Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand

Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand
A man inspects logs near several wood pellet production companies in Pohuwato, Gorontalo province, Indonesia, Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 27 October 2024
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Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand

Indonesian forests pay the price for the growing global biomass energy demand
  • Biomass is organic material like plants, wood and waste, and many coal-fired power plants can be easily modified to burn it alongside coal to make energy

JAKARTA, Indonesia: Enormous swathes of pristine forest are being cut down across Indonesia to supply the rapidly rising international demand for biomass material seen as critical to many countries’ transitions to cleaner forms of energy.
Nearly all of the biomass from forests destroyed for wood pellet production since 2021 has been shipped to South Korea and Japan, The Associated Press found in an examination of satellite images, company records and Indonesian export data. Both countries have provided millions of dollars to support the development of biomass production and use in Indonesia.
Indonesia’s state-run utility also has plans to dramatically increase the amount of biomass it burns to make electricity.
Experts and environmentalists fear the rising international and domestic demand, coupled with weak domestic regulation, will accelerate deforestation at the same time it prolongs the use of highly polluting fossil fuels. Biomass is organic material like plants, wood and waste, and many coal-fired power plants can be easily modified to burn it alongside coal to make energy.
“Biomass production — which is only recently starting to be seen on an industrial scale in Indonesia — is a dire new threat to the country’s forests,” said Timer Manurung, director of Auriga Nusantara, an environmental and conservation organization in Indonesia.
As countries accelerate their energy transitions, demand for biomass is growing: The use of bioenergy has increased an average of about 3 percent per year between 2010 and 2022, the International Energy Agency said.
Experts including the IEA say it’s important for that demand to happen in a sustainable way, such as using waste and crop residue rather than converting forest land to grow bioenergy crops. Deforestation contributes to erosion, damages biodiverse areas, threatens wildlife and humans who rely on the forest and intensifies disasters from extreme weather.
And many scientists and environmentalists have rejected the use of biomass altogether. They say burning wood-based biomass can emit more carbon than coal and tree-cutting greatly reduces forests’ ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere. Critics also say that using biomass to co-fire, instead of transitioning directly to clean energy, simply prolongs the use of coal.
In Indonesia, biomass production is causing deforestation across the archipelago.
Auriga Nusantara reports that more than 9,740 hectares (24,070 acres) of forest have been cleared in areas where biomass production is permitted since 2020. Permits have been issued for over 1.4 million hectares (3,459,475 acres) of energy plantation forests in Indonesia, with over one-third of that land being undisturbed forest. Over half of these concession areas are the habitat of flagship species such as sumatran rhino, elephants, orangutans and tigers, said Manurung.
In the carbon-rich forests of Gorontalo, Sulawesi, the felling, shredding and shipping of old trees to make energy-dense wood pellets has been streamlined. Over 3,000 hectares (7,410 acres) of forest have been razed in a concession owned by Banyan Tumbuh Lestari, from 2021 to 2024, according to satellite analysis shared with AP by international environmental organization Mighty Earth. An additional 2,850 hectares (7,040 acres) were cleared for logging roads.
After trees are cut down, they’re turned into wood pellets at a facility near the concessions owned by Biomasa Jaya Abadi, the largest exporter of wood pellets from Indonesia from 2021-2023, according to data Auriga Nusantara compiled from the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry database. The database has no records of wood pellet exports prior to 2020.
Biomasa Jaya Abadi did not respond to repeated requests for interviews or comment. Banyan Tumbuh Lestari do not have contact information publicly available; AP contacted their main shareholders seeking comment but got no response. Indonesia’s ministries of Environment and Forestry; Energy and Mineral Resources and Maritime Affairs and Investment did not respond to requests for comment.
Nearly all of Indonesia’s wood pellet production is shipped overseas to meet international demand, said Alloysius Joko Purwanto, an energy economist at the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia.
Most of Indonesia’s wood pellets went to South Korea (61 percent) and Japan (38 percent) from 2021-2023, according to government data.
“It’s clear that Japan and South Korea’s governments are trying to buy more biomass from Indonesia to lower their own domestic emissions,” said Bhima Yudhistira, executive director of the Indonesia-based Center of Economic and Law Studies.
Both countries have provided millions of dollars of financial support toward the development of biomass in Indonesia through research, policy, construction and other support, according to a review of publicly available business and government agreements by AP.
South Korea’s Forest Service, which drives South Korea’s biomass expansion and policy, did not reply to requests for comment. Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries also did not respond to a request for comment.
The promotion of biomass production and use has coincided with the ramping-up of Indonesia’s domestic biomass use.
The country’s state electricity company, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), plans to implement 10 percent biomass co-firing for 52 coal plants across the country. PLN estimates that would take 8 million tons of biomass a year — far greater than the wood pellet industry’s capacity at the end of 2023 of less than 1 million tons, according to Indonesian civil society organization Trend Asia.
To achieve PLN’s ambitions, a 66 percent increase in forest plantation land would be needed — “which would likely come at the expense of intact, carbon-rich and carbon-absorbing forests,” according to a report by Mighty Earth.
PLN spokesperson Gregorius Adi Trianto told AP that the company’s plan relied on biomass from “organic waste such as tree branches, rice waste, and wood industry waste ... rather than from actively logged forests.”
With Indonesia lacking clear regulations and oversight of its expanding biomass industry, experts fear deforestation is likely to spike for years to come.
“We’re already far behind when it comes to monitoring and regulating issues around biomass production in Indonesia,” said Yudhistira. “There’s definitely a lack of due diligence, and forests are suffering.”


Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze

Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze
Updated 12 sec ago
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Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze

Arsonists set Melbourne synagogue ablaze
  • Fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside
  • Members of the congregation form human chain to remove religious items from the damaged synagogue
MELBOURNE: Mask-wearing arsonists set a synagogue ablaze in a pre-dawn attack Friday in the Australian city of Melbourne, police said, sparking widespread condemnation.
The fire broke out at 4:10 a.m. (1710 GMT) in the Adass Israel Synagogue when some congregants were already inside, police said, gutting much of the building in the southeast Melbourne suburb of Ripponlea.
No serious injuries were reported.
A witness entering the synagogue for morning prayers saw “two individuals wearing masks,” Detective Inspector Chris Murray of the Victorian police arson and explosive squad told reporters at the scene.
“They appeared to be spreading an accelerant of some type in the premises,” he said.
The synagogue was “engulfed in flames,” he added.
“We believe it was deliberate. We believe it has been targeted. What we don’t know is why.”
Police will increase patrols as they hunt for the arsonists, who were wearing dark clothing, he said.
Detectives would be looking at CCTV footage and interviewing any witnesses, Murray said.
Television images showed firefighters hosing down the embers through the blackened door of the single-story building, which has a grey concrete facade.
A board member of the synagogue, Benjamin Klein, said a few congregants were sitting and praying inside when the fire started.
“They heard loud banging,” Klein said.
Liquid was poured inside the synagogue and set alight, he said.
“If this had happened an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside,” Klein said.
The congregants “ran out the back of the synagogue. One man who ran out — his hand got burnt,” he said.
“The fire was extensive,” he said.
“Inside is completely gutted.”
Holy books and furniture had been destroyed, he said, vowing however that the community would “rebuild.”
Members of the congregation formed a human chain to remove religious items from the damaged synagogue, including Torah scrolls — one of which was brought to Australia from Germany in World War II, the Age newspaper reported.
Klein said the synagogue had increased security over the past 12 months amid safety concerns, without giving further details.
In 1995, the synagogue was damaged by a deliberately lit fire, with walls and Torah scrolls burned.
Klein, who was a child at the time, said he remembered standing inside the damaged synagogue with his grandfather, who he said was a Holocaust survivor.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “unequivocally” condemned the fire and said federal police would help the state to investigate it.
“This violence and intimidation and destruction at a place of worship is an outrage,” Albanese said in a statement.
“This attack has risked lives and is clearly aimed at creating fear in the community.”
The prime minister said he had “zero tolerance” for anti-Semitism.
“It has absolutely no place in Australia.”
The war in Gaza has sparked protests from supporters of Israel and Palestinians in cities around Australia, as in much of the world.
Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Daniel Aghion said the community had been living in fear of such an incident since the start of the war in Gaza.
“This for us is just evidence of that fear,” he told reporters.
“This is something that is the greatest manifestation of what we have been seeing and hearing in terms of threatening emails, threatening social media, threatening letters and all sorts of other material.”
Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack which triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 44,580 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police
Updated 10 min 34 sec ago
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Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

Three climbers missing on New Zealand mountain believed dead: police

WELLINGTON: Police said Friday they believe that three climbers who went missing on New Zealand’s tallest mountain are dead.

Aoraki Area Commander Inspector Vicki Walker said: “We do not believe the men have survived,” five days after the climbers – two from the United States and one from Canada – went missing on Mount Cook.

