What's the deal with burning wood pellets for energy?
#environment #climate #greenwashing
Not a lot of people are aware of this, but a) over half of what counts as renewable energy in the European Union is bioenergy, i.e., wood pellets burned for heat or electricity, and b) most of those wood pellets come from North American forests, especially in the Southeastern US and western Canada.
[...]
Climate and forest activists are pushing back. They say the carbon math on wood pellets doesn't add up, poor communities suffer the emissions generated by wood burning, and the industry uses more wood from natural forests than it lets on. To get into the details of this faux climate solution, I am talking to Rita Frost of NRDC, who has been involved in conflicts over wood pellets for a decade, and Brenna Bell of 350 PDX, a forest activist.
