by Mike DiGirolamo, Rachel Donald on Mongabay 11 June 2024
Burning wood to generate electricity — “biomass energy” — is increasingly being pursued as a renewable replacement for burning coal in nations like the U.K., Japan, and South Korea — even though its emissions aren’t carbon neutral in practice.
On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, reporter Justin Catanoso speaks with Rachel Donald about the single largest emitter of CO2 in the U.K., biomass firm Drax, which is trying to open two wood pellet plants in the state of California.
Catanoso explains how years of investigation helped him uncover a complicated web of public relations messaging that obscures the fact that replanting trees after cutting them down and burning them is not in practice carbon neutral or renewable and severely harms global biodiversity and forests.
“When those trees get ripped out, that carbon gets released. And that comes before we process this wood and ship it … then we burn it and don’t count those emissions. This is just [an] imponderable policy,” he says on this episode.
Justin Catanoso is no stranger to wood pellet plants, as he lives near four of them in the U.S. state of North Carolina, where biomass giant Enviva has several facilities. While that company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy this year, it remains the single largest producer of wood pellets globally.
This firm is one of several (alongside Drax in the U.K.) seeking to expand its global stake in the shift to renewable energy — a category of energy generation that industry and regulators insist burning biomass belongs in. However, a recent analysis shows it’s not renewable and adds more carbon to the atmosphere than coal and gas. But due to complicated language in the Kyoto Protocol treaty that extended the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, several nations and the European Union still allow the burning of wood pellets to be counted as such, and thus made eligible for subsidies, too. This is a tremendous problem for global efforts to slow the biodiversity and climate crises, Catanoso says.
Listen to the conversation here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mongabay-newscast/id1155856616
“In my area of North Carolina, which is the mid-Atlantic, we will have the climate of northern Florida in about 15 years. That’s how fast our climate is changing here,” Catanoso says. “It’s upon us, and we are not pulling the levers fast enough. To slow this down and cutting down trees, calling it carbon neutral … that’s just one of those loopholes that is just completely man-made.”
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Rachel Donald is a climate corruption reporter and the creator of Planet: Critical, the podcast and newsletter for a world in crisis. Her latest thoughts can be found at 𝕏 via @CrisisReports and at Bluesky via @racheldonald.bsky.social.
Mike DiGirolamo is a host & associate producer for Mongabay based in Sydney. He co-hosts and edits the Mongabay Newscast. Find him on LinkedIn, Bluesky and Instagram.
Image by Willfried Wende from Pixabay
Actually burning wood is renewable because we are burning it during its carbon cycle. Burning things like oil, outside of its carbon cycle is stealing from the past and polluting the future. Stop burning fossil fuels is more the ticket. And start using hemp. Why does DGR never mention hemp?
Giants of the forest are being cut for chips
And sent off to the Rising Sun on mighty sailing ships
We’ve heard of Northern ports where some who fight for what is right
Have sunk some ships of Evil under cover of the night.
And what has worked in Norway for the Shepherds Of The Seas
Would work as well for us on ships which rob us of our trees
So if you have a sinking feeling we urge you to make haste
The trees are falling now and there is little time to waste.
If you need a star to sail by to help you steer your course
You’ll find much inspiration in the deeds of Orcaforce
And someday when the Valkeries bid guests to Odin’s hall
Protectors of the forests shall stand above them all.