution. The new plant would add only 904 tpy pollution, or a 2% increase. Adage is comparing its SOURCE pollution to Gadsden County TOTAL (ambient + mobile + source) pollution. Adage is failing to mention its added mobile pollution (300 diesel truck trips) to its estimate.

Here are the real comparisons:

POLLUTION COMPARISONS

TOTAL EXISTING SOURCE POLLUTION PLUS ADAGE…total effect
(Left source: EPA; right: Adage email)

Carbon Monoxide – 527 tpy total          Adage 248 (48% increase)
COASTAL LUMBER CO 430
FLORIDA GAS TRANSMISSION COMPANY 91
MACTAVISH FURNITURE INDUSTRIES 6

Nox – 573 tpy total Adage 241 (44% increase)
FLORIDA GAS TRANSMISSION COMPANY 416
FLORIDA DEPT. OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 50
COASTAL LUMBER CO 40
ENGELHARD CORPORATION 17

PM 2.5 – 107 tpy total Adage 98 (92% increase)
COASTAL LUMBER CO 97
ENGELHARD CORPORATION 5
MACTAVISH FURNITURE INDUSTRIES 3
FLORIDA DEPT. OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 2

PM 10 – 171 tpy total Adage 106 (62% increase)
COASTAL LUMBER CO 153
ENGELHARD CORPORATION 8
FLORIDA DEPT. OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 6
MACTAVISH FURNITURE INDUSTRIES 4

Sulfur Dioxide – 149 total Adage 150 (100% increase)
FLORIDA DEPT. OF CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 132
C. W. ROBERTS CONTRACTING INC. 13
COASTAL LUMBER CO 3
FLORIDA GAS TRANSMISSION COMPANY 1

VOC – 158 total Adage 58 (37% increase)
MACTAVISH FURNITURE INDUSTRIES 51
COASTAL LUMBER CO 50
FLORIDA GAS TRANSMISSION COMPANY 29
THE PRINTING HOUSE 28

MOBILE POLLUTION

Adage claim: it adds only 150 trucks/day to 90, which has 10,000 vehicles/day. The comparison should be current TRUCK traffic to Adage’s increased TRUCK traffic:

DAILY TRUCK TRAFFIC (source: FL DOT 2008 RECORDS)

I-10 to Rte 90 on Rte. 12: 577
90 West of Quincy: 619
90 Downtown Quincy:1550
Attapulgus Hwy Quincy to S. GA: 226

The traffic stations count passing vehicles, or 150 trucks in and 150 trucks out = 300 trips.

Adage will increase truck traffic 20-50%, diesel Is the most hazardous air pollution.

Of total Gadsden County air pollution per year, 80% is from mobile sources, so how many tpy will Adage trucks add? Estimate 35% X 54,000 = 18,900 TPY added!

THE TRUE TOTAL POLLUTION INCREASE DUE TO THE ADAGE BIOMESS PLANT (SOURCE) AND ITS TRUCKS (MOBILE) WOULD BE Source: 65% and Mobile: 20-50% (NOT 2%!)

The unintended ripples from the biomass subsidy program – washingtonpost.com.

I thought you might be interested to see the “Dear Congressman” factsheet I prepared back in April when I was in DC. Linking RECs from biomass to REAL carbon emissions is the last point on the sheet, but as it points out, this can only be done after true carbon accounting determines what the emissions are. It concludes “Renewable energy credits should be scaled accordingly”.

Burning woody biomass derived from native forests to generate energy will drive forest cutting to unsustainable levels and increase net greenhouse gas emissions. It will also increase dangerous air pollution. We encourage you to withdraw support from granting biomass unconditional renewable energy credits in the Clean Energy Act.

Some real numbers on biomass plants from Massachusetts: a case study

• Number of biomass plants proposed: 4 – 5; Megawatts generated by proposed plants: 165[1]
• Wood required: 2,145,000 tons per year; Minimum acres cut per year: ~ 45,000[2]
• Equivalent number of trees cut per year: more than 9,000,000[3]
• Amount of CO2 emitted: over 2,000,000 tons per year
• Percent of Massachusetts energy to be generated: ~1%
• Increase in CO2 emissions from the energy sector: ~10%

Air emissions from three Massachusetts plants currently in the permitting process:

• 492 tons of NOx per year, which forms ground-level ozone
• 98 tons of hazardous air pollutants
• 165 tons of fine particulates

Biomass is not carbon neutral

When a 75-year-old tree is cut and burned, then it will take 75 years to re-sequester that carbon. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognizes that forest cutting and burning increases carbon emissions, and that carbon released takes decades to re-sequester.

Biomass over-exploits forests and degrades their vital carbon sequestration capacity

A single 50-megawatt biomass plant requires about 650,000 tons of fuel a year. Brush from logging and other waste wood will not be enough to support large biomass plants – new trees will have to be cut. Research shows that forests sequester carbon best when undisturbed, and that recently cut forests are major sources of CO2.

Support these reasonable fixes in the Waxman Markey Clean Energy Act:

1. Require biomass combustion for energy to undergo the same lifecycle analysis required for transportation biofuels, accounting for all CO2 emissions from harvest, transport, and forest disturbance
2. Require that the assumption of carbon neutrality for biomass be qualified by consideration of the time required to re-sequester carbon released by burning. Renewable energy credits should be scaled accordingly.

[2] Using numbers from State of Massachusetts reports: it requires 13,000 tons of green woody biomass to fuel 1 MW of generation. Existing forestry residues in MA: 110,000 tons per year. Assume moisture content of green wood is 45% (so dry weight is 55% of green weight). Maximum amount of wood that can be extracted per acres (heavy thinning, leaving only large lumber-quality trees): 25 dry tons. Summary: [(13,000 tons  x 165 MW) – 110,000 tons] x 0.55 = 1,119,250 dry tons; divide by 25 dry tons/acre = 44,770 acres. At lighter harvest levels, more acres of cutting would be required. Use green wood weight and divide by 434 lbs, the average weight of trees too small for sawlogs: 9,377,880 trees.

[3] Massachusetts’ biomass availability study includes “forest residues” from 14 counties of surrounding states to make up supply for biomass plants. Our analysis does not assume that wood in other states is available to Massachusetts, or that it is economically viable to collect it. We calculate fuel use based on whole tree equivalents, since existing plants are already burning whole trees and planned facilities have whole-tree burning written into their permits.

check out our website:
www.massenvironmentalenergy.org