Creative Commons image courtesy of BenandAsho on Flickr

We throw away a lot of food. Sometimes the scraps are inedible, like banana peels. Sometimes we forget about things in the refrigerator until we notice the smell. And sometimes our eyes are just bigger than our stomachs. Regardless of the reason, a lot of food scraps end up in our trash and ultimately the landfill. This is a wasted opportunity to realize environmental and economic benefits by using food scraps to improve soil health and generate renewable energy.

By diverting food scraps to other uses, such as generating energy and creating compost, we avoid the need to expand landfills in the state or transport waste long distances to out-of-state facilities. When food scraps and other organic matter decompose in landfills, they produce methane gas, a potent contributor to climate change. So diverting food scraps from landfills also helps us meet the state’s aggressive greenhouse-gas emission reduction goals.

To realize these benefits, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is supporting public and private investment in a new kind of infrastructure for managing organic materials. But for this new infrastructure to succeed, DEP and the project developers that will build and operate this infrastructure need to convince the public that food scraps are not garbage, but something else entirely.

The DEP is currently working on an action plan for managing Massachusetts’s organic waste. The state needs a plan, because it has set lofty goals to divert organic material from landfill disposal to be used in other processes. The state’s draft Solid Waste Master Plan calls for diverting 35% of food waste, estimated to be about 350,000 tons of material per year. This goal is echoed by the Clean Energy Results Program, which sets a further goal of 50 megawatts of installed capacity of renewable energy from aerobic and anaerobic digestion facilities by 2020. And let’s not forget the proposal to ban commercial food waste from Massachusetts landfills in 2014. These are great goals, because diverting organic material out of the solid waste stream provides opportunities for economic development that can improve the environmental impacts of solid waste management, and now DEP is developing the plan to make sure we get there.

The plan aims to ensure that organic “waste” isn’t wasted in a landfill. It calls for a few things:

• Gathering better and more current information about sources of food waste,
• Providing funding and technical assistance to work out the logistics of separating food waste from the actual trash, and
• Working with haulers to move this material to appropriate processing facilities.

There are also provisions for funding and technical assistance to facilitate the construction of additional processing infrastructure, like anaerobic digestion (AD) facilities, and to develop good markets for the resulting products.

Organics diversion presents an economic opportunity for cash-strapped municipalities to save money through reduced trash fees. It also allows developers – municipal or private – to generate revenue by using “waste” organics as inputs for marketable products like compost and other soil amendments and as a source of clean, renewable heat and electricity. At a time when municipal budgets are facing historic shortfalls and municipalities are seeking means of both cutting costs and creating revenue, this is surely a good thing.

DEP’s draft action plan is a progressive, proactive approach to organics management, but it’s missing something very important. It provides much-needed support and direction for people and organizations that are already proponents of better organic material management and will help project proponents navigate the technical and regulatory processes to achieve success. But what about the majority of people who likely have no idea that the DEP is interested in doing something dramatically different with organic waste?

This action plan and DEP efforts to date on this issue do little to address the very real need for public engagement and outreach to help citizens and businesses understand the good reasons for organics diversion. These include:

• Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions through improved methane utilization;
• Generating renewable energy from anaerobic digestion; and
• Producing nutrient-rich soil amendments through composting.

The intersection of waste management and energy development is more complex than either of these individual business sectors taken on their own. For instance, energy facilities such as anaerobic digesters, which use “waste” materials as inputs to generate energy, face the siting hurdles typically encountered by both energy and waste facilities. Public concerns with other renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar, have emerged relatively recently, but communities and individuals have been fighting against landfills and transfer stations for a very long time.

Today, forward-thinking people and businesses are beginning to talk about “materials management” rather than “waste management,” and those on the inside know what we mean by that. But most people don’t currently make the distinction, especially when the materials in question are leftover food and other organics that can rot. In the case of a proposed anaerobic digestion facility, the result is often a contested siting process. While AD proponents see facilities that will produce clean energy and environmentally beneficial soil products, opponents are concerned about siting waste incinerators, trash transfer stations, and toxic sludge.

The DEP, along with other state agencies such as the Department of Agriculture and Department of Energy Resources, is pushing to change the way “waste” materials are managed in Massachusetts. This is a good thing for economic development and the environmental performance of our materials-based economy. However, many people will not readily accept the subtle changes in regulatory definitions that distinguish separated materials from mixed solid waste. With these changes, materials that formerly had to be permitted as solid waste (trash) and processed at a permitted solid waste facility are no longer legally considered trash, so they can be processed at a composting or AD facility without a solid waste permit. I’m very happy this distinction is being made for organic material, but I know that many other people will consider this just another form of garbage disposal.

An action plan to encourage better organic materials management through diversion to composting and digestion needs to include significant resources to engage stakeholders around the Commonwealth to have open and honest conversations about the wide-ranging benefits, the potential pitfalls, and what everyone needs to know to avoid problems.

