Food for thinking:
Something that works is build by a DOer…
Something that fails is managed by a talker…
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Very true Koen, I have seen that many times over and over in my 35 years of working in the Hydo Electrical Industry on the Columbia River.
Bob
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Actually topic drift/evolution on forums is not a problem for me anymore DavidB. In the near-past, yes. Not anymore.
Ha! I did intend for Micro to mean myopic wasting time to first identifying “the Perfect tree”. To harvest/mill-out “the Perfect boards”. And only THEN: design “the Perfect nail” . . . .
winter comes and you will still be Idealize/serial/perfecting, accomplishing nothing real, usable!
Micro on this topic has come to a meaning of small-scale works, and living with the results of those works.
That Micro works better for interchanging.
One of my intended life-learned wisdoms to transfer on was: Forcing-for-Results in human endeavors only works for a time with much applied sounds, fury’s, and use-once expended social-energies.
Forcing-Results of the social-modification-energy; with that energy then gone/expended/used up to exhaustion; and folks will just go their own ways naturally. I actually cherish and respect motivated self-interest higher then highfalutin Idealism’s.
You, me and many other still want to believe in the reasonableness and logic of a distributed-energy network (each site-areas making some excess power; in whatever means is doable at that particular location; and those many diverse inputs powers then fed-in to a smart-grid; to be fed out to needs).
Hopes, wishes, good intents will not make this happen.
Forced legal actions will not make this happen.
Nope. First the honey-pots of current in-use easy-use energies have to be expended down to scary sight scraping of the bottoms of those pots.
In the mean time Micro efforts are knowledge place holders. Seeds waiting for optimal growth/use conditions to evolve.
Gotta be tough to be a hardy surviving-all seed. Waiting. Waiting. Don’t get eaten up. Don’t false conditions, too early sprout and die-out.
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Micro, By-The-Numbers
By the latest published out one source data in the USofA there are 3.2 million farms.
Another site: 2,109,810 farms. A third info site: 2,060,000 farms.
You can figure as recognized farms these are at least 5 acres and larger households.
Rural households reported in the USofA of 60 million people, representing 19.3% of US population. A squishy number here. How many actual household? Hmm. 23-25 million.
Urban households census reported at 126.22 million.
Census reports 2.5 million household as burning wood for heat. Another squishy number here? Pellet stove users included in “burning wood”?
Eastern Canadian located www.woodheat.org says 3.2 million in the US and Canada combined burning wood for home heating.
Micro approaches of wood-for-power (to me) means you do-it yourself; with your own efforts; and your own money. Make your own mistakes. Have your own set-back’s, stumbles and power on to usable for yourself and yours.
Not having to ask for permissions, funding, grid-tieing then no one can stop you.
Your only real limitation is a reliable non-blockable source for the wood fuel.
And only true, real, Rural living on at least 5 US/Canadian acres, 2.5 hectare acres tree/bush fuels capable growing can ever say they they have this.
This IS me.
These are the lifestyle choice folk that all of my woodgas working has been about. And for. “See! If I can, you can too.”
Today, now, any time that they are willing to grunt-sweat-it-out in the USofA; at least handily 10 million households of that 126.22 millions Urbans could shift back out to Rural living. Then DYI Wood-for-Power too.
Have to give up 15+ easy drive-to/delivered-to-your-door choices for pizza.
Have to give up 5 different price-competing sources for your high speed internet.
Have to obtain and maintain at least one reliable vehicle year around. No mass-transiting, leave-the-driving-to-us (Uber, Lift) for you anymore.
No more calling for competitive bids on a hot water heater replacement, furnace/AC maintenance for you anymore either. One choice, if you are lucky with a call-out travel-to-you add-on surcharge.
The drive to the nearest continent hopping airport is going to be a real trip beginnings/endings chore then too.
True Rural living anywhere in the world you have to be tough, and learn to be as services self-sufficient as possible.
So actually no worries about a crowd-massing by the USofA urban stopple by me.
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Arcology, a portmanteau of “architecture” and “ecology”,[2] is a field of creating architectural design principles for very densely populated, ecologically low-impact human habitats.
The term was coined by architect Paolo Soleri, who posited that a completed arcology would provide space for a variety of residential, commercial, and agricultural facilities while minimizing individual human environmental impact. These structures have been largely hypothetical insofar as no arcology, even one envisioned by Soleri himself, has yet been built.
