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The Environmental Protection Agency will stymie development of an important source of renewable energy by including biomass combustion in required accountings of greenhouse gas emissions, NRECA told the agency.

Emissions from a biomass plant like this one in California should not be treated as fossil-fuel-based greenhouse gas emissions, NRECA says. (Photo By: Covanta Energy)

The EPA policy “will be an impediment to the use of biomass fuels in the shift of electric utilities to lower carbon fuel sources and renewable energy,” NRECA said.

That, it said, could impair efforts to enhance national energy security and diversify fuel supplies by idling 1.3 billion tons of biomass that the Energy Department has estimated could be available as a power plant and transportation fuel by 2025.

Biomass, derived from forest and wood products, plant materials, agricultural residues, and urban and industrial wastes, is regarded as an abundant renewable resource for baseload generation.

The issue has attracted attention recently because of an EPA proposal on boilers that could hamper biomass-powered facilities.

NRECA’s six-page filing came in response to the agency’s tailoring rule, which it finalized in May. The rule sets an emissions threshold for regulation of stationary sources of greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, which EPA will implement in January.

In EPA’s initial proposal, the tailoring rule exempted biomass emissions from greenhouse gas accountings, which NRECA said was consistent with past accounting procedures.

But EPA unexpectedly changed course, and an accounting process in the final rule means biomass would count toward greenhouse gas emissions, when utilities substitute it for traditional fossil fuels.

NRECA called that “a significant paradigm shift” that merits delay while EPA sorts out comments it has received on the subject.

“Biomass and fossil energy emissions are qualitatively and quantitatively different,” NRECA said. “The life cycle of carbon from biomass is balanced so that the net of emissions and absorption is near zero.”

NRECA urged EPA to consider a variety of tools that would effectively exempt biomass-related emissions from programs that regulate greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Clean Air Act.

The agency has not set a timeline for a decision.

Tags: Biomass, Environmental Protection Agency, Greenhouse Gas