Tag Archives: Biofuelwatch

Mongabay: Forest biomass growth to soar through 2030, impacting tropical forests

Tree felling on an energy plantation concession in Indonesia where wood has been used to supply wood pellets to South Korea. Image courtesy of FWI.

This story here, my latest on the issue of global forest biomass for energy, sends a bit of a mixed message. Projected supply and demand for wood pellets appears to be rising dramatically through 2030, with more wood coming from tropical forests than every before.

On the other hand, there appear to be a few cracks forming in the long-term viability of an industry that has been on a steady, upward trajectory for 15 years or more — save for Enviva’s self-inflicted business wounds that led to its 2024 bankruptcy. Subsidies are being inched back on South Korea and Japan. Drax is still getting a ton of British subsidies for five more years, but far less than the previous 10. Germany’s second-largest city, Hamburg, nixed a conversion of a coal-burning plant to wood, admitting that it was not a climate friendly move. And a highly regarded investment think tank is raising a bright red flag to investors to think twice before investing in wood-pellet manufacturing stocks.

A source and forest advocate in South Korea went as far as to tell me he believes we are beginning to see that beginning of a paradigm shift regarding forest biomass for energy. The scientific arguments and journalistic reporting, including my own, that challenge industry line that it a climate-friendly alternative to coal, grow stronger every year. Is the tide really turning?

Meanwhile, in the near-term, the industry continues to grow, and native forests across the US Southeast, British Columbia, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, will continue to be diminished and degraded, many replaced by tree farms, to feed immediate demand.

Estimate of global wood pellet production and use in metric tons by nation by 2030. Data sourced from the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Scenario study. Image courtesy of the Environmental Paper Network.

Mongabay: UK’s Drax targets California forests for two major wood pellet plants

These cut trees, viewed by California biologist and writer Maya Khosla, were harvested recently in Stanislaus National Forest, an area that falls within the potential harvest radius of a proposed wood pellet mill in Tuolumne County in central California. The mature trees were taken as part of a thinning strategy which often includes unburned forests for what is hoped to be wildfire prevention. Photo courtesy of Isis Howard.

I have been following the developments of the potential for wood pellet manufacturing in California for more than a year. The news hook that Drax, the United Kingdom based energy supplier and pellet maker, had recently entered into an agreement with a California governmental nonprofit that is promoting and planning for two new pellet mills, was what I needed to write this story.

It’s another forest biomass story steeped in controversy, as most of these stories are — whether they are centered in my home state of North Carolina, the US Southeast, or overseas in the European Union, United Kingdom, Japan or South Korea. The twist in California, a state ravaged by climate change-fueled wildfires since 2020, is that the “thinning” of the state’s vast woodlands and collection of burned trees and residues for wood pellet feedstock, will help reduce the risk of wildfires while boosting sagging economies in rural counties that cover parts of eight national forests.

More than 100 environmental groups, Indigenous tribes and community organizations have been pushing back against this growing industry in California and especially against the central argument for its existence — wildfire mitigation. My story explains both sides. There will very likely be more stories to come from California.

As part of its strategy to gather forest wood for wood pellet production, GSNR has said it will promote “salvage logging” in areas damaged or destroyed by wildfire. This June 2022 photo of an area burned in the Dixie Fire, one of the worst ever in California, illustrates what salvage logging looks like. “Ecologically there is nothing worse that can be done to a forest in California than to log after fire,” said Gary Hughes, a forest advocate with Biofuelwatch. “It is likened to beating a burn victim.” Image courtesy of Kimberly Baker/Klamath Forest Alliance.

Mongabay: Dutch to limit forest biomass subsidies, possibly signaling EU sea change

he Netherlands is known for its photogenic windmills. But when it comes to renewable energy, wind accounts for only 23% of the country’s mix compared to 61% of renewable energy from burning biomass in coal-fired power plants.* The vast majority of Dutch energy still comes from burning oil, natural gas and coal. Photo credit: Ignacio Ferre on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC-ND.

This story of mine from The Netherlands appears to illustrate a small crack in the near-universal political support for biomass usage in the European Union. Is it a harbinger of more change in biomass policy as the EU moves in June 2021 to consider revisions to its Renewable Energy Directive II?

For a small country, just 17.3 million people, The Netherlands holds an outsized influence in the EU, and the new make up of its parliament (national elections were held March 17, 2021) could determine the fate of biomass subsidies in a country that is one of the largest importers of wood pellets from the US Southeast.

