This is not your grandparents’ wood stove we’re talking about; this is operating an enormous power plant using enough wood to power an entire country.
As the days get hotter, the number of Southerners standing up to protect and fight for forests increases steadily: it’s almost as if unrest is in direct proportion to the degrees on a thermometer. Summertime in the South conjures up images of being sleepy and slow-moving; and yet, the opposition to burning forests for fuel is livelier than ever.
During our last spring semester, six fellow students and I worked together on a UNC Capstone course project with Dr. Andrew George, focused on bioenergy in the Carolinas. Though we were all students of the same program, we had varying sub-interests within the bioenergy umbrella.
In April 2016 the US Green Building Council (USGBC) announced a new pilot credit that rewards the use of wood certified under the timber industry-backed Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI).
The European Union finally recognises that burning trees from US forests is not carbon-neutral, but how will they amend European renewables policy in response?