Epcot is a theme park at the Walt Disney World Resort in Bay Lake, Florida. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Parks, Experiences and Consumer Products division. Inspired by an unrealized concept developed by Walt Disney, the park opened on October 1, 1982[2] as EPCOT Center, and was the second of four theme parks built at Walt Disney World, after the Magic Kingdom. Spanning 305[3] acres (123 ha), more than twice the size of the Magic Kingdom park,[4] Epcot is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, namely technological innovation and international culture, and is often referred to as a “permanent world’s fair”.[5][6]
Epcot was originally conceived by Walt Disney during the early development of Walt Disney World, as an experimental planned community that would serve as a center for American innovation and urban living. Known as “EPCOT”, the idea included an urban city center, residential areas, and a series of mass transportation systems that would connect the community. After Disney’s death in 1966, the “EPCOT” concept was abandoned as the company had uncertainty about maintaining an operating city. In the 1970s, WED Enterprises began developing a second theme park for the resort to supplement Magic Kingdom, as that park’s popularity grew. The new park maintained the idea of showcasing modern innovation through edutainment attractions, as well as the addition of a world nations exposition. The newly-designed park, featuring two sections—Future World and World Showcase—opened as EPCOT Center in 1982.
Metabolism, Kurokawa’s Nakagin Capsule Tower was erected in the Ginza district of Tōkyō in 1972 and completed in just 30 days.[52] Prefabricated in Shiga Prefecture in a factory that normally built shipping containers, it is constructed of 140 capsules plugged into two cores that are 11 and 13 stories in height. The capsules contained the latest gadgets of the day and were built to house small offices and pieds-à-terre for Tōkyō salarymen.[53]
The capsules are constructed of light steel welded trusses covered with steel sheeting mounted onto the reinforced concrete cores. The capsules are 2.5 metres wide and four metres long with a 1.3 metre diameter window at one end. The units originally contained a bed, storage cabinets, a bathroom, a colour television set, clock, refrigerator and air conditioner, although optional extras such as a stereo were available. Although the capsules were designed with mass production in mind there was never a demand for them.[53] Nobuo Abe, was a senior manager, managing one of the design divisions on the construction of the Nakagin Capsule Tower
Since 1996 the tower has been listed as an architectural heritage by DoCoMoMo. However, in 2007 the residents voted to tear the tower down and build a new 14-storey tower. The tower still stands today and has approximately 15 people living inside. In 2010, the pods that are still safe to live in and not falling apart inside have become a hotel for a mere $30 American a night on average.[54] However, as of 2017 many capsules have been renovated and are being used as residential and office spaces, while short-stay renting such as Airbnb or other lodging provisions have been banned by the administration of the building.
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I’m a short hour’s drive (Mooers Forks, NY) directly north to Montreal. I’ll take a ride to view this monstrosity some day.
It’s not bad enough having houses packed side by side, now they have them under, over, around and through.
I hate driving in or around Montreal, most are idiot drivers and certainly (in my experience) not very polite at all.
I wonder if city living (anywhere) does that to people??!! No matter, rude is rude!
OK, OK, my Dad’s side of the family is rooted in and around Monte Royal ( what a view of the city). See, I’m not such a grump after all. LMAO!
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In Quebec, and southern Ontario generally, so I hear. People who arrived on a plane and never drove before make sketchy drivers. 
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Flavius Odoacer soldier who in 476 became the first King of Italy (476–493). His reign is commonly seen as marking the end of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacer generally used the Roman honorific patrician, granted by the emperor Zeno . Illus, master of soldiers of the Eastern Empire, asked for Odoacer’s help in 484 in his struggle to depose Zeno . Zeno appointed Ostrogoth Theoderic the Great, to be king of Italy, turning one troublesome, nominal vassal against another. Theoderic invaded Italy in 489 and by August 490 had captured almost the entire peninsula, forcing Odoacer to take refuge in Ravenna. The city surrendered on 5 March 493; Theoderic invited Odoacer to a banquet of reconciliation and there killed him.