There is no reason to continue to dump organic material into landfills and many reasons to get everyone on board with using this material to generate more economic value and more environmental benefits for Massachusetts. But we can’t just “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” on the permit applications; we have to engage with people and navigate the changes in a collaborative and productive way. Diverting organic material from landfills can lead to a host of economic, environmental, and community benefits, but anyone who thinks changing the system will be as easy as selecting a site, telling the neighbors about the benefits, and awaiting approval and praise is in for a rude awakening. CLF Ventures looks forward to working with communities and project proponents to engage in open, clear discussions of the real impacts and benefits of organics management facilities so that all stakeholders share the same understanding of the issues and speak with the same terminology.

Courtesy of garcycles8@flickr

Entergy owns a tired old nuclear plant on the banks of the Connecticut River in Vermont – a plant it wants to keep running despite escalating costs, threats to the environment and public health, and a history of false promises. 

With old approvals in hand, Entergy continues to operate Vermont Yankee past its scheduled retirement date of March 21, 2012. Entergy’s view of Vermont’s authority seems to be Vermont only has authority to give it a green light.  By Entergy’s warped playbook, any condition of operation or approval would be off limits.

Entergy went to Court last year to challenge Vermont’s authority to regulate that plant. The Court partly agreed with Entergy, but clearly recognized and reaffirmed that Entergy still needs approval from the Vermont Public Service Board to continue to operate Vermont Yankee for another 20 years.  The only limitation is that Vermont cannot regulate radiological health and safety.

In early April the latest claims came about from a response from Entergy and a reply from the State of Vermont.  The State claims that Entergy’s old approvals also require payment by Entergy into Vermont’s renewable development fund and reporting requirements.  These are conditions that are part of Entergy’s old permits.  Though less than clear, Entergy’s position seems to be that only some of those conditions continue to apply.  A later reply on April 9, seems to try and blackmail the state.  Entergy will make these payments but only if Vermont does what Entergy wants – either grant approval or not raise its taxes.  That’s an odd way to do business.

Once again, Entergy is proving to be a lousy partner for Vermont.  Entergy needs to comply or shut down.  If Entergy stays open based on its old approvals, it must meet its obligations to make the payments required by those old approvals.  Continuing its lousy track record of broken promises and thumbing its nose at Vermont is getting as old and tired as the plant itself.

The American developers of the Northern Pass project are misleading the public about the project’s most touted environmental benefit (without which they “wouldn’t be doing this”): reducing New England’s greenhouse gas emissions. Presented with clear, unambiguous evidence that the current proposal would not meaningfully reduce emissions and that their public relations campaign is trading in falsehoods, the developers have done nothing to correct the record or provided any substantive response to the evidence.

In mid-February, CLF released a report on the science regarding large-scale hydropower’s emissions of greenhouse gases, the pollutants that are driving climate change. The conclusion: large-scale hydropower projects, especially new facilities, have substantial greenhouse gas emissions that, in their first years of operation, are equivalent to emissions from modern natural gas power plants.

This conclusion means that the proposed Northern Pass project, which would import up to 1,200 megawatts of new Canadian hydropower into New England and displace power from domestic natural gas plants, would not meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as the developers are claiming.  CLF’s report also demonstrated that the assumption at the heart of the developers’ claim that the Northern Pass project would reduce emissions by 5 million tons per year – that Canadian hydropower has no greenhouse gas emissions – is unequivocally false.

CLF sent a copy of the hydropower emissions report to Northern Pass Transmission LLC (NPT). In our transmittal letter, we made clear that the science summarized in the report (some of which was included in NPT’s own regulatory filings) clearly contradicted NPT’s marketing claims and urged NPT to:

• correct the regulatory and public record by retracting and withdrawing all NPT prior statements that hydropower results in no emissions of greenhouse gases and that the Project will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by any specific amount, and
• refrain from making any claims regarding carbon dioxide emissions reductions associated with the Project unless and until those reductions are substantiated in a new technical analysis subject to public and permitting agency review.

To date, NPT has taken neither step. The false “no emissions” canard and the unsupported claim of 5 million tons of annual emissions reductions from the project are still prominent fixtures at NPT’s MyNewHampshire.com:

"No greenhouse gases" (source: http://www.northernpass.us/pdf/ads/Jack.pdf)

NPT spokesman Martin Murray did post a non-responsive comment on CLF’s website, to which I responded in detail here. On its own website, NPT then heralded a Hydro-Québec press release responding to the report, and I explained here why the press release neither reflected a close reading of the report nor challenged the report’s fundamental conclusions but, instead, underscored Hydro-Québec’s position that the major promise of new hydropower imports was as a long-term replacement for dirty, costly coal power plants like New Hampshire’s own Merrimack and Schiller Stations – not natural gas.

