Last night's presentation by Peter Goldmark was interesting. As Commissioner of Public Lands, he is in charge of 5.6 million acres of public lands in Washington, including the seabeds of many rivers and the Sound.
There's a lot that goes with that. One of the most intriguing proposals was using what would have been burn piles from forestry operations for biomass power. Apparently a lot of the timber industry is very interested in this–after all, it was waste, and now it's profit. And certainly it's good for an alternative power solution.
But, as was pointed out to me shortly after the meeting, it also strips those nutrients out of the soil. The burning of the piles might put a lot of CO2 into the air, but it also leaves a lot of nutrients on hand for the forest when it's replanted.
This is a difficult balance, and it's the same balance a lot of renewable energy has–hydro, wind, tidal, biomass, etc all have environmental downsides (solar might be the lone exception here).
Anyway, it was a great presentation with a lot of time for good questions! I learned a lot.