Later English speaking European pioneers did not have a clear idea what had happened to the people of the Grand Village. After the villagers dispersed, a tale was repeated in local folklore that members of the Illini Confederacy had been pinned by tribal enemies to a last stand atop Starved Rock. Hopelessly surrounded, the brave villagers refused to surrender and supposedly perished of starvation. It was said that this was how “Starved Rock” got its name
Cofitachequi was typical of several Mississippian paramount chiefdoms in the American south at the time of de Soto: a town at the center of the chiefdom, often containing ceremonial mounds and temples and controlling a large number of smaller settlements with the influence of the center extending out many miles. The chiefdoms were often bordered by a uninhabited area as a buffer zone between warring chiefdoms. The basis of the economy was maize agriculture. Cofitachequi was perhaps the easternmost of the Mississippian chiefdoms and one of the latest, founded after 1300 A.D.[10] There were three levels of political power at Cofitachequi. The orata was a lesser noble, seemingly in charge a village or a few villages. The mico was a great noble who occupied one of the administrative centers of the chiefdom, presumably complete with a mound. Above these was the gran cacique, the great chief or paramount chief. Lesser officials were ynihas, or ynanaes, who were chiefs’ assistants, perhaps comparable to magistrates. The yatikas were interpreters and spokesmen. The culture of Cofitachequi was a variant of the Lamar culture that was broadly comparable to the people of Ocute in Georgia.[11] The people of Cofitachequi are believed by most scholars to have spoken a Muskogean language; if correct, the chiefdom of Cofitachequi was the easternmost extent of this language family. However, the area of influence of Cofitachequi probably also included Siouan (Catawba) and Iroquoian (Cherokee) speakers. Although Cofitachequi’s fame was widespread, its area of political control and influence is uncertain. Most likely, Cofitachequi politically controlled a cluster of towns around present-day Camden, an 80 to 100 mile (130–160 km) stretch of the Wateree River and vicinity in South Carolina, and a similar portion of the Pee Dee River. More distant towns in the piedmont of North Carolina and the coastal plains of South Carolina may have paid tribute to Cofitachequi,but retained a measure of freedom. The scholar Charles Hudson listed more than 30 towns that might have been under the control of Cofitachequi, indicating a population of the chiefdom of several tens of thousands of people.[12] The chiefdom of Cofitachequi may have been in decline when visited by de Soto in 1540 and Pardo in 1566, much of the decline occasioned by the brutal passage of de Soto and his army. De Soto found little maize in the town to feed his soldiers and saw evidence that an epidemic, possibly European in origin, had wiped out the population of several settlements. Nevertheless, the fame and some of the influence of Cofitachequi endured another 100 years until the time of Woodward’s visit. Why Cofitachequi disappeared, replaced by smaller communities of Indians, is unknown although the ravages of European diseases was probably a factor. The Muskogean speaking inhabitants of Cofitachequi were probably absorbed by the Siouan people who were inhabiting the area in 1701 when Lawson visited.[13]
The 1918 influenza pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920; colloquially known as Spanish flu) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.[1] It infected 500 million people around the world,[2], and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world’s population),[3] making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.
To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States
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Dale N. Gerding, MD, Receives VA’s Highest Research Honor
Dale N. Gerding, MD, a world-renowned researcher of C. difficile and other infectious diseases, has received the Veterans Health Administration’s highest research honor, the 2013 William S. Middleton Award.
Dr. Gerding is a research physician at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital and a professor in the Department of Medicine of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.
The William S. Middleton Award for outstanding achievement in biomedical or behavioral research is the highest honor for scientific achievement awarded by the VA’s Biomedical Laboratory Research and Development Service.
The award recognizes Gerding’s exemplary record of involvement in, and service to, the VA and the biomedical profession. It also recognizes Gerding’s seminal contributions to the epidemiology, pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of hospital infections, with a primary focus on C. difficile. His work has had a broad impact on the clinical care of veterans and of the general population. Gerding will receive $50,000 per year for three years in research support.
Clostridium difficile (also known as C. difficile or C. diff.) is a bacterium that can cause symptoms ranging from diarrhea to life-threatening inflammation of the colon. It most often affects older hospital patients and nursing home residents, and typically occurs after using antibiotics.
Dr. Gerding’s research interests include the epidemiology and prevention of C. difficile, antimicrobial resistance and antimicrobial distribution. He is the author of more than 350 peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters and reviews. He holds patents for the use of non-toxigenic C. difficile for the prevention and treatment of this disease. This was shown in 2013 to significantly reduce relapse of C. difficile infection in a phase II patient clinical trial.
