[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 94 (Tuesday, June 22, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5223-S5225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ENERGY DEBATE
Mr. ALEXANDER. Madam President, last week the New York Times ran a
story, and I ask unanimous consent to have it printed in the Record at
this time.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the New York Times, June 18, 2010]
Net Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny
(By Tom Zeller, Jr.)
Greenfield, MA.--Matthew Wolfe, an energy developer with
plans to turn tree branches and other woody debris into
electric power, sees himself as a positive force in the
effort to wean his state off of planet-warming fossil fuels.
``It's way better than coal,'' Mr. Wolfe said, ``if you
look at it over its life cycle.''
Not everyone agrees, as evidenced by lawn signs in this
northwestern Massachusetts town reading ``Biomass? No
Thanks.''
In fact, power generated by burning wood, plants and other
organic material, which makes up 50 percent of all renewable
energy produced in the United States, according to federal
statistics, is facing increased scrutiny and opposition.
That, critics say, is because it is not as climate-friendly
as once thought, and the pollution it causes in the short run
may outweigh its long-term benefits.
The opposition to biomass power threatens its viability as
a renewable energy source when the country is looking to
diversify its energy portfolio, urged on by President Obama
in an address to the nation Tuesday. It also underscores the
difficult and complex choices state and local governments
face in pursuing clean-energy goals.
Biomass proponents say it is a simple and proved renewable
technology based on natural cycles. They acknowledge that
burning wood and other organic matter releases carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere just as coal does, but point out that
trees and plants also absorb the gas. If done carefully, and
without overharvesting, they say, the damage to the climate
can be offset.
But opponents say achieving that sort of balance is almost
impossible, and carbon-absorbing forests will ultimately be
destroyed to feed a voracious biomass industry fueled
inappropriately by clean-energy subsidies. They also argue
that, like any incinerating operation, biomass plants
generate all sorts of other pollution, including particulate
matter. State and federal regulators are now puzzling over
these arguments.
Last month, in outlining its plans to regulate greenhouse
gases, the Environmental Protection Agency declined to exempt
emissions from ``biogenic'' sources like biomass power
plants. That dismayed the biomass and forest products
industries, which typically describe biomass as ``carbon
neutral.''
The agency said more deliberation was needed.
Meanwhile, plans for several biomass plants around the
country have been dropped because of stiff community
opposition.
In March, a $250 million biomass power project planned for
Gretna, Fla., was abandoned after residents complained that
it threatened air quality. Two planned plants in Indiana have
faced similar grass-roots opposition.
In April, an association of family physicians in North
Carolina told state regulators that biomass power plants
there, like other plants and factories that pollute the air,
could ``increase the risk of premature death, asthma, chronic
bronchitis and heart disease.''
In Massachusetts, fierce opposition to a handful of
projects in the western part of the state, including Mr.
Wolfe's, prompted officials to order a moratorium on new
permits last December, and to commission a scientific review
of the environmental credentials of biomass power.
That study, released last week, concluded that, at least in
Massachusetts, power plants using woody material as fuel
would probably prove worse for the climate than existing coal
plants over the next several decades. Plants that generate
both heat and power, displacing not just coal but also oil
and gas, could yield dividends faster, the report said. But
in every case, the study found, much depends on what is
burned, how it is burned, how forests are managed and how
the industry is regulated.
Ian A. Bowles, the secretary of the Massachusetts Office of
Energy and Environmental Affairs, said that biomass power and
sustainable forest management were not mutually exclusive.
But he also said that the logical conclusion from the study
was that biomass plants that generated electricity alone
probably should not be eligible for incentives for renewable
energy.
``That would represent a significant change in policy,''
Mr. Bowles said.
The biomass industry argues that studies like the one in
Massachusetts do not make a clear distinction between wood
harvested specifically for energy production and the more
common, and desirable, practice of burning wood and plant
scraps left from agriculture and logging operations.
The Biomass Power Association, a trade group based in
Maine, said in a statement last week that it was ``not aware
of any facilities that use whole trees for energy.''
During a recent visit to an old gravel pit outside of town
where he hopes to build his 47-megawatt Pioneer Renewable
Energy project, Mr. Wolfe said the plant would be capable of
generating heat and power, and would use only woody residues
as a feedstock. ``It's really frustrating,'' he said.
