As if primary West coast forests weren’t threatened enough by Big Timber, now foreign corporations are targeting them for the production of wood pellets.
Two large wood pellet producers are exploring establishing plants in the Pacific Northwest that would use our native forests to produce pellets, primarily to export to Asia to burn in coal power plants. Local activists have set up a website, NoBigBiomassPNW.org, to educate and urge the public to take action to stop them.
Big Biomass is wood from trees that are turned into wood pellets and then used in thermal power plants, very often burned alongside coal. It got a boost when the European Union classified biomass burning as “carbon neutral,” as opposed to coal or oil whose emissions have to be accounted for and reported. The policy, intended to increase Europe’s use of renewable energy, instead resulted in several major firms raiding forests in the southern U.S. to obtain wood to export wood pellets to Europe. Japan and South Korea also adopted biomass-burning, ‘carbon neutral’ rules like the E.U, resulting in a huge demand spike for imported forest biomass.
However, scientific studies have shown that using wood pellets for electricity creates more carbon emissions than using coal or gas, and also releases more carbon by cutting down the trees that store carbon.
Looking to shorten the supply chain, companies started exporting wood pellets from British Columbia, cutting old-growth forest to supply the new demand. Now their sights are set on west coast ports to manufacture and export wood pellets.
Drax Global, a U.K. company and Pacific Northwest Renewable Energy (PNWRE) have proposed bioenergy projects in Grays Harbor, Lewis and Cowlitz counties. Drax has proposed a plant next to the Port of Longview that would export 450,000 dry tons of wood pellets a year, more than Cowlitz’s 2022 timber harvest of 240,730 tons. Drax would have to search up to 60 miles away to fulfill this demand. NoBigBiomass estimates the plant would require more than half of the total land area of Cowlitz County per year to feed that demand.
Drax also has a history of air emissions violations, and has already been fined in Longview for building without the required air quality permits. The 2024 draft Air discharge Permit it submitted to the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency (SWWCCA) varied significantly from Drax’s SEPA application, incorrectly citing the total volume of truck traffic, amount of hazardous air pollutants and the fact that Drax would use whole trees, not just logging waste and slag, to make pellets. Public pressure resulted in the SWWCAA withdrawing its draft air pollution permit, but another permit process is underway which will trigger another public comment period.
Subsidizing damage to the public health and the environment.
In Hoquiam, PNWRE received a grant for $200K from the Washington State Department of Commerce and a $300K federal grant from USDA for feasibility studies to build a plant that would require 500,000 tons of dried wood yearly, all intended for export to Asia. The site at the Port of Grays Harbor is less than a mile from Hoquiam High School and to Grays Harbor National Wildlife Refuge, a significant stopover for migratory birds on the Pacific flyway.(See accompanying Commentary) Supplying the plant would require 128 diesel truckloads a day. Despite the large emissions from increased diesel truck transport, the release of hazardous air pollutants and the noise from hammer mills from plants designed to run all night, the SEPA determination stated the plant would not create significant environmental impact.
The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), the regional air quality regulator, does not consider emissions from trucks going to the site or the shipping emissions that will stay at the port, or the noise pollution. Accepting PNWRE’s data of pollution levels as accurate, ORCAA approved PNWRE’s air discharge permit, but an appeal has been filed with the Pollution Control Hearings Board by Friends of Grays Harbor, Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, and Twin Harbors Waterkeeper against the ORCAA and the City of Hoquiam. The case is presently at the prehearing stage.
Both companies consistently underestimated air pollution levels compared to the smokestack level measurements made at existing pellet plants in the US South, where nearby residents have suffered from elevated rates of asthma and COPD.
A third plant is planned in Lewis County. Altogether, the 3 plants would triple the demand for wood pellets, impacting the Chehalis Basin watershed the most.
Expansion of biomass also would likely increase the intensity of logging, as wood pellet producers are not selective about the wood they harvest, unlike lumber producers who look for straight-grained trees. Washington DNR acknowledges that the availability of raw material for pellet production is directly dependent on the volume of trees logged.
Burning wood is bad economics, bad for the climate and bad for our forests
Currently, waste from sawmills are used by local businesses to make pressboard and pellets for small-scale stoves and for animal bedding. Washington could encourage the production of finished lumber and cross-laminated timber which provide higher skilled jobs. Pellet plants, however, create fewer jobs per harvested timber than other timber market segments. Models of the ‘circular economy’ for wood products rates biomass burning as the worst use of wood products for job creation, climate change mitigation and economic benefit.
Because it all is for export, it does nothing for US energy security. And when compared with wind and solar power, the costs of which have steadily declined, biomass is positively archaic, with no innovations to reduce cost or pollution in sight. Drax still receives more than $2million a day in subsidies from the British government, and the world’s largest exporter of wood pellets, Enviva, filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
When our government subsidizes and enables such projects that are detrimental to the common good, it creates cynicism and disgust in the people it purports to represent. For our environment, economy and political climate, Washington would do better to invest in innovative technologies that create good jobs while protecting the environment upon which we all depend.
To keep informed and take action, please visit https://www.nobigbiomasspnw.org
Esther Kronenberg writes regularly on environmental issues
Be First to Comment