Dr. Gerding, MD, FACP, FIDSA, Conference Chair, Professor of Medicine at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine in Maywood, Illinois and Research Physician at the Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital. Prior to his present position Dr. Gerding was Chief of Medicine at VA Chicago, Lakeside Division, and Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He is an infectious diseases specialist and hospital epidemiologist, past president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and past chair the antibiotic resistance committee of SHEA. He is a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and past Chair of the National and Global Public Health Committee and the Antibiotic Resistance Subcommittee of IDSA
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I call that analysis paralysis. Just a hazard of the trade, I guesse.
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Your email was forwarded to our Division of Drug Information in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) for a response.
The FDA cannot comment on drugs or indications in development, in the FDA review process, or that have been denied approval by FDA. Please understand that information about unapproved drugs/drugs in development is confidential according to 21 CFR 314.430, and belongs to the manufacturer/sponsor developing the drug, so we cannot provide it to the public. You may contact the drug sponsor for additional information.
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That’s one heck of an efficient landfill filling system…
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To not let it all burn would be a criminal act
The article explains that Australia is pushing to have “land clearing changes”, that is another “Australia Clause” included in the Kyoto 2 (2013-2020) agreement.
Otherwise “Australia is threatening that it will not ratify Kyoto 2 if it does not get its way on targets.”
This is a carbon copy of the tactics adopted by the then Howard Government in the lead up to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol agreement. Australia’s “success” in getting the “Australia Clause” in the Kyoto Protocol led directly to the Howard Government “engineering” the much more restrictive 2003 NSW Native Vegetation Legislation and similar legislation in Queensland.
It is this legislation and the resulting theft of the stored carbon in the resulting trees by the Commonwealth (enabling Australia to meet its Kyoto commitments) that is at the root of Peter Spencer’s case against the Commonwealth and NSW.
Spencer then went through the history of international, national and state government agreements and legislation linking environmental issues and native vegetation. Spencer traced a line of continuity from the First International Conference on Environmental Issues in 1950 and its Native Vegetation Advisory Workshop through to 2003. Important steps along the way included the 1972 International Conference Declaration of the UN on Human Environment, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit (the UN Framework Conference on Climate Change) where Australia signed the treaty, the resulting 1992 National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development (signed by PM Hawke) and the 1992 National Greenhouse Strategy which was endorsed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG).
In effect, the intention to take the benefit arising from the sequestration of carbon, through the native vegetation legislation of 2003 as the primary mechanism for meeting Australia’s greenhouse gas commitments, was the logical outcome of the 1992 strategy.
The Native Vegetation Act reverses the onus of proof[1]. It permits intrusive search without warrant[2]. It abolishes the privilege against self-incrimination[3]. And it permits evidence by executive decree[4]. Legally speaking, it treats farmers worse than rapists and murderers.
The Native Vegetation Act uses emotive and misleading terms. It defines “broadscale clearing” to include any clearing of native vegetation whatever, even a single blade of grass.[5]
If you’re a farmer, before you can farm your land, you’re faced with an impossible great thornbush of regulations that effectively prevent you from knowing what you can or can’t do on your own farm without committing a criminal offence. The starting position is, everything is illegal.
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Interesting read.
I disagree with the comment that Australian farmers are treated worse than rapists and murderers. Parsing through, it seems to me you are describing 'imminent domain", where the government has rights to ultimate use of the land, the farmer or landholder really only bought rights to use and transfer the right to the top few inches of soil. As many have discovered if someone wants to do mining or oil exploration, or start a gravel pit on “their” land, etc.
As for the carbon offsets ascribed to trees growing, Canada has been playing that game too, but only claiming the purported emissions reductions of managed forest land, while disowning the emissions from natural forests and tundra and also double counting, very creative. It seems that emissions from natural sources is about to outstrip human emissions. So they will have engineered a system where we could theoretically meet our Paris targets, yet our emissions hugely increase.
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Yes what I posted was not fair , It is in no way rational to the sane mind . It is LAW .
USDA must end NRCS abuses
News | September 20, 2019
AFBF
0
Farmers and ranchers are being denied due process as part of an abuse of discretion by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, according to a scathing ruling by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The ruling is highlighted in a letter from the American Farm Bureau Federation calling on Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to enact much-needed reforms in the agency.
The letter focuses on the case of an Indiana farm owned by David and Rita Boucher, and Mrs. Boucher’s 17-year saga of unfair treatment at the hands of the NRCS staff. The Bouchers removed nine trees on 2.8 acres and NRCS, in turn, demanded they plant 300 trees per acre as compensation.
