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