``There's a tremendous deficit of trust that is really
inhibiting things.''
In the United States, biomass power plants burn a variety
of feedstocks, including rice hulls in Louisiana and sugar
cane residues, called bagasse, in parts of Florida and
Hawaii. A vast majority, though, some 90 percent, use woody
residue as a feedstock, according to the Biomass Power
Association. About 75 percent of biomass electricity comes
from the paper and pulp companies, which collect their
residues and burn them to generate power for themselves.
But more than 80 operations in 20 states are grid-connected
and generate power for sale to local utilities and
distribution to residential and commercial customers, a $1
billion industry, according to the association. The
increasing availability of subsidies and tax incentives has
put dozens of new projects in the development pipeline.
The problem with all this biomass, critics argue, is that
wood can actually churn out more greenhouse gases than coal.
New trees might well cancel that out, but they do not grow
overnight. That means the low-carbon attributes of biomass
are often realized too slowly to be particularly useful for
combating climate change.
Supporters of the technology say those limitations can be
overcome with tight regulation of what materials are burned
and how they are harvested. ``The key question is the rate of
use,'' said Ben Larson of the Union of Concerned Scientists,
an environmental group based in Cambridge, Mass., that
supports the sensible use of biomass power. ``We need to
consider which sources are used, and how the land is taken
care of over the long haul.''
But critics maintain that ``sustainable'' biomass power is
an oxymoron, and that nowhere near enough residual material
exists to feed a large-scale industry. Plant owners, they
say, will inevitably be forced to seek out less beneficial
fuels, including whole trees harvested from tracts of land
that never would have been logged otherwise. Those trees,
critics say, would do far more to absorb planet-warming gases
if they were simply let alone.
``The fact is, you might get six or seven megawatts of
power from residues in Massachusetts,'' said Chris Matera,
the founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch. ``They're planning
on building about 200 megawatts. So it's a red herring. It's
not about burning waste wood. This is about burning trees.''
Whether or not that is true, biomass power is also coming
under attack simply for the ordinary air pollution it
produces. Web sites like No Biomass Burn, based in the
Pacific Northwest, liken biomass emissions to cigarette
smoke. Duff Badgley, the coordinator of the site, says a
proposed plant in Mason County, Washington, would ``rain
toxic pollutants'' on residents there. And the American Lung
Association has asked Congress to exclude subsidies for
biomass from any new energy bill, citing potentially ``severe
impacts'' on health.
Nathaniel Greene, the director of renewable energy policy
for the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that while
such concerns were not unfounded, air pollution could be
controlled. ``It involves technology that we're really good
at,'' Mr. Greene said. For opponents like Mr. Matera, the
tradeoffs are not worth it.
``We've got huge problems,'' Mr. Matera said. ``And there's
no easy answer. But biomass doesn't do it. It's a false
solution that has enormous impacts.''
Mr. Wolfe says that is shortsighted. Wind power and solar
power are not ready to scale up technologically and
economically, he said, particularly in this corner of
Massachusetts. Biomass, by contrast, is proven and
[[Page S5224]]
available, and while it is far from perfect, he argued, it
can play a small part in reducing reliance on fossil fuels.
``Is it carbon-neutral? Is it low-carbon? There's some
variety of opinion,'' Mr. Wolfe said. ``But that's missing
the forest for the trees. The question I ask is, What's the
alternative?''
Mr. ALEXANDER. The above-referenced article is entitled ``Net
Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny.'' It is about how the people
of Massachusetts are starting to debate the idea that they are
accomplishing anything by displacing coal with biomass to produce clean
electricity. I am talking here about producing electricity, not
biofuels which we use in our cars.
Biomass is essentially burning wood and other organic products in a
sort of controlled bonfire to produce electricity. The argument for
biomass goes like this: Wood is natural. Trees regrow. Burn them up
today and more trees will grow tomorrow. Therefore, we won't run out of
resources. Moreover, trees are carbon neutral. Burning wood may release
carbon dioxide, but trees reabsorb carbon so we can benefit from this
natural cycle by generating electricity. Therefore, we are not making
climate problems any worse with biomass.
