The wood pellet
business is thriving.
Global use of wood pellets
to produce electricity
has been mainly in Europe,
where many utilities
receive incentives for
using power sources
the European Union
deems carbon neutral:
solar, wind and wood.
The argument that trees
are a clean-energy alternative
to coal, is facing challenges
from researchers.
Last year Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
professor John Sterman
and colleagues said
burning wood for electric
power releases more CO2
into the atmosphere per unit
of electricity than coal.
The “payback time”
for forests to
offset that carbon,
the MIT study said,
ranges from
44 to 104 years,
depending on
the type of forest,
whether it’s harvested
sustainably or by
clear-cutting, and
if it’s able to fully regrow.
Enviva Partners LP,
a Maryland-based firm,
manufactures
millions of tons of
wood pellets from
southeastern U.S. forests
for overseas customers.
Earlier in 2019,
Enviva exceeded
$1 billion in
stock market value.
THE SCIENCE PROBLEM:
A lawsuit says European policy
on using wood pellets will increase
greenhouse-gas emissions;
burning natural gas would release
far less carbon dioxide’
The lawsuit was filed with
Europe’s General Court in March
charging that the EU policy
will increase greenhouse-gas
emissions and damage forests,
one of the world’s largest
natural absorbers of carbon.
The lawsuit was filed by
a group of scholars,
advocacy organizations and
European and U.S. landowners
who want the EU to make
the burning of forest wood
ineligible for member states’
renewable-energy targets
and subsidies.
The defendants are the
European Parliament and
the European Council.
They say the plaintiffs
don’t have standing
in the suit, because
they are not
directly impacted.
The plaintiffs
have to file
a response
by August 21.
The EU consumed
27.4 million metric tons
of wood pellets last year,
25% more than in 2016
and around three quarters
of global demand,
according to the
U.S. Department
of Agriculture’s Foreign
Agricultural Service.
“The irony is, burning gas
would release far less
carbon-dioxide than
burning wood,”
“People get trapped
in the argument,
‘We’ve got to stop
burning fossil fuels,’
and they forget
the argument is that
we’ve got to reduce
carbon emissions,”
said Bill Moomaw,
co-author of five reports
for the United Nations
Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change.
Under its current standards
for renewable energy, the EU
only measures emissions
from producing wood pellets
and transferring them
to European plants.
The actual burning of the wood
is assumed by the EU
to be zero-emission.