Threatened Forests: a new look at "green energy"
Threatened forests’ explores some hidden realities behind “green energy” in the EU. Filmmaker Benoit Grimont made this documentary as a response to the development of a large scale biomass electricity installation in Gardanne, southern France. His film discovers that renewable energy – heavily supported by EU countries – may not be anything like as ‘green’ as we are led to believe.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
Reblogged this on Mark Catlin's Blog.
Threatened Forests and Wildfires The drought and the resulting wildfires which are threatening the forests are caused by the climate change and the global warming they say. And it is something else too. Yet nobody talks about it. Because it is labeled as green and presented as one of the greatest achievements of green and carbon free energy. That is the influence of the offshore wind farms to the normal circuit of the water in nature. Imagine a hot summer day. You are on the beach in the sun. The breeze from the sea cools you down. And unexpectedly somebody stops the wind. What would you do? We shouldn’t stop the wind. It cools down the Earth. The Monsoon in India is a well known example. The climatic processes are the same everywhere only on a smaller scale. The offshore wind farms hinder those natural processes which bring moisture and… Read more »
Good documentary. Biomass has a role in the production of “green” energy but not in the way it is being done in France (and other locations). Anaerobic digestion for, for example sewage or manure, locally, is sustainable (working on the basis that people are not going to stop going to the bog any time soon). Local PV and wind schemes likewise have a role in providing electricity and are particualrly effective when deployed as community energy schemes (as is done at scale in Germany). The problem is that there are almost zero community energy schemes in France – although the political structure (communes) lends itself to delivering such schemes. In France, the energy scene is dominated by EdF (prop: french state) and to a lesser extent companies such as EON or GDF-Suez (now Engie) & there is little prospect of any change – hence the EON scheme profiled (which is… Read more »
There’s nothing wrong in principle with ‘green energy’ serving rural needs. If you can use an anaerobic digester to turn animal waste into energy serving a small village, fine.
I don’t think such things are close to commercial viability in serving big cities, however.
Reblogged this on Worldtruth and commented:
Drax in Yorkshire, who were buying lignite coal from the US for their biomass energy, have now scaled back or stopped it’s production. Probably because the Tories took away their financial incentive to look for “green” alternatives. The company did not respond to a request for further elucidation. It is quite obvious why, since the replanting of primary forest from which the chippings were acquired in no way, can replace what has been removed.
A bit disturbing documentary. Prioritising so-called bio-fuels is just a crime against humanity
Not quite. We just put completely unrealistic expectations on the biofuels, and biosphere in general. It spent the last few billion years sustaining itself with great success, but never once during this time was it mechanised. It simply is not suited to supporting mechanisation, and it is not suddenly going to become able to support it just because we wish so.
Indeed, burning trees (or food) will never be effective enough. Using nuclear energy sources is mostly disgraced (and dangerous, too). But “being green” is always profitable business. Not for ordinary people.