BIOMASS HUB

In Oregon, House Republicans attempted to advanced legislation (HB 3608) yesterday that would provide incentives for the production and transportation of woody biomass, but the measure was voted down by Democrats preventing it from going to the floor for debate.

The legislation was billed as a way to improve Oregon’s rural economy and create desperately-needed jobs.  Rep. Thompson said Democratic leadership is advancing an alternative measure as a way of avoiding giving Republicans credit for a job-creation bill.  However, the measure will fail to boost biomass production in the state:

It’s unfortunate that Democrats would kill an affordable measure to put people back to work.  Providing tax incentives for harvesting woody biomass is the only effective way to encourage companies to gather and transport the material to produce renewable energy.  By blocking this bill’s passage, Democratic leadership decided to put partisan politics ahead of job-creation.

But another biomass bill (HB 3674) survived the vote, passing both houses of Oregon’s legislature unanimously.  The bill will make nine biomass burning facilities eligible to receive renewable energy credits (RECs) under Oregon’s aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), which requires that utilities meet 25 percent of their energy needs from renewable sources by 2025.

Some have argued that the biomass facilities — which were built before 1995 — are some of the biggest and most polluting in the state.  During the ACES debate, a similar issue came up before the House in which lawmakers noted that burning biomass is not actually the carbon neutral panacea for climate change that many had assumed (see is burning biomass just ‘lipstick on a pig’?).

The so-called “carbon accounting error” points to past carbon absorption by plants as an excuse to assume that all biomass emissions are carbon neutral.  The theory, first posited in a Science article last year, suggests that the error could threaten wild forests and grasslands around the world (Science article 2).

NRDC’s Nathanael Greene, Director of Renewable Energy Policy, explains the theory below (see his blog post here):

For more on the HB 3608, click here.

For an opinion piece HB 3674, click here.

Image: Flickr/Francis Storr