Small victories like this are celebrated by environmentalists, but the biomass industry continues to grow rapidly in scale and revenue. For all the science that illustrates the importance of keeping forests intact, and how burning wood pellets is more polluting than burning coal, the industry presses a different point of view and interpretation of the science that continues to hold sway with policy makers. Consider this response in my story from the president of the World Bioenergy Association:

“My take on the Dutch decision is that it is as wrong and poorly informed as the Brexit decision in the U.K.,” said Christian Rakos, responding from Austria. “It is based on campaigns that have not told the truth. The fact is, the Netherlands is currently among the worst-performing countries in Europe when it comes to renewable energy use and this [biomass] decision will further deteriorate its performance in terms of climate protection.”

He added: “Our position is to do everything possible to ensure [forest] sustainability, but to keep in mind that climate change is the greatest threat to ecosystems at present, and that it will be impossible to mitigate it without extensive use of bioenergy.”

Rakos is correct about The Netherlands and renewable energy usage. It still gets as much as 90 percent of its energy from fossil fuels. But most of its “renewable” energy comes from burning wood. As leading biomass expert Mary Booth told me: “We’re not going to burn our way out of the climate crisis.”

Mongabay: French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation

Cutline: French Guiana, a department of France on the northeast coast of South America, is more than 98 percent forested in Amazonia. It’s one of the last remaining large tracts of largely undisturbed Amazon jungle, rich in biodiversity. Proposed policy and energy changes proposed in Paris could dramatically impact these important ecosystems.

This story here came to me in November as a tip from a source in Scotland who is familiar with my reporting on the growth of the biomass industry for energy production. This one has a new twist in that it doesn’t focus on wood pellets for energy, but rather soy for biofuels — in a part of the world rarely discussed but critical in size and scope for biodiversity protection and climate change mitigation — French Guiana.

With lots of research reports, government documents and exceptional sources in both Paris and Cayenne, French Guiana, the story started to take shape. With a population of just 300,000 almost entirely along it’s northern coast, French Guiana is in need of expanding and upgrading its energy system from diesel-powered plants to renewables. The problem, however, is the France wants the department to grow its own soy — the most common source for biofuel — to power five new energy stations. To grow enough soy would require a staggering amount of Amazon jungle to be clearcut — by one estimate, an area three times the square miles of New York City.

My story details what’s at stake with this unusual proposed policy change for a country and president, Emmanuel Macron, recognized for their sensitivity to climate action and ecosystem protections. Activists in French Guiana are mobilizing to stop the policy proposals, preserve their densely forested department (which is the size of Indiana) and promote true renewable energy sources like expanded wind and solar installations.

The heavily forested port of Larivot in Cayenne, French Guiana, where a 120-megawatt soy liquid biofuels energy station is planned. Image courtesy of Francois Kuseni.

Mongabay: As investment giant BlackRock pulls back from coal, NGOs urge the same for biomass energy

Drax coal-fired power station

The four eastern cooling towers at the Drax coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Image: Jono Brennan, CC BY-SA 2.0

This story came to me directly as a result of my coverage of the biomass-for-energy story over the past two years. Biofuelwatch, an environmental group, had organized a global group of NGOs to appeal to the world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock, to pull its 5 percent stake in the world’s largest energy-generating plant using wood pellets. Millions of tons of pellets are produced annually largely Southeastern US forests.

The underlying goal? If the world is going to dramatically reduce its use of fossil fuels, large investment companies like BlackRock need to divest hundreds of billions of dollars in oil, gas, coal and biomass, and ramp up investment in genuine zero-carbon wind and solar energy.

The company in question is one of I’ve about often; Drax, the United Kingdom’s largest energy provider. I interviewed its CEO at COP25 in Madrid, Spain, in mid-December in a fairly contentious encounter following a presentation in which no questions from the audience were allowed.

Thanks to Mongabay editor Morgan Erikson-Davis for her careful attention to detail. And thanks to my Mongabay colleague Erik Hoffner for arranging for the story to be republished here with the environmental news site Eco-Business.

Those stacks and stacks of tree trunks collected from eastern North Carolina private land and tree farms before being turned into wood pellets bound for the UK? Most were once part of thriving forests and intact, biodiverse ecosystem.