The court found that NRCS wrongly accused the Bouchers of harming a non-existent wetland on their property but made no effort to correct the record even after the accusations were shown to be groundless. The NRCS judgment made the farm ineligible for a wide variety of government programs, creating a roadblock for the Bouchers to obtain the loans and crop insurance necessary to stay in operation.
“The USDA repeatedly failed to follow applicable law and agency standards,” the court wrote. “It disregarded compelling evidence showing that the acreage in question never qualified as wetlands that could have been converted illegally into croplands. And the agency has kept shifting its explanations for treating the acreage as converted wetlands. The USDA’s treatment of the Bouchers’ acreage as converted wetlands easily qualifies as arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion.”
The Bouchers are not the only victims of NRCS regulatory abuse, as noted in the letter and as previously conveyed to USDA by AFBF.
“The wrongs identified by the Seventh Circuit are systemic throughout NRCS and representative of the experience of countless farmers,” AFBF wrote. “We hope that you find this case as shocking and troubling as does the Seventh Circuit.
“USDA’s implementation of its conservation compliance programs transcends politics: the Bouchers’ battle began in the beginning of the Bush presidency and continued through the Obama and Trump administrations. The unanimous judges on the Seventh Circuit were appointed by Presidents Reagan, Clinton and Obama. And the actions by USDA were not limited to a few individuals, but were endemic through all levels of review and appeal.”
AFBF is calling on Secretary Perdue to accept the Seventh Circuit decision and compensate Mrs. Boucher for costs incurred in her fight against the federal government. More broadly, the letter urges USDA to view its finalization of the Interim Final Rule as an opportunity to correct the problems identified in the ruling.
The letter explains, “In reality, affected farmers typically have been unable to challenge the agency’s decisions because they simply cannot afford to lose eligibility or the costs of a fruitless appeal. Generally, farmers follow the direction of the agency to avoid ineligibility instead of appealing.”
Additionally, AFBF is asking USDA to:
• Retrain National Appeals Division judges and agency directors in how to provide a fair and balanced hearing;
• Require USDA to provide the entire record or decisional documentation to the farmers at the time of alleged compliance violation;
• Allow the farmer and his or her counsel to call NRCS technical staff as witnesses in the appeal;
• Accept evidence provided by the farmer as true, absent substantial evidence to the contrary; and
• Compensate the farmer for legal fees when the farmer wins an appeal — i.e., when the farmer is forced to incur costs as a result of an incorrect decision from NRCS.
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There was a plan it was opposed . Wood pellets were defined as renewable energy . Renewable credits were not paid .
The Interior Department has set out a timeline for increased timber cuts and other “active management” of federal forests embraced by President Trump in December.
In a secretarial order, No. 3372, written on Jan. 2 — but posted only this week on the agency’s website — former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke set out a series of deadlines to “identify and remove” environmental hurdles for forest management projects, identify salvage logging projects and begin other measures aimed at reducing wildfire risks. Jan. 2 was Zinke’s last day in office, during the partial government shutdown.
Some forest advocates have embraced the order as necessary to protect against raging wildfires, while other environmentalists say it runs counter to science and safety necessary to protect public lands.
The five-page order details methods of forest management, including mowing, thinning, timber salvage and application of pesticides, that the Interior Department described as “supported by the best available science.”
“The serious health risks, safety concerns, tragic loss of life, and economic losses resulting from catastrophic wildfire demonstrate the need for increased attention to active forestland, rangeland, watershed and wildfire management policies and techniques that reduce irreparable harm to landscapes and the citizens who live and work in neighboring communities,” the department said in the order.
Zinke’s directive came in response to Trump’s executive order in December calling on the Interior and Agriculture departments to speed forest-thinning and related activities in response to wildfires. USDA, which oversees national forests, doesn’t plan a similar order, a spokesman said, but Zinke’s directive calls for coordination with USDA.
The Interior document suggests stepped-up logging in national parks, and it specifically mentions salvage logging in areas affected by wildfires, insect infestation and disease in 2017 and 2018. Salvage logging options are to be identified by March 31 in consultation with USDA, according to the order.
It also suggests using categorical exclusions from the National Environmental Policy Act, which advocates of more intensive forest management say are necessary to address larger swaths of land that have grown especially thick over decades. Within a month of the order — which would have been last week — heads of bureaus were to identify and catalog categorical exclusions that address wildfire management “in order to maximize their use and to commence the development of new useful categorical exclusions.”
