Wood Pellets: Green Energy or New Source of CO2 Emissions?

Demand for this purportedly green form of energy is so robust that wood pellet exports from the United States nearly doubled from 2012 to 2013 and are expected to nearly double again to 5.7 million tons in 2015.  This soaring production is driven by growing demand in the U.K. and Europe, which are using wood pellets to replace coal for electricity generation and heating.  The European Union’s 2020 climate and energy program classifies wood pellets as a carbon-neutral form of renewable energy, and European companies have invested billions to convert coal plants to plants that can burn wood pellets. 

But as wood pellet manufacturing booms in the southeastern U.S., scientists and environmental groups are raising significant questions about just how green burning wood pellets really is.  The wood pellet industry says that it overwhelmingly uses tree branches and other waste wood to manufacture pellets, making them a carbon-neutral form of energy.  But critics contend pellet manufacturers frequently harvest whole hardwood trees that can take a long time to regrow.  Many environmentalists and scientists believe current industry practices are anything but carbon-neutral and threaten some of the last remaining diverse ecosystems in the southeastern U.S., including the Roanoke River watershed surrounding the Ahoskie, N.C., plant and longleaf pine ecosystems near the large Enviva wood pellet mill in Cottondale, Fla. 

Critics contend that Enviva and other pellet manufacturers frequently harvest whole trees — including hardwoods from bottomland areas — that can take a long time to regrow, thus making the burning of wood pellets an overall source of CO2 emissions. 

“They are cutting them down and burning them to produce energy in Europe — a practice that both degrades critical forest habitat and increases carbon emissions for many decades to come,” says Debbie Hammel, a senior resource specialist with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). 

Less than a year after Enviva’s Ahoskie plant opened, the NRDC began monitoring how the facility was impacting nearby forests and what kinds of trees were being used to produce pellets. As the demand for wood to manufacture more pellets increased, the NRDC noticed forested wetlands in the Roanoke watershed begin to disappear. 

“A significant portion of the wood source Enviva uses comes from natural hardwood forests,” says Hammel, noting that logging in such forested wetlands and bottomlands creates major ecological impacts, including threatening species such as wood storks and the cerulean warbler.  In the opinion of Hammel and others, burning wood pellet biomass to produce electricity is far more harmful to the environment and the climate than renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power.

Read more at Wood Pellets:  Green Energy or New Source of CO2 Emissions?