A month ago, Dogwood hosted a reporter from the BBC, and on September 22nd, the story aired. Millions of people saw the massive scale destruction of our forests all in the name of meeting the UK’s renewable energy demands. The BBC showed the other side of the climate story, revealing that there’s huge concern about the efficiency and sustainability of using wood for fuel.
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.
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.
Whole trees are being converted into pellets, and shipped across the ocean to European power plants – all in the name of “clean energy.” Our new infographic is a great visual tool for understanding the issue.
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.