The ability of the Interior Department and USDA’s Forest Service to begin the projects envisioned in the order depends on appropriations from Congress, forest policy stakeholders say. The fiscal year beginning in October will be the first in which the Forest Service won’t be forced to raid non-fire-related accounts to cover fire suppression. But groups say they don’t expect much, if any, new money for forest management.
Still, groups such as the National Association of State Foresters have embraced the executive order, saying it could boost efforts to prevent catastrophic wildfire on federal, state and privately owned lands that exist side by side.
The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, which has a “strong partnership” with the Bureau of Land Management, endorses the department’s approach and has advised the agency that enhancement of early seral forest habitat to benefit elk and other wildlife is a priority, said the group’s director of government affairs, Mark Lambrecht.
“Active land management, including strategic timber harvests, prescribed burns, grazing and other measures, help create the early successional forests that provide the diversity of cover and nutrition elk need to thrive,” Lambrecht said.
The environmental group Defenders of Wildlife said the Interior order could put national parks at risk and questioned why the document was prepared during the shutdown, when government services aimed at public safety and health were supposed to be paramount.
“Protecting communities from wildfire is a consensus national priority, but this order illustrates how the Trump administration is heading in the wrong direction on this critical issue by ignoring climate change impacts and science-based solutions, while prioritizing an aggressive management agenda that is largely incompatible with the conservation of public lands, including with the missions of the National Wildlife Refuge System and the National Park System,” Defenders of Wildlife said in a statement.
Forest management measures outlined in Zinke’s order run counter to protecting federal lands and promote questionable science, said Chad Hanson, a forest ecologist with the John Muir Project, which opposes logging in national parks and national forests.
Hanson called the order a “major step backward” on management of federal forests. “This is not consistent with the science at all.”
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Is that because human emissions are lowering?
Or:
Is it the result of human activity?
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Human emissions are increasing steadily. They say half of all the CO2 emissions since 1750 have occurred in the last 30 years or so.
But now effects on forests are becoming pronounced, virtually every forest biome on earth is in trouble/ stress and no longer meeting their replacement rates. As they are experiencing in Australia currently, record temps, record fires. The boreal forest around the northern hemisphere is melting and experiencing losses, most importantly the thawing and fermenting into methane, (methane causes 80 times more warming than CO2), burning of peat and former permafrost accumulated steadily over the last 9,000 years. The same is occurring in the arctic permafrost. It is estimated there is enough organic material frozen in these areas to produce 2 times more than the CO2 presently in the atmosphere.
They say the last time CO2 was at 1,000ppm was the warmest in the last 50 million years, there were cypress and alligators in the arctic. The areas we live in now and depend on for farming would have been unimaginably different.
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In the 1980s, as part of an experiment in converting bogs to timber-producing forests, the Canadian government drained large areas of the Alberta swamps and planted black spruce, carefully spaced for maximum growth.
The new spruce trees gorged themselves on the groundwater out of the swamps, growing unusually wide canopies—which choked out the peat moss. A different, drier moss replaced it—kindling in the place of fire retardant—and as the land dried the trees grew into enormous stores of fuel.
Novo Power, a 28 MW biomass power plant located in Snowflake, Arizona, is urging the U.S. EPA to quickly process applications to allow biomass power producers to participate in the Renewable Fuel Program.
On Jan. 32, Brad Worsley, president and CEO of Novo Power, send a letter to Acting EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler asking him to begin processing applications that would allow biomass power producers to generate e-renewable identification numbers (eRINs) under the RFS.
In his letter, Worsley notes his company has been engaged in the critical restoration of Arizona’s natural forests for the past 10 years. “We support over 150 full-time jobs in the region in order to thin, move, and burn biomass in our national forest,” he said. “Our 28 MW biomass facility is the keystone in the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, the largest collaborative forest landscape restoration project in the country.”
According to Worsley, in areas where Novo is able to utilize the high-hazard fuels and biomass cleared out of forests, restoration efforts are being completed at a rate of 15,000 acres annually. However, in areas where Novo is unable to take the biomass, less than 2,000 acres are being restored annually.
Worsley said Novo has four years remaining on its current power purchase agreements (PPAs). “Without the correct monetization of the value created by our facility (such as credits generated under the RFS), we will likely not be able to renew our PPAs,” he wrote. “If this happens, many of the restoration efforts in Arizona will unfortunately come to an abrupt stop and forests may become more susceptible to wildfire.”
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