Petite biomass thread
<-- Me

(1/7) The Reading Select board voted 4-1 this week to go on record opposing proposed renewable energy rule changes that would make it easier for a biomass plant in Springfield to be built.

Background on the changes: https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2020/12/22/biomass-palmer-springfield-asthma-rps-change

(2/7)This is significant because the town of Reading holds the largest contract for the plant's power. (Technically, the Reading Municipal Light Department holds the contract, but it's on behalf of the town's residents)

(3/7) I'm told that some in Reading -- a predominately white suburb -- were upset that the Light Board even signed a contract with the Palmer plant last year because of the health/environmental harms the wood-burning biomass facility would cause in Springfield.

(4/7) Not to mention that if these state rule changes go through, the town will get lucrative renewable energy credits for buying the power.

As one person put it to me: "So Reading gets power that it can call clean while an EJ community gets a polluting plant?"

(5/7) I've reported in the past that Palmer has sold 75% of its future electricity output to municipal light plants like Reading's, and the select board opposition got me wondering who else has contracts for the power ... and how people in those towns feel about it

(6/7) So while I monitored a different public meeting tonight, I made this very rudimentary spreadsheet. Here's what I was able to find about the locally owned utilities (known as "MUNIs") with contracts for the Palmer plant.

(7/7) PS, now that the MA legislature re-filed the exact same climate bill that Gov. Baker vetoed last week, this piece I wrote about the MUNIs and Palmer is once again relevant: https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/01/12/climate-bill-biomass-palmer-springfield-rec-renewable-energy-credits