Indeed, biomass produces about 50 percent of our Nation's renewable
electricity today, according to the New York Times, and by most of the
definitions of renewable electricity that we use in proposals in the
Senate. But we can't rely upon biomass to replace significant amounts
of the fossil-based electricity we get today from coal. Biomass
electricity has its place, and can be used to burn forest and other
wood waste. In Tennessee we have a lot of pine trees. They need to be
removed from the forest, and this is a good way to do that and make a
little electricity. However, we cannot and we should not start cutting
down and burning our forests to produce electricity. The loss of forest
land is still one of the major ecological catastrophes in Africa, Asia,
and South America. So are we, the most advanced country in the world,
going to talk about going back to burning up our forests for energy?
Many environmental advocates are now arguing that biomass should not
even be considered to be ``renewable'' or ``carbon neutral'' because of
the fact that burning wood releases greenhouse gases. While that is
true, so does the natural process of decay, but the carbon is
reabsorbed by the growth of new trees. Biomass can be, and should be,
an important--albeit a small part--of our electricity portfolio by
using excess forest material and industrial wood waste.
Unfortunately, the New York Times piece misses out on one of the most
important concerns about biomass. Just like other renewable electricity
sources, it cannot be the solution for our clean energy needs because
of the problem of scale. We would have to continually forest an area
1\1/2\ times the size of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park to
replace the electricity created by two standard coal plants or one
standard nuclear reactor. Wood has only half the energy density of
coal. That means, if nothing else, we have to do twice as much work in
hauling it around. There is a utility in Georgia that is using wood to
replace coal in a 100-megawatt powerplant. This utility has trucks
running in there day and night hauling wood to keep the plant running,
and that is only 100 megawatts--about one-tenth the size of one nuclear
reactor. For the southeastern United States to meet a 12-percent
renewable electricity standard, as called for in the Waxman-Markey
energy climate bill, by using biomass alone, we would have to cut down
more trees than the entire U.S. paper industry uses each year.
I think it is worth taking note of all this as we move toward the
idea that renewable resources are the answer to our energy problems.
Tomorrow, there will be a group of my colleagues going to the White
House to discuss with the President the issue of how to proceed on
clean energy. My fear is that we may all be asked to put our
differences aside and settle this issue by pushing through a
``renewable electricity standard'' that says all we have to do is
choose a number--17 percent by 2020 or 25 percent by 2030--and before
you know it, we will have all the energy we need from wind, the Sun,
and from the Earth running our highly advanced technological country.
In fact, more than half of the States already have adopted some
version of these renewable electricity standards, but they haven't
accomplished much. New Jersey wants to close down a nuclear reactor and
replace it with an offshore wind farm. It will have to build 50-story
wind turbines along its entire 125-mile coast, and it will still need
to have the nuclear plant or a natural gas plant or coal plant or some
other plant to provide electricity when the wind doesn't blow, which is
most of the time.
To meet its requirement of 33 percent renewable electricity by 2020,
California has put up wind farms, developed its abundant geothermal
resources, and siphoned methane from almost every landfill in the
State, and it still only gets 12 percent of its electricity from
renewables.
Last year, a Wall Street Journal article cited the California State
Energy Commission's warning that the renewable requirement could begin
causing reliability problems--that means that when you turn your light
switch on, the light might not go on--and increase electricity rates by
2011, which is next year. California State agencies were warning that
simply increasing the renewable requirement from 20 percent to 33
percent could cost $114 billion.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record
the Wall Street Journal article from July 3, 2009.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, July 3, 2009]
State's Renewable-Energy Focus Risks Power Shortages
(By Rebecca Smith)
California officials are beginning to worry that the
state's focus on transitioning to renewable-energy sources
could lead to power shortages in the near term.
The state has been so keen to develop renewables that
relatively few conventional power generators, such as gas-
fired plants, have been built lately. That risks a possible
energy shortfall in certain places if the economy rebounds
any time soon.
California's utilities are barreling ahead to try to meet a
state mandate to garner 33% of their power from renewable
sources by 2020, and some officials are concerned the effort
might push up electricity prices and crimp supplies.
