An Update on an Unrelenting "Pulp Fiction": Utility-Scale Wood Burning as a Climate Fix

Sometimes reams of great reporting doesn't change things on the ground.

I’m a big fan of the long-term effort to “electrify everything.” But some of the means used to produce the electricity that is, and will be, needed, are dubious at best, if the goal is a climate-safe and environmentally-sound energy future.

A glaring case in point is burning wood pellets or other biomass to generate power. Europe’s academies of science in 2019 came together to warn there is “No Silver Pellet,” saying, “We have repeatedly pointed out that in many cases the large-scale substitution of coal by forest biomass will accelerate climate warming.”

Ouch. Since then, for the most part, government policies, including massive subsidies, have relentlessly propped up this trade. And this has all spilled into U.S. forests and policy and politics.

This is not to say there’s no role for such an energy source. Explore this Oak Ridge National Lab study of the Southeast U.S. trade, for example: “Effects of Production of Woody Pellets in the Southeastern United States on the Sustainable Development Goals.”

Department of Energy image

But it’s way past time for some course correction and reality injection.

That’s why I was happy to see

David Roberts

tackle the relentless scandal of utility-scale wood combustion as a climate fix on

Volts

today and hope you’ll give a listen. He focuses on plans to expand wood exports for biomass energy to the Pacific Northwest (market, Asia). But the conversation with Rita Frost of the Natural Resources Defense Council and Brenna Bell of 350 PDX, provides a nice overview, as well:

What's the deal with burning wood pellets for energy?

As they stress, the issues go far beyond untenable emissions accounting sustaining Europe’s conclusion that this is carbon-neutral energy. One focus of the conversation is pollution impacts on communities on the ground. Frost notes that the U.S. is moving to clarify and control such impacts. Here she is from Roberts’ transcript:

The US EPA is moving forward on a study of the impacts of the wood pellet industry, including scrutinizing the state permitting and enforcement processes because they have been so poor. Because at any given time, you can look at wood pellet facilities across the United States and about a third of them are in non-compliance

But other Biden administration policies cut against change. And of course, just imagine what a second Trump administration would bring.

The problem, of course, is that many of these issues - from biomass-energy climate fictions to pollution and ecological impacts, have been exposed in deep detail by environmental organizations and journalists for years.

A great recent update came from James Bruggers in Inside Climate News. He laid out how the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act include a hefty tax credit for carbon-avoiding actions that could in theory apply to the biomass-to-power industry:

Read the Inside Climate News story

Hopefully that story will make a difference, but…

The Volts podcast, depressingly, reminded me just how much fine journalism has, for many years, exposed the many layers of hypocrisies in this arena without noticably changing outcomes.

Please explore the relentless excellent coverage of the biomass “clean” energy world by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay:

The pellet industry in the United States has been centered in the Southeast, with the wood bound for Europe. But, as Catanoso reports most recently, California is next, with British biomass giant Drax involved in a plan to send pellets to Japan and South Korea. Here are the takeaways from his latest article, “UK’s Drax targets California forests for two major wood pellet plants”:

• Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), a California state-funded nonprofit focused on rural economic development, along with the U.K.’s Drax, a global maker of biomass for energy, have signed an agreement to move ahead on a California project to build two of the biggest wood pellet mills in the United States.

• The mills, if approved by the state, would produce 1 million tons of pellets for export annually to Japan and South Korea, where they would be burned in converted coal power plants. The pellet mills would represent a major expansion of U.S. biomass production outside the U.S. Southeast, where most pellet making has been centered.

• GSNR promotes the pellet mills as providing jobs, preventing wildfires and reducing carbon emissions. California forest advocates say that cutting trees to make pellets —partly within eight national forests — will achieve none of those goals.

• Opponents note that the U.S. pellet industry is highly automated and offers few jobs, while the mills pollute rural communities. Clear-cutting trees, which is largely the model U.S. biomass firms use, does little to prevent fires and reduces carbon storage. Pellet burning also produces more emissions than coal per unit of energy produced.

Wood chips piled in mounds more than 6 meters (20 feet) high cover the lot of the Enviva biomass plant in Ahoskie, North Carolina. Forest advocates opposed to construction of two large pellet mills in California point to the deforestation, biodiversity loss and pollution caused by the wood pellet industry in the U.S. Southeast. Image by Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.

And dig back to John Upton’s groundbreaking, prize-winning 2015 “Pulp Fiction” three-parter for Climate Central. Here’s the lede:

As the world tries to shift away from fossil fuels, the energy industry is turning to what seems to be an endless supply of renewable energy: wood. In England and across Europe, wood has become the renewable of choice, with forests — many of them in the U.S. — being razed to help feed surging demand. But as this five-month Climate Central investigation reveals, renewable energy doesn’t necessarily mean clean energy. Burning trees as fuel in power plants is heating the atmosphere more quickly than coal.

Here’s a Climate Central animation:

Read the rest and weep, or gnash teeth, or punish relevant politicians and businesses on social media or…

Amid the biofuels boom, a newish touchy-feely word in the green-energy lexicon, “bioelectricity,” has even made its way into reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Cilmate Change. It’s worth adding this term to my “Watchwords” list. These aren’t words to ban, and aren’t necessarily bad. They’re just words requiring a closer look.