Are Climate Claims for Burning Renewable Trees a Smokescreen?
- by Robert McClure, April 21, 2014. Source: The Tyee/Investigate West
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The wood-gas fired plant just off Marine Drive in Vancouver, the university boasts, "will reduce UBC's natural gas consumption by 12 per cent and campus greenhouse gas emissions by nine per cent (5,000 tonnes), the equivalent of taking 1,000 cars off the road."
"It's very exciting," said Brent Sauder, UBC's director of strategic partnerships, who helped shape plans for the plant. "It's not a research activity -- it's a mission."
That mission is to replace finite, climate-baking fossil fuel with renewable wood to generate electricity. It sounds so darn cool: UBC students charging their iPods on solar energy stored in wood.