The state auditor warned this week that the electricity
sector poses a ``high risk'' to the state economy. A staff
report from the state energy commission also warns that
California could find itself uncomfortably tight on power by
2011 if problems continue to pile up.
Utilities complain that the ambitious renewable-energy
mandates, combined with tougher environmental regulations on
conventional plants, are compromising their ability to
deliver adequate power. ``Conflicting state policies are a
problem,'' said Stuart Hemphill, senior vice president of
procurement at Southern California Edison, a unit of Edison
International of Rosemead, Calif.
The stresses being felt in California could be a harbinger
of problems to come in other states. The federal Waxman-
Markey climate-change bill, passed by the House of
Representatives on June 26, would require states to obtain
about 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by
2020. Currently, about 4% of U.S. electricity comes from
renewables, excluding hydropower.
California's 33% renewable-energy target is so ambitious
that it is likely to miss the goal by five years or more,
energy officials now concur.
State energy agencies recently concluded it could cost $114
billion or more to meet the 33% mandate, more than double
what it might have cost to achieve an earlier 20%
requirement. Consumers will bear those costs, one way or
another.
Agencies also identified problems with constructing
sufficient transmission capacity to move renewable-based
energy to cities.
Southern California Edison, which buys more renewable
electricity than any other U.S. utility, has conducted seven
solicitations for renewable-energy supplies since 2002 and
inked 48 renewable energy contracts. Yet it is still only
halfway toward its procurement goal. In 2008, 16% of its
electricity was renewable in origin, but more than 60% of
that came from geothermal plants--most of them built long
before the current push for green power.
At the same time, new regulations are putting existing
power plants under pressure. Last week, the state Water
Resources Control Board issued a proposed policy that would
clamp down on power plants that use something called ``once-
through cooling,'' which sucks water out of the ocean and
rivers and discharges massive amounts of warmed water,
harming some aquatic life.
The policy would end the practice at 19 plants that produce
as much as 15% of the
[[Page S5225]]
state's electricity. That has the California Energy
Commission worried electricity shortages might arise if
older, marginal plants are shut down before there is
replacement power available.
Building conventional power units is notoriously tough in
Southern California because of air-quality problems and
difficulty getting air-emissions credits, which are
essentially rights to spew specified amounts of pollutants.
Early this year, the local air agency, the South Coast Air
Quality Management District, imposed a moratorium on issuing
air credits from its ``bank'' that affected 10 power plants
that were under development.
``It's too early to tell how the pieces will fit together,
but all the agencies and utilities are talking,'' said
Edison's Mr. Hemphill. ``Something has to be worked out.''
Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, countries such as Denmark and Germany
have done the same thing. Denmark, which is often cited for its wind
power, has pushed its windmills up to 20 percent of its electrical
capacity. That sounds good. Many people regard 20 percent as about the
theoretical limit that wind power can supply to a total electric grid,
even for a small country such as Denmark. Yet Denmark hasn't closed
even one single coal plant as a result of all these new windmills. So
it is still dependent on fossil fuels, and it has the most expensive
electricity in Europe because of all of its renewable electricity.
Meanwhile, France, which has gone to 80 percent nuclear power, has per
capita carbon emissions 30 percent lower than those of Denmark, and it
has so much cheap electricity that France is making $3 billion a year
exporting its electricity--mostly from nuclear power--to other
countries.
So what are we getting into when we say we are going to solve our
energy problems by passing a law telling ourselves we have to get 15,
17, or 20 percent of our electricity from renewable sources, very
narrowly defined, by 2020?
First, it is important to point out that 80 percent of the facilities
built to satisfy State renewable standards have been windmills. So a
renewable electricity standard is really a national windmill policy
instead of a national energy policy. Wind turbines are easy to put up,
especially in remote areas. We have built 35,000 megawatts in total
wind energy capacity, which represents an increase of more than 100
percent in the past 3 years. But most wind turbines only generate
electricity about 33 percent of the time. That is how often the wind
blows. The best wind farms--the ones on the eastern and west coast
mountaintops or on the windy plains of the Dakotas--operate a little
more than 40 percent of the time. That means our 35,000 megawatts in
windmill capacity only generates about 10,000 megawatts at best--the
equivalent of ten standard nuclear reactors.
