NEWS FEATURE
20 August 2024

How ‘green’ electricity from wood harms the planet — and people

Many nations have embraced burning wood pellets to produce electricity — under the assumption that it is carbon neutral. But research shows this approach can boost greenhouse-gas emissions and threaten the health of local communities.

By Melba Newsome

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The company’s plant, which opened in 2019, is part of a global expansion in the use of wood — or solid biomass — to generate electricity. Pellet companies advertise their products as a renewable-energy source that lowers carbon emissions, and the European Union agrees, which has spurred many countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium and Denmark, to embrace this form of energy. As with similar projects worldwide, Enviva Biomass, which is based in Bethesda, Maryland, said that its operations in Hamlet would displace fossil fuels, grow more trees and help to fight climate change.

But opposition is building on many fronts. An expanding body of research shows that burning solid biomass to generate electricity often emits huge amounts of carbon — even more than burning coal does. In February 2021, more than 500 scientists and economists signed a letter to US president Joe Biden and other world leaders urging them to not support using wood to generate energy, arguing that it harms biodiversity and increases carbon emissions. Although pellet companies advertise that their operations consume low-quality wood, this claim has come under increased scrutiny, with mounting evidence of significant deforestation around wood-pellet plants.


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The green gold rush

The big push towards biomass began with the European Commission’s 2009 Renewable Energy Directive, the legal framework for developing renewable energy in all sectors of the EU economy. It became known as the 20-20-20 climate and energy package, and mandated three goals to reach by 2020: reduce EU greenhouse-gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels; increase the renewable portion of EU energy consumption to 20%; and improve EU energy efficiency by 20%. The directive was initially hailed by environmentalists for taking concrete steps towards limiting global warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels — the international goal set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

As part of the 20-20-20 package, the EU set standards to reduce carbon emissions by using more biofuels. Since then, EU countries have handed out substantial subsidies to the wood-pellet industry, which have amounted to billions of Euros in the past few years. An assessment from Trinomics, a consultancy firm based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, found that ten EU countries that were analysed in the study spent more than €6.3 billion (US$6.9 billion) in subsidies for solid biomass energy to produce electricity in 2021 (see go.nature.com/3m4mbm2).

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