Authorities earlier expressed “grave concerns” for the climbers who went missing, as efforts to find them stalled amid bad weather.

Strong winds meant an aerial search for the men could not resume as anticipated on Thursday, Police Area Commander Inspector Vicki Walker said in a statement.

The Americans — Kurt Blair, 56, from Colorado and Carlos Romero, 50, of California — are certified alpine guides, according to the website of the nonprofit American Mountain Guides Association. New Zealand authorities have not named the Canadian climber at the request of his family.

The men flew to a hut partway up the mountain on Saturday to begin their ascent and were reported missing on Monday when they did not arrive to meet their prearranged transport after the climb. Searchers hours later found several climbing-related items believed to belong to the men, but no sign of them, police said.

The search for the men stalled on Tuesday and Wednesday due to deteriorating weather conditions on Aoraki, also known as Mount Cook, with heavy rain and snow forecast.

Walker earlier hoped efforts would resume Thursday but said conditions on the day were unsafe.

Aoraki is 3,724 meters high and is part of the Southern Alps, the scenic and icy mountain range that runs the length of New Zealand’s South Island.


Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

Trump appoints former PayPal COO David Sacks as AI and crypto czar

US President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday said he was appointing former PayPal Chief Operating Officer David Sacks as his artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar, another step toward overhauling US policy.
“He will work on a legal framework so the Crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for, and can thrive in the US,” Trump said in a post on his social-media site Truth Social.
The crypto czar and other officials in Trump’s incoming administration such as the chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission are expected to reshape US policy on digital currency along with a newly created crypto advisory council.
Trump’s tech backers generally want to see minimal regulation around AI and cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, saying Washington would throttle growing innovative sectors with excessive rules.
Trump announced on Wednesday that he was nominating prominent Washington lawyer and crypto advocate Paul Atkins to lead the SEC, in a move celebrated by the industry.
Trump — who once labeled crypto a scam — embraced digital assets during his campaign, promising to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and to accumulate a national stockpile of bitcoin.
Bitcoin broke $100,000 for the first time on Wednesday night, a milestone hailed even by skeptics as a coming-of-age for digital assets as investors bet on a friendly US administration to cement the place of cryptocurrencies in financial markets.
Born in South Africa, Sacks, 52, is a co-founder of venture capital firm Craft Ventures and an early leader of PayPal, a payment processing firm that was acquired by eBay in 2002.
Sacks is also a former chief executive of software company Zenefits and founded Yammer, a social network for enterprise users.
He was an early evangelist of cryptocurrencies, telling CNBC in a 2017 interview that he believed the rise of bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, was revolutionizing the Internet.
“It feels like we are witnessing the birth of a new kind of web. Some people have called it the decentralized web or the Internet of money,” he said.
Trump said Sacks will also lead a White House advisory council on science and technology. 


Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China
Updated 06 December 2024
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Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

Trump says he picks former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China

WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday he has chosen former Senator David Perdue to be ambassador to China.
“He will be instrumental in implementing my strategy to maintain Peace in the region, and a productive working relationship with China’s leaders,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, 2025, has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop the trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl.
He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.


Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill
Updated 06 December 2024
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Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy bring Trump’s DOGE to Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON: Billionaire Elon Musk and fellow entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy spent several hours Thursday swapping ideas with lawmakers about President-elect Donald Trump’s DOGE initiative to dismantle parts of the federal government.
Meeting behind closed doors at the Capitol, Musk told the mostly Republican lawmakers they would be keeping a “naughty and nice” list of those who join in the budget slashing proposals and those who don’t, according to lawmakers who attended.
“We’re going to see a lot of change around here in Washington,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, as Musk, with his young son on his shoulders, breezed by and into the private meeting.
Trump tapped the two business titans to head his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a nongovernmental task force assigned to find ways to fire federal workers, cut programs and slash federal regulations — all part of what he calls his “Save America” agenda for a second term in the White House.
Washington has seen this before, with ambitious efforts to reduce the size and scope of the federal government that historically have run into resistance when the public is confronted with cuts to trusted programs that millions of Americans depend on for jobs, health care, military security and everyday needs.
But this time Trump is staffing his administration with battle-tested architects of sweeping proposals, some outlined in Project 2025, to severely reduce and reshape the government. Musk and Ramaswamy have said they plan to work alongside the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, headed by Trump’s nominee Russ Vought, a mastermind of past cuts.
“DOGE has a historic opportunity for structural reductions in the federal government,” Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “We are prepared for the onslaught.”
Trump said Thursday that he would also name venture capitalist and former PayPal executive David Sacks to be the “White House A.I. & Crypto Czar” and lead the Presidential Council of Advisers for Science and Technology. Trump said in a social media post that Sacks would help “steer us away from Big Tech bias and censorship.” Trump’s transition team didn’t say whether Sacks would be a government employee or a temporary government worker who would not be bound by the same ethics and disclosure rules.
Sacks visited Mar-a-Lago earlier Thursday, according to an investor who held an event at Trump’s Florida club. The longtime conservative was key to introducing Vice President-elect JD Vance to donors, helping him prove he could raise money. Sacks hosted a fundraiser for Trump and Vance at his San Francisco home.
Musk and Ramaswamy faced a first test as they sat on a auditorium stage in the Capitol basement, as House and Senate lawmakers, almost exclusively Republicans, lined up at the microphones to share ideas for ways to address the nation’s budget imbalances.
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the chair of the Education and Workforce Committee, brought up the Department of Education as a good place to cut. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wisconsin, said to look at office space and how little of it is being used. Others talked about the need for workers to return to their offices.
Afterward, Johnson declined to say if Medicare, Social Security or other popular programs were off limits for cuts, describing this first meeting as a “brainstorming” session with more to come.
“They said everything has to be looked at,” said Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., who joined with Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, in launching what they are calling the DOGE caucus in the House, with more than 50 Republicans and two Democratic members.
Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be taking it all in, Musk at times even taking notes, lawmakers said — experiencing a day in the life of congressional leadership, as the meeting went on and on, with lawmakers lined up 20-deep for their chance to speak.
“It was just what I’d hoped for, where it was a question and answer session, so that members could come up, express their ideas, concerns, ask questions,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who will chair a House Oversight subcommittee in the new year on DOGE.
To be sure, it wasn’t the full Congress participating, as most Democrats did not join.
New York Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi said when he heard Musk mention that he was open to hearing from Democrats, he dashed over to join toward the end of the session.
“Let’s do some things to try and make government more efficient — without hurting people,” Suozzi said.
Musk and Ramaswamy left lawmakers with the impression they would be back for more, holding regular meetings and starting a podcast or some other way to share information with Americans to gauge public support — or opposition — to the proposals.
While neither Musk nor Ramaswamy have much public service experience, they bring track records in private business — Musk’s operations have vast government contracts — and enthusiasm for Trump’s agenda, having campaigned alongside him in the final stretch of the election.
The world’s richest man, Musk poured millions into a get-out-the-vote effort to help the former president return to the White House. He is known politically for having transformed the popular social media site formerly known as Twitter into X, a platform embraced by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” enthusiasts.
Despite its name, the Department of Government Efficiency is neither a department nor part of the government, which frees Musk and Ramaswamy from having to go through the typical ethics and background checks required for federal employment. They said they will not be paid for their work.
One good-government group has said that DOGE, as a presidential advisory panel, should be expected to adhere to traditional practices of transparency, equal representation and public input — as happened with similar advisory entities from the Reagan to the Obama administrations.
The Federal Advisory Committee Act “is designed expressly for situations like this,” wrote Lisa Gilbert and Robert Weissman, the co-chairs of Public Citizen, in a letter to the Trump transition team.
“If the government is going to turn to unelected and politically unaccountable persons to make recommendations as grand as $2 trillion in budget cuts, it must ensure those recommendations come from a balanced and transparent process not rigged to benefit insiders.”
The nation’s $6 trillion federal budget routinely runs a deficit, which this year ran $1.8 trillion, a historic high, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It has not been balanced since the Clinton administration more than two decades ago.
Republicans generally blame what they see as exorbitant spending for the deficit, while Democrats point to tax cuts enacted under Republican presidents Trump and George W. Bush as the major driver.
Receipts last year as a percentage of gross domestic product came in just below the average for the past 50 years, while outlays were equal to 23.4 percent of GDP, compared to the 50-year average of 21.1 percent.
Some of the biggest increases in spending last year occurred with politically popular programs that lawmakers will be reticent to touch. For example, spending on Social Security benefits went up 8 percent, Medicare outlays increased 9 percent, spending on defense went up 7 percent and spending on veterans health care rose 14 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Rep. Clay Higgins, R-Louisiana, said the significance of the meeting was that it was even taking place, “that there’s honest dialogue between Congress and two, like, rock star administration guys.”
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said he would like to see Musk testify before the House Armed Services Committee on the “bloated defense budget.”
“I’d like to see Elon recommend some cuts. Let’s have him testify,” Khanna said.