Tag Archives: NRDC

Mongabay: Enviva bankruptcy fallout ripples through biomass industry, U.S. and EU

Tractor-trailers each loaded with 40 tons of wood chips waiting at Enviva’s pellet mill in Ahoskie, North Carolina, which opened in 2011. “There’s no way Enviva is coming out of Chapter 11, [bankruptcy]” a former Enviva employee and whistleblower told Mongabay. “Their manufacturing equipment is not fit for the service it’s required to deliver. Only two of its 10 plants (one in Florida, one in Georgia, neither built by Enviva) are hitting their maximum achievable targets for pellet production.” Image courtesy of Bobby Amoroso.

In this story, I continue my coverage of Enviva, the Maryland-based company that claims to be the world’s largest producer of wood pellets for industrial-scale energy. The pellet maker has been a dominant force in the industry in the Southeastern United States, especially my home state of North Carolina, since it opened its first pellet mill more than a decade ago. A couple of years ago, it topped $1 billion in annual revenue, its stock price rising above $87 a share. Enviva boldly planned major expansions in the Deep South and predicted pellet production to go from 6 million metric tons annually to 13 million metric tons by 2027.

That was then.

In the spring of 2024, Enviva found itself in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, having lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 2023 from a variety of circumstances — some beyond its control, many of its own making. It’s stock price is below 50 cents a share and Wall Street analysts, once bullish on forest biomass energy, are now warning investors away. This story continues my explanation of why Enviva is failing, with additional insight from an exclusive source who continues to provide an invaluable look beyond Enviva’s public statements and required disclosures as a public company.

A new angle to my coverage is how forest advocates have been shifting their attention to Washington, D.C., because of the Biden Administration’s Inflation Reduction Act and the billions provided to incentivize renewable energy. Enviva, in desperation, is eager to convince the Environmental Protection Agency and other government offices, that is produces an legit renewable energy source and climate mitigation strategy amid the climate crisis. No rigorous, independent research supports that claim in the timeframes needed to slow the rate of global warming. But Enviva is angling for millions in US tax subsidies to help it pay for new plants in Alabama and Mississippi.

As my story explains, there is a lot at stake not only in Enviva’s future as a major supplier of wood pellets to the UK and EU, but also the future of forests desperately needed to remain standing as yet our best and most effective defense against erratic weather and accelerating global warming.

Mongabay: Forest biomass-burning supply chain from US to Europe is producing major carbon emissions: Studies

This story came up quickly, was reported in a morning and afternoon, and posted the following morning — thanks to my tireless editor Glenn Scherer. Initially, I was given a heads up that one study would be released late Wednesday night (Oct. 13, 2021) and Glenn gave me the greenlight to pursue it. When I contacted a source at the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Sasha Stashwick, about connecting me with a British House of Lords member with a strong position on biomass burning in the United Kingdom, she let me know that NRDC had also released a biomass-related study with similar research metrics. I combined the two studies into one story.

Another source overseas, Almuth Earnsting with Biofuelwatch, brought to my attention the quick pushback from the wood pellet industry as posted by Biomass Magazine. I made sure we got its criticisms of one of the studies in the story.

The stakes for accuracy in carbon emissions accounting continue to rise higher and higher, especially as the 26th United Nations climate summit looms in in Glasgow, Scotland, in early November. NGOs are fairly apoplectic that the issue of burning biomass and the tons of uncounted carbon emissions at the smokestack at former coal-fired plants in the UK and across the European Union, is not an official agenda item as nations finalize the Paris rulebook for implementing fully the 2015 Paris Agreement.

Several NGOs who applied for side events in Glasgow to press their points about biomass were denied permission. They are incensed and believe the host nation — the largest consumer of wood pellets in the world — is eager to downplay the science of biomass carbon accounting and its impact on mature forests in the US, Canada and eastern Europe.

Here’s an excerpt from my story:

With the two-week United Nations COP26 summit starting in Glasgow, Scotland, on Oct. 31, both studies call into question the validity of the 2030 carbon reduction pledges made by three of the world’s largest carbon polluters — the U.S. (with a 50% reduction pledge), U.K. (58%) and E.U. (55%). While these Paris Agreement signatories may meet those goals on paper, nature will know that no such atmospheric emissions cuts have been achieved as wood pellets are burned.

The citizen-supported journalism site WhoWhatWhy republished my story here.

Caption for the graphic above: The existing and proposed wood pellet plants in the US Southeast (yellow and red circles) and the harvest areas of each plant (larger beige circles). Source: Southern Environmental Law Center.

Anti-biomass protesters outside the EU headquarters in Brussels in summer 2021 when delegates were debating possible changes to the Renewable Energy Directive. Few substantive changes were made regarding biomass burning, carbon accounting or subsidies.