Wood Pellets…The New Coal

You know you’ve effectively gotten the attention of the media when they ask you to speak on a panel about your campaign at the Society of Environmental Journalists annual conference. On September 7th, I hopped a plane to New Orleans to debate Seth Ginther, the Executive Director of the US Industrial Wood Pellet Association, in front of a roomful of journalists. Over the last few of years, coal burning power plants have been converted to burn wood pellets as a supposedly clean and renewable energy source.

The Campaign Takes it to the Field in Virginia

On Wednesday afternoon, we went up to Chesapeake to get a closer look at the Enviva export facility. The southern part of the Elizabeth River runs through Portsmouth and Chesapeake and is lined with industrial centers on both sides. From the Jordan Bridge crossing the river, it is easy to spot the two enormous white silos that store up to 100,000 metric tons of wood pellets. We paddled our kayaks through Paradise Creek, which runs right next to the domes. The structures are massive. It’s alarming to realize the amount of forests that must be cleared to stock these domes, and the impact of this huge loss on our environment and communities.

New UK Government Science Report Confirms Burning Forests Bad for Climate

The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) released its long-awaited Biomass Emissions and Counterfactual Model Calculator and an accompanying report Lifecycle Impacts of Biomass in 2020 report. The findings from the tool and associated report confirm what U.S. and European ENGOs have been claiming for the last few years – that burning forests for electricity is bad for our climate.

Carolinians Call on State to Review Enviva Port Expansion

Citizens and environmental groups across the Carolinas called on the state of North Carolina to reject a proposed port expansion to accommodate Enviva in Wilmington, NC. The proposed project involves the lease of state public land at the state port to a wood pellet manufacturer, Enviva LP, for the development of a wood pellet export facility.

Map of proposed and existing Enviva Pellet Mills in the Southern US