We Don’t Need It – we have enough power to satisfy demand, according to recent data. Recent reports indicate that additional power is not needed.

We Don’t Want It – all the negative impacts -- including but not limited to deforestation, water consumption, deteriorated water quality, air pollution, as well as increased carbon dioxide emissions just when we don’t need them – aren’t worth it and are unacceptable.

We Can’t Afford It – aside from being asked to absorb all the negative environmental impacts, rate-payers would be asked to pay at least three times as much as they need to for biomass energy. According to a 2007 Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources document (Massachusetts Saving Electricity: A Summary of the Performance of Electric Efficiency Programs Funded by Ratepayers Between 2003 and 2005), conservation is the cheapest form of energy, costing only 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, and furthermore, untapped opportunities for conservation are substantial. And conservation has positive rather than negative environmental

impacts, including reduced carbon dioxide emissions. Why on earth would we want to go with energy from biomass that costs at least three times as much as alternatives and has severe negative impacts to boot?

by Ellen Moyer, PhD, PE