Moreover, the wind doesn't always blow when it is needed and often
blows when it is not needed. The strongest winds are at night or during
the fall and spring, which are periods of low demand, while the periods
with the least wind are hot summer afternoons, when the electricity
demand peaks. Wind and other renewables are not dependable in the terms
that utilities need dependable electricity. The Tennessee Valley
Authority, in the region where I live, says it can only count on the
wind power it produces in Tennessee and even the wind power it buys
from the Dakotas about 10 to 15 percent of the time when it is actually
needed. That is also what has happened in Denmark. They have to give
away almost half of their wind-generated electricity to Germany and
Sweden at bargain prices because it comes at a time when it is not
needed. The result has been that the Danes pay the highest electrical
prices in Europe and still haven't achieved much reduction in carbon
emissions.
Then there is the matter of subsidies. We hear a lot about oil
subsidies in the Senate. I suggest that when we talk about big oil, we
also talk about big wind. The U.S. taxpayers are already committed to
spending $29 billion over the next 10 years to subsidize the investors,
corporations, and the banks that have financed the big wind turbines,
and they only produce 1.8 percent of our electricity. If we went to 20
percent of our electricity from wind in the United States, that would
be $170 billion from American taxpayers.
Windmills are and can be said to be a big success compared to solar
electricity at today's prices. California now has more solar
electricity than any other State, and in March, the California Public
Utilities Commission announced the opening of one of the largest
photovoltaic stations in California--21 megawatts. Solar power makes
more sense as a supplement to our power by offsetting some of our
demand by placing solar panels on rooftops, not large-scale electricity
plants. We all hope we can reduce the cost of solar power, which today
costs four times as much as electricity produced from coal.
These are technologies we are counting on to solve our energy
problems. I think we have to exercise some caution here. The assumption
is that all we have to do is subsidize these technologies and get them
up and running, and they will find their place in the market. That
doesn't seem to be true. All of these technologies still have much to
prove before they can shoulder a significant portion of our
electricity. Biomass facilities need to be placed where they are most
efficient and can be used as a supplement to low-cost reliable sources
of electricity that already provide the large amounts of clean and
reliable energy we need. We already have a proven technology in nuclear
power that provides us with 20 percent of our electricity and 70
percent of our carbon-free electricity. We should focus on that.
As the President and our colleagues consider our clean energy future
tomorrow and the things we agree on, we can agree to electrify half our
cars and trucks, and we can agree to build nuclear plants for carbon-
free electricity. We can certainly agree on doubling energy research
and development to bring down the cost of solar power by a factor of 4
and to create a 500-mile battery for electric cars.
But we need to remember, as we think about the next 10, 20, or 30
years, the United States is not a desert island. We use 25 percent of
all the energy in the world to produce about 25 percent of all the
money, which we distribute among ourselves, 5 percent of the people in
the world. We ought to keep that high standard of living. We need to
remember we are not a desert island. Someday, solar, wind, and the
Earth may be an important supplement to our energy needs, but for
today, we are not going to power the United States on electricity
produced by a windmill, a controlled bonfire, and a few solar panels.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Udall of New Mexico). The Senator from
Kansas is recognized.
Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, I appreciate my colleague commenting
about energy. There is a bipartisan energy bill that I hope the
President discusses tomorrow. It came out of the Energy Committee on a
bipartisan vote. It doesn't increase cap and trade.
I certainly agree with my colleague on nuclear power, although we
have some disagreement about wind. We have some nice places in Kansas
for wind energy generation. I talked with the operators of the Smoky
Hills Wind Farm last week. It operates between 40 and 45 percent of the
time--the highest operating unit in the world. This company is a global
wind-producing company. It is a very nice operation. I am not saying
you can power it all off of wind. I am a nuclear supporter myself.
I also believe we have nice places to do wind power and a nice
generation capacity that is complementary to the rest of the energy
grid in the United States. Kansas is the second windiest State in the
country. There are many times I have been in Kansas and have wondered,
who else could be windier? We have a lot of consistent wind. There are
places we can produce wind power on a very advantageous basis for the
rest of the country. It is my hope that we can have those on a
complementary basis but that we don't do a cap-and-trade system;
rather, that we go with the bipartisan bill that passed the Energy
Committee.
____________________