Patrick Proposes New Biomass Regs
Gov. Deval Patrick's administration has proposed regulations aimed at limiting state financing to only the most energy-efficient biomass plants.
The regulations would not impact permitting and would not ban biomass plants, but would create stricter requirements for biomass plants to receive clean energy credits from the state.
The state suspended the use of clean energy credits for wood-burning electricity plants in 2009 while a study was done on the greenhouse gases the plants produce.
Providing clean energy credits to biomass plants had drawn criticism from environmental groups who argue that the plants pollute the air.
Mark Sylvia, commissioner of the state Department of Energy Resources (DOER), said that unlike wind and solar power, biomass plants emit carbon.
"These new regulations are designed to better align the state's financial incentives for clean energy with sources of power that will help us meet our goals," Sylvia said in a statement.
One goal of the regulations is to encourage the development of smaller biomass plants that burn sustainably harvested forest biomass. Those plants would produce less greenhouse gas emissions in as little as five years, according to a study by the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences commissioned last year by the DOER.
Meanwhile, larger biomass plants would cause a 3-percent increase in greenhouse gases by the year 2050 when compared to coal-fired power plants, the study found.
Plants that wish to be eligible for the credits would also have to stop using construction and demolition waste as biomass fuel and would no longer be able to harvest whole trees for fuel.
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