"Sustainable" Wood Pellet Company's Output Worse Than Coal, Multiple Studies Show

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Enviva calls itself the world’s largest producer of wood pellets for power generation, what it claims is a “renewable and sustainable energy source.” Peer-reviewed studies, however, have shown that producing energy by burning wood pellets emits more carbon dioxide emissions than coal, leading environmentalists to accuse the company of greenwashing.

Scot Quaranda, communications director for environmental nonprofit Dogwood Alliance, said that while words like biomass, a catch-all term that includes fuels like wood pellets, may sound confusing or complicated, at its most fundamental, it’s fairly simple. “Let’s burn down trees to save the planet,” Quaranda said. “That’s essentially the business model. It’s like we’re going back to caveman days.” Wood-pellet fueled energy production is anything but the “planet savior” Enviva claims it is, Quaranda explained. “Trees are literally our best defense against climate change, and they want to cut it down—to burn it—and supposedly say that it’s good for the climate,” he said. “There’s nothing about it that makes any sense at all.”

Despite a concerted effort by environmentalists to debunk Enviva’s claims about environmental benefits, though, the company had expanded with the support of capital investments from moguls like Jeff Ubben, an ExxonMobil board member often labeled as an “activist investor” who is keen on environmental issues. Public officials and economic development staffers in southern states largely welcomed Enviva’s expansion with open arms, even providing public money to support the private company’s planned operations.

In Alabama, Gov. Kay Ivey and other public officials attended the groundbreaking of Enviva’s planned Epes plant, which the company said would be not just the largest plant in its portfolio but the largest in the world, with the capacity to produce more than a million metric tons of wood pellets per year. The plant, the company promised, would create 100 direct jobs and 250 indirect jobs, with an expected opening in mid-2024.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15122023/alabama-wood-pellet-plant-advocates-question-climate-community-benefits/