Where do NPT’s non-responses leave us? Unfortunately, NPT seems poised to continue on with its false and misleading public relations campaign and has shown no interest in an open, honest debate. CLF will continue to use all the tools at our disposal to ensure that the public and decision-makers are fully aware of all the issues associated with the Northern Pass proposal. 

You can support our work by becoming a CLF member and also by telling the permitting agency now reviewing the Northern Pass proposal to consider hydropower’s greenhouse gas emissions – and all the other impacts of Northern Pass power in Canada – as part of the agency’s environmental review – click here to take action.

For more information about Northern Pass, sign-up for our monthly newsletter Northern Pass Wire, visit CLF’s Northern Pass Information Center (http://www.clf.org/northernpass), and take a look at our prior Northern Pass posts on CLF Scoop.

Climate Scientist Katherine Hayhoe is an evangelical Christian who sees her work and the need to protect the earth as deeply consistent with her faith.

Read all about her at Climate Central.  Buy her book, co-written with her husband who, like Dr. Hayhoe, is a Professor at Texas Tech. He is also the Pastor of their church.

Given the latest science showing that the models that predict the exact march of global warming appear to be overly conservative and underestimating the effects of the warming in progress and the strong likelihood that we are about to cross an irrevocable tipping point that commits the planet to deeply damaging warming it is not crazy to suggest that we need science, prayer and action.

The need for action and steps to be taken to address this crisis is not abstract.  The latest massive compilation of science shows the very real effects that global warming is having all around us and will increasingly inflict upon us.  The need to build resilient communities that can survive (and even thrive) in these conditions is very real.  However, it is equally vital that we reduce the emissions that are disrupting the climate.  This means building renewable energy of many sizes and types, it means making our society and economy more efficient, properly planning and building our communities and providing and funding safe and clean transit and spreading and truly implementing efforts like the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act and the greenhouse gas regulations being slowly rolled out by the Federal government.

The size, scale and nature of the crisis we face must spur all of us, whether we are motivated by a purely secular moral motivation to watch out for our fellow humans and/or other planetary passengers or the religious mission that guides someone like Dr. Hayhoe, to act. Because if we don’t we truly don’t have a prayer.

Seeking the Current filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair on the bank of Québec's Romaine River (photo courtesy Chercher le Courant)

This month, Seeking the Current wowed audiences across New Hampshire with the sublime beauty of Québec’s Romaine River – a wild, natural wonder that will essentially be destroyed by a new complex of hydropower projects, now under construction.  This complex is only one part of Hydro-Québec’s ongoing building boom – the keystone of the Canadian utility’s aggressive strategy to increase exports to the United States. The film also showed filmgoers that there are better, cheaper alternatives to new hydropower, including wind, solar photovoltaic, solar hot water, biogas, and investments in energy efficiency.  If these alternatives were scaled up and put in place throughout the province, Québec could still export more power to the United States – but without constructing new dams and reservoirs.

During the discussions after the film (one of which you can watch here), we heard the same question again and again – what can we do here in New England? The filmmaker Nicolas Boisclair observed that Hydro-Quebec’s strategy relies on opening new “doors” to New England and other export markets – like the Northern Pass transmission project. That’s another reason why CLF sees the permitting process for Northern Pass as so important – it is our opportunity to scrutinize whether we should open the door and on what terms, given all the impacts of the Northern Pass transmission project and the new Canadian hydropower the project makes possible.  And there is still time for all of us to tell the lead federal permitting agency for Northern Pass – the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) – to do its job by fully considering the impacts of Canadian hydropower.

Understanding Northern Pass’s power source is fundamental to understanding Northern Pass, especially with the developers of the project touting the environmental benefits of Canadian hydropower at every opportunity. PSNH President Gary Long even has said “we wouldn’t be doing” Northern Pass if it didn’t provide a “greener, cleaner energy future.” But when it comes to scrutinizing all the impacts of that same hydropower in the permitting process, the developers change their tune, arguing that the impacts of Hydro-Québec’s strategy to build more hydropower projects and export more power to the northeastern United States are “beyond the reach of” federal law.

On this point, the developers are wrong. Federal law requires that all direct and indirect effects of the Northern Pass project be analyzed and considered as part of DOE’s environmental review. In the words of the Council on Environmental Quality – the office that oversees all federal environmental reviews – “agencies must include analysis of reasonably foreseeable transboundary effects of proposed actions in their analysis of proposed actions in the United States.” The impacts of hydropower in Canada – so stunningly documented in Seeking the Current and so much more worse for the climate than the misleading story Northern Pass developers like to tell – are “reasonably foreseeable” consequences of the Northern Pass project, and the Department of Energy must consider them, alongside all the potential impacts of building a large-scale transmission line through New Hampshire. CLF made this clear in our comments to DOE a year ago, but it is critical that DOE hear from as many voices as possible.

