Enviva climate deception

By
Dr. Luis Contreras
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4654

We are like tenant farmers, chopping down the fence around our house for fuel, when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind, and tide.”– THOMAS A. EDISON

Edison may have been inspired by the forests. With millions of trees of different sizes and types, forests grow healthy soil and provide shelters for wildlife, clean water and clean air, keeping the carbon cycle in check. Forests are our best hope to survive.

Forests are efficient and full of life. When you walk through a forest all your senses come alive, a chance to rewild your heart and soul. Why would Enviva want to destroy our forests, pretending burning the trees is the solution to the climate emergency?

Enviva is expanding its production capacity and luring investors, while grabbing grants and subsidies from Alabama and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Enviva hides the challenges of growing seedlings and the storage and shipping under extreme weather. What is Enviva really doing in Alabama and why?

Enviva claims on its website, “A climate solution we cannot afford to ignore: Biomass sourced from naturally managed working forests.” However, Jennifer Jenkins, Enviva’s own VP of Sustainability, wrote the study.

Alabama Epes mill

The second Enviva Alabama mill is a very peculiar deal. It is not about the mill but about the waterway for shipping, The Port of Epes connects to the Port of Mobile, a deepwater shipping port to the U.K. and Asia.

Making profits using ‘other people’s money’

Enviva is using Sumter County incentives, matching funds for grants, and infrastructure improvements. Funds include the Alabama Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Agency, and the Delta Regional Authority.”

Enviva, LP, is now a complex Master Limited Partnership in order to use unique tax benefits. To repay the Partnership’s existing $355 million unsecured notes and other debt, it plans a $450 million public offering.

The November 7 NASDAQ press release, “Enviva Thanks Alabama Department of Environmental Management for Opportunity to Hear from Community Ahead of Proposed Pellet Plant Construction,” discloses a relationship with the Governor of Alabama, is written for investors, and suggests the Air Permit for the Epes mill is a done deal before the deadline for comments!

John Keppler, Enviva’s CEO, makes several false statements in the press release:

  1. “Every ton the Epes plant will produce over the next several decades has already been sold, so western Alabama can count on Enviva for a long time to come.”

False. The total cost of burning U.S. forests in the U.K. Drax Power Station is subsidized by British taxpayers. Taxpayers oppose paying $1.7 billion per year for deadly volatile organic carbon pollution emissions and carbon dioxide emissions. When the U.K. subsidies end, Enviva mills will close. Enviva hides the known risks of running on subsidies. Enviva conveniently ignores the IPCC climate report conclusion, “there is a high risk of extinction of life by 2030 unless effective action is taken immediately.”

  1. “Renewable wood energy is an important part of keeping global temperatures in check.”

False. The carbon uptake of growing pine seedlings which may not survive heatwaves, droughts and floods is lost. Undisturbed forest soil has a carbon dioxide uptake larger than the trees. Harvesting forests compacts and destroys the soil’s organic carbon.

Today we have better solutions

In 1882, Thomas Edison built the first coal-fired power plant in the U.S., in a small building in downtown Manhattan. The Pearl Street plant provided power to 80 customers, and steam was sold to heat nearby buildings.

Edison had to deal with dirty emissions but dreamed of harnessing the energy of the sun. The photoelectric effect was suggested by Albert Einstein in 1905. Sunlight, striking certain metals, generates electric energy without carbon emission.

Burning wood, coal, gas, and oil creates greenhouse gas emissions from incomplete combustion. Toxic black carbon fumes are common in the Ozarks from semi-trucks loaded with chickens to pickup trucks with large diameter pipes.

Edison said, “I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power!”

Dr. Luis Contreras

12 COMMENTS

  2. Solar energy comes in all sizes to power a home or a whole town

    Glencoe, Highland Park, Oak Park, Deerfield, Glenview, Lake Forest, Lake Bluff and Elgin are set to subscribe to Rainy Solar, a 3,730 panel rooftop community solar system that went into operation last month.

    The new system, which is connected to the ComEd grid, will provide 1.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year,

    https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/glencoe/ct-gln-solar-energy-town-group-tl-1121-20191119-drrxnehrtjaynnloqq47sh2hy4-story.html

  4. Enviva $450 million public offering

    The Partnership intends to use the net proceeds from the offering to
    (i) repay the Partnership’s existing $355.0 million principal amount of senior unsecured notes due 2021 (the “2021 Notes”) and the related redemption premium and
    (ii) repay borrowings under its senior secured revolving credit facility.

    https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/enviva-partners-lp-announces-launch-of-%24450.0-million-offering-of-senior-notes-and

  11. “Enviva Thanks Alabama Department of Environmental Management for Opportunity to Hear from Community Ahead of Proposed Pellet Plant Construction in Sumter County” November 7, 2019

    Posting a “prospectus – marketing ad” as a “press release” in NASDAQ while looking for investors raises eyebrows on secutiry exchange regulations

    https://www.nasdaq.com/press-release/enviva-thanks-alabama-department-of-environmental-management-for-opportunity-to-hear

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