Turning BC Forests into Biomass Pellets

October 27, 2022 By: Jenn Wong

For this exercise, I was drawn to a recent news story that has come brought protest both at home and in the UK. Old grown and primary forest trees are being cut in British Columbia to be made into wood pellets to fuel UK thermal electricity plants. I was surprised to learn that just one UK company, Drax Group, controls half of the 14 pellet mills in the province.[1] With this monopoly control over BC resources, their claims of using only waste materials have been debunked. With the decline of clear cutting and sawmills, there is less waste which has led to Drax pelleting entire trees. Entire hemlock forests that serve as vital habitat for our native species is being championed by BC politicians. Marketed as “value-added products,” the growing bio economy is a major risk to our forests.[2] Currently, Drax is the largest carbon emitter in the UK, and world’s largest burner of trees. Drax is green-washing that using biomass is a renewable fuel, however burning trees for energy when there are viable alternatives is not acceptable – especially when it is subsidized by Canadian and UK governments.

A 45 minute CBC Fifth Estate doc and a BBC expose Like past environmental resistance movements, protestors in the UK are staging protest. Direct action has included spray painting buildings orange, attaching themselves to buildings, and getting arrested. However, unlike protests in the previous decades, more people are acutely aware of how issues like this are directly related to their health and livelihoods with the impact of climate change on their doorsteps in the forms of flooding and record heat waves. With the use of social media, awareness is connecting people on both sides of the Atlantic with the hashtag #StopBurningTrees. Protests and calls to action for corporations and governments to improve their forest management, and energy strategies like our lives depend on it.

[1] Scott Doherty, Gary Fiege, Ben Parfitt and Michelle Connolly, “Cut Down Trees Just to Burn Them? We Can Do Better,” The Tyee, March 14, 2022, https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2022/03/14/Cut-Down-Trees-Just-Burn-Them-We-Can-Do-Better/

[2] “Why wood from B.C. forests is burning to fuel U.K. energy needs – The Fifth Estate,” CBC, October 6, 2022, accessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lAlqhyaMQQ.

 

Michelle Connolly and Ben Parfitt, “How Many Trees Are Falling for the Wood Pellet Industry?” The Tyee, October 19, 2022, accessed https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2022/10/19/Trees-Falling-Wood-Pellet-Industry/

Scott Doherty, Gary Fiege, Ben Parfitt and Michelle Connolly, “Cut Down Trees Just to Burn Them? We Can Do Better,” The Tyee, March 14, 2022, https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2022/03/14/Cut-Down-Trees-Just-Burn-Them-We-Can-Do-Better/.

“BBC Panorama: The Green Energy Scandal Exposed,” October 2, 2022, accessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qadWRkPkKus.

“Why wood from B.C. forests is burning to fuel U.K. energy needs – The Fifth Estate,” CBC, October 6, 2022, accessed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lAlqhyaMQQ.