Please join CLF in calling on the Department of Energy to consider the impacts of Northern Pass hydropower in Canada.  With only a few clicks, you can take action here.

I am not the only person to find a sharp description of our unfortunate political and cultural situation in W.B. Yeats dark meditation on the aftermath of World War I: The Second Coming.

Many remember that poem for the hair-raising question that comes at its end, “. . . what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

However, the poem also famously states: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.”

It is hard to imagine a more accurate statement of the problem around the climate debate where denial is often presented with powerful zeal and, too often, truth is presented in a tentative manner.

However, fortunately, sometimes the tellers of truth show powerful courage.  Doctor Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist, is one of those who has refused to temper his message and bow in the face of those who denounce him for clearly and powerfully presenting the results of his research.   He tells the story of his life, his research, the attacks upon him and the lessons he has learned from these experiences in a deeply readable book, “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars”

His book is required reading for all those who want to understand climate science – as well as those who want an inside view of a critical political and cultural debate between sound science and ideologically driven denial.

In the short term this remarkable book presents a happy ending as Dr. Mann is able to continue with his work and survive scurrilous attack. However, like a monster movie that ends with a moment of peace that fades into ominous music and a hint of the horrible threat just waiting to burst on the scene, the book ends with a question: Will humanity listen to the message of science and avert the catastrophe of a warming and disrupted planet?

In a sharply worded decision, the Vermont Public Service Board made clear yesterday that it intends to holds Entergy to its commitments.

The Board stated that the provision of Vermont law that allows licenses to continue while a new proceeding is underway “does not provide authority for Vermont Yankee to continue operating, and storing spent nuclear fuel derived from such operation, while Entergy VY’s petition for a new or amended CPG remains pending.” (p.25).

The decision makes it clear that Entergy’s current license includes obligations that preclude storing fuel generated after March 21, 2012. (p.19) It also recognized that the Board order approving the sale to Entergy back in 2002 relied on Entergy’s promise not to operate after 2012 unless it had approval from the Board. (p.18)

The Board further chastised Entergy and its multi-million dollar legal team noting it expected them “to provide better organized and more cogent briefing.” (p.9 fn. 19).

The Board’s decision was made “in full recognition of the federal District Court’s decision” and does not cross purposes with it. It clarifies Entergy’s commitments and obligations. Entergy should be held to their promises. Entergy cannot simply pick and choose which obligations it will follow.

It is not clear what’s next. The ball is in Entergy’s court. It can and should comply with its obligations and keep its promises.

As the scheduled retirement date for Vermont Yankee approaches, it becomes clearer than ever that this costly, tired, leaky and polluting plant’s days are numbered.

The disappointing Federal Court decision that limited action by the Vermont Legislature to close Vermont Yankee kept intact review by Vermont utility regulators.

That review began and Entergy is being pressed hard to justify its continued bullying and defiance. 

Conservation Law Foundation’s recent recommendations note:

• The Vermont law that was not struck down by the federal court precludes storing waste generated after March 21, 2012.
• Entergy’s current authorization precludes operation after March 21, 2012 except for decommissioning.
• The sale of Vermont Yankee to Entergy in 2002 was approved based on a promise not to operate past March 21, 2012.

The broken promises from Entergy continue.  A new book, aptly titled “Public Meltdown” that highlights some of CLF’s work, provides great insight into how the public lost trust in Entergy and Vermont Yankee over the past few years.  Entergy’s recent actions continue this sad trend.

*UPDATE* 3/20/12  – Late Monday the federal district court issued a disappointing new order that precludes the State from taking some actions, while an appeal is pending, regarding storage of spent fuel.  This is a step backwards for clean energy.  Vermont may be forced to store additional nuclear waste for years while this appeal winds its way through the courts.  Five minutes later, Vermont regulators issued a stunning rebuke to Entergy that makes it clear they intend to hold Entergy to its promises and commitments.  Stay tuned.

It has been apparent for some time that anyone who lives, works or is generally attached to a coastal community should be very concerned about the effects of sea level rise flowing from global warming.

A comprehensive new scientific paper and data tool, that builds on prior analysis, like the “Climate’s Long Term Impact on Boston” from 2005, is getting broad and deep press interest.

What is particularly striking is the ability to use this tool to look at the likely and predictable effects of sea level rise on particular places.  For example, applying the tool to the Boston waterfront confirms that epicenter of new development in the city is right in the bulls eye of sea level rise and if current trends continue the only way to enjoy the new restaurants in that area will involve swimming.

This realization should drive us both to plan in a way that acknowledges this very real threat but also to be even more serious and focused in our efforts to sharply reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that are the underlying cause of the damage that is being done to our climate.