From:                                         Mina Reddy <minareddy@gmail.com>

Sent:                                           Sunday, July 14, 2019 8:32 PM

To:                                               RPS, DOER (ENE)

Subject:                                     Comments on proposed changes to RPS Class I and RPS Class II

 

John Wassam

Department of Energy Resources

100 Cambridge Street, Suite 1020

Boston, MA 02114

 

Dear Mr. Wassam,

We are members of Mothers Out Front, an organization that is strongly committed to reversing climate change, and working to assure a livable world for future generations.  Our members are mothers, grandmothers and others, and we are in communities across Massachusetts and in 9 other states across the country.  We know that it is essential to rapidly decrease the amount of carbon in the atmosphere by using renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, rather than those that add additional carbon to the air.

It is shocking and unacceptable that Governor Baker is proposing to incentivize the burning of trees and trash as an energy source. Both are inefficient and polluting, and they increase atmospheric carbon. By some calculations tree and trash incineration are more polluting per megawatt hour than coal.

Governor Baker and the Department of Energy Resources hope to rewrite regulations in order to overturn previous restrictions on biomass energy generation.  This would increase subsidies to incineration of trash and of biomass energy sources in both Renewable Energy Certificates (REC) classes (I & II) of the Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard (RPS).  

These proposed regulations would make it easier for energy producers to create RECs from burning trash and biomass, which can be sold on the market to consumers looking to purchase electricity generated from 100% renewable sources. This is clearly not the intended definition of renewable energy.

The 2018 IPCC report confirms that we have a short time to decrease carbon pollution, and we expect Massachusetts to respond quickly by increasing non-emitting power, not by weakening regulations that would allow increases in carbon pollution.

Respectfully,

Florrie Wescoat, Mina Reddy, Kristine Jelstrup, Hannah Mahoney, and Sharon DeVos for Cambridge Mothers Out Front