The incredible polluting machine

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Pine Bluff Highland Pellet manager Rob McKenzie makes an incredible claim: “Even after allowing for the energy used in the pellet production process and all of the transportation emissions in moving the pellets to the U.K., the carbon saving from burning our pellets will produce around 75 percent less CO2 than if the power station had burned coal instead,” he says. On their website, McKenzie is described as a UK wholesale power market energy trade expert, not an engineer, chemist, physicist, or scientist. Here are two recent scientific articles opposing his claim.

April 26, 2018: DIRTY DECEPTION: How the Wood Biomass Industry Skirts the Clean Air Act, by the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization of former EPA attorneys to advocate for effective enforcement of environmental laws. They found, “The 21 wood pellet mills exporting to Europe emit a total of 16,000 tons of health-threatening air pollutants per year, including more than 2,500 tons of particulate matter (soot), 3,200 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2,100 tons of carbon monoxide, and 7,000 tons of volatile organic compounds. These plants also emit 3.1 million tons of greenhouse gases annually.”

Atmospheric particulate matter, one of the deadliest carcinogens, is a by-product of incomplete wood pellet combustion. PMs are microscopically small solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in the air. The smaller the particles, the deeper they can penetrate into the respiratory system. PM 2.5 have a diameter of less than 2.5 microns, about 3 percent the diameter of a human hair. Humans have no protection from inhaling PM.

June 19, 2018: Burning Wood for Electricity: Destructive and Unnecessary, by the Nature Resources Defense Council. They found, “UK policymakers can end their unwarranted massive subsidies to Drax, $956 million in 2017 alone. Without government handouts, covered by taxpayers, Drax wouldn’t be able to compete.”

Dealing with facts

Truth be told, the end-to-end wood pellet mill chain is an Incredible Polluting Machine, paid by billions of dollars in subsidies by UK taxpayers. Politics, greed, and ignorance explain why the UK continues to pay for an obsolete power grid with bulk power thermal generation.

Hurricanes, severe floods, windstorms, wildfires, and other climate events will get worse while we keep burning wood pellets and degrading our forests. The centralized power grid with hundreds of thousands of poles, wires, and substations was not designed for severe weather events. A resilient grid needs decentralized architecture. The end points of the grid utilized as energy generation and storage facilities, would be far less prone to catastrophic failure than the profit-driven behemoth we have. High voltage transmission need only connect micro grids, not transfer power across the continent.

Highland Pellets South

The US Army Corps of Engineers is reviewing a request by Highland Pellets South, to destroy wetlands and endangered species, for a wood pellet mill in Ouachita County. Wetlands are a critical part of our natural environment, a national treasure. They reduce the impacts of floods, absorb pollutants, and improve water quality. They provide habitat for animals and plants and a wide diversity of life, supporting plants and animals found nowhere else. Arkansas is one of the few states with wetlands. Up to 80 percent of wetland forests in the South have disappeared.

A third facility will be sited in Enterprise, Mississippi. Highland Pellets expansion, with Arkansas incentives and tax credits, must be stopped. Drax is their sole buyer. Drax subsidies are unaffordable and they will soon be gone.

Highland Pellets is not a responsible organization, contrary to their fancy claims, “Highland’s commitment to sustainability is at the core of its foundation. Our pledge to operating in a transparent, ethical manner is essential to how we conduct business with our customers, our partners, and our own stakeholders.”

What can you do?

Please support the Dogwood Alliance, the premier non-profit organization opposing deforestation and the senseless expansion of wood pellet mills. The Dogwood Alliance Wetland Forest Initiative aims to protect these ecological treasures. Dogwood Alliance safeguards economic equality, climate justice, and clean energy in the South. www.dogwoodalliance.org

Dr. Luis Contreras

10 COMMENTS

  1. Questions raised in Arkansas about the future of pellet mills, a false solution for emission-free electric generation.

    The UK Drax power station will shortly end subsidies for wood pellets.

    Is Highland Pellets going to pay back the $51 Million investment by the Arkansas Teacher’s retirement fund, and the incentive package granted by the Arkansas Economic Development Council?

  2. Who are the real Highland Pellets investors?

    Tom Reilley’s Boston investment group is mentioned in the Arkansas press, as the Pine Bluff benefactor. However, another group from Minnesota, Voyageur Capital LLC, the investment wing of Wagner Construction, are said to “spearhead” the Pine Bluff project.

    It would seem these folks would easily fund the $130 Million wood mill – several amounts were mentioned as high as, $230 Million.

    What is the total amount of State and County “incentives” given to Highland for the mill at Pine Bluff?

    Something happened along the way. It is hard to connect the dots:
    1. The Arkansas Teachers Retirement System “invested” a total of $51 Million – $26 as a loan
    2. Zilhka Biomass killed the project to build a similar mill nearby, at Monticello, AR due to uncertain Drax demand.

    These may be good questions for Tom Reilley.

    If, as Zilhka said there is uncertainty in the Drax demand, it would seem ATRS should know. Before the Stephens AR proposed mill is built, the issues of funding and production should be reviewed.

    AR is not the “Show me State” but Arkansans want to know where their forests are going to go, and with the generous incentives, Arkansans are Highland Pellet investors. Where is our money going to go?

    http://woodbioenergymagazine.com/blog/2016/minnesota-businessmen-spearhead-arkansas-pellet-plant-project/

  3. Grid storage is another way to deal with solar and wind intermittent power generation, superior to natural gas power plants and the inherent fugitive methane emissions.

    Intermittence is a false argument Drax uses to avoid stranded assets. Old thermal plants and many thousands grid transformers fail frequently, handled routinely by grid controllers.

    Grid storage also helps with power losses due to overproduction, discussed in this July 2018 report:
    https://www.utilitydive.com/news/pge-to-replace-3-gas-plants-with-worlds-biggest-battery-projects/526991/

  4. There are many reports showing burning wood pellets for energy is a false climate solution.

    Here is a clue: US power plants do NOT burn wood pellets.

    “The bottom line is that if the US were to stop using fossil fuels and use timber instead the US hard wood forests would be cleared within 3 months causing immense environmental destruction. It was immediately obvious to me that you cannot run industrial society on wood.”

    http://euanmearns.com/wood-pellets-drax-and-deforestation/

  5. A common claim made by Highland and all other US pellet mills is “we use wood scrap, treetops, sawdust and other wood waste.” Rob Mckensey, and the Highland chairman and founder and promoter and everything else, Tom Reilley, would tell you they use pulpwood from pine tree plantations, not hardwood. Why would they lie? Tree plantations are farms with sticks in the ground, the farmers harvest the sticks like other crops, is the story. To avoid having Highland lawyers calling me, let’s say Rob and Tom believe what they say, and are not riding with the loggers or truck drivers. So Tom and Rob tell the truth?

    “Footage reveals huge areas of hardwood forest in the state of Virginia being chopped down and transported to a mill owned by the US firm Enviva that grinds up logs into pellets. A large proportion of these pellets are then shipped across the Atlantic to be burnt at Drax in the UK – one of Enviva’s main customers.”

    Highland is not the only one selling to Drax, and Drax decides what emissions count.

    It is an old story, people do nasty stuff and find a way to claim they don’t. Here are the details
    https://theecologist.org/2018/apr/16/hardwood-forests-cut-down-feed-drax-power-plant-channel-4-dispatches-claims

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