To reduce carbon emissions many coal-burning power plants in Europe are starting to import wood pellets from the US. Critics say the new trend is putting wildlife at risk and wasting fuel.
Derb Carter is a keen bird watcher. It’s been his hobby since his childhood and it’s now a part of his job too, in his role as a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. When walking through the low-lying countryside on the banks of the Roanoke River, in North Carolina in the US, he’s circumspect about the future of these old forests though.
“Someone needs to protect these places and the animals that depend on them,” he says. “In addition to birds, we have bears, turkeys, herons, eagles and egrets here.” But, the area is now under threat from a growing wood pellet manufacturing industry here, he says. “We’ve protected some of the land in refuges and state parks,” Carter told DW. “But most of it is still privately owned, and that’s where the pellet mills will get their wood.”
Demand for pellets is rising dramatically worldwide. This, despite the fact that environmentalists are concerned about the particulate matter that wood pellet power stations pollute into the air. Not to mention the carbon footprint of bringing the pellets to Europe.
“We’re cutting forest over here, which requires energy, processing them into pellets, then transporting them to a port,” Derb Carter explains.
“Then we are putting them on a boat, burning diesel fuel, to haul them all the way across the Atlantic to again transport them to a utility to burn instead of coal.”
Nevertheless, it seems like this part of the US is pushing ahead with its plans to develop its wood pellet industry. A new port facility in nearby Morehead City, to facilitate with shipping wood pellets to Europe, recently got the green light from authorities. They say the new facility will provide some 150 new jobs in the region.
Leave a Reply