Dogwood Alliance launches campaign against logging for energy

http://www.mountainx.com/article/50340/Dogwood-Alliance-launches-campaign-against-logging-for-energy

By David Forbes on 05/29/2013 04:05 AM

From the Dogwood Alliance:

May 28, 2013 – Southern forests are being burned for electricity, and a new campaign announced today aims to put an end to it. Dogwood Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have launched “Our Forests Aren’t Fuel” to raise awareness of an alarming and rapidly-growing practice of logging forests and burning the trees as fuel to generate electricity

At the forefront of burning trees logged from Southern forests for electricity are some of Europe’s largest utility companies, including Drax, Electrobel and RWE. Rising demand by these companies has resulted in the rapid expansion of wood pellet exports from the Southern US. The American South is now the largest exporter of wood pellets in the world. Recent analyses indicate there are twenty-four pellet facilities currently operating in the Southeast, and sixteen additional plants planned for construction in the near-term. Market analysts project that annual exports of wood pellets from the South will more than triple from 1.3 million tons in 2012 to nearly 6 million tons by 2015. All of the South’s largest domestic utilities, including Dominion Resources and Duke Energy, are also beginning to burn wood with plans for expansion in the future.

“This rapidly expanding trend of burning trees for energy will both accelerate climate change and destroy forests,” said Danna Smith, Executive Director of Dogwood Alliance. “Southern forests not only protect us from climate change, but protect our drinking water, provide habitat for wildlife and contribute to our quality of life. We need these companies to stop burning trees for electricity and embrace a clean energy future that helps to protect, rather than destroy forests.”

“With the advancement of clean, renewable energy alternatives, the growing practice of burning trees for electricity is a major step in the wrong direction,” said Debbie Hammel, Senior Resource Specialist of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “Our Forests Aren’t Fuel lets the public know about the extent of this ecological devastation and calls on utilities to end the practice. It’s an even dirtier form of energy production than burning fossil fuels, it destroys valuable southern ecosystems, and it isn’t necessary.”

Energy from burning trees – or biomass – has been widely promoted as a form of renewable energy along with technologies like solar, wind, and geothermal. Over the past two years, however, mounting scientific evidence has discredited biomass from forests as a clean, renewable fuel. Recent scientific reports document that burning whole trees to produce electricity actually increases greenhouse gas pollution in the near-term compared with fossil fuels and emits higher levels of multiple air pollutants. This fact, combined with the negative impacts to water resources and wildlife associated with industrial logging have discredited whole trees as a clean fuel source. But current European and U.S. renewable energy policies and subsidies encourage the burning of trees as a “renewable” source of energy for power generation, helping to facilitate the rapid increase in demand for trees from Southern forests to burn in power plants.

Consequently, a new industry is spawning in the South. Companies like Maryland-based Enviva, the South’s largest pellet manufacturer, are grinding whole trees into wood pellets to be burned in power stations in Europe while also supplying wood to domestic utilities like Dominion Resources. New evidence that Enviva may be relying at least in part on the harvesting of wetland forests has recently emerged. Georgia Biomass, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German utility RWE Innogy, is also manufacturing millions of tons of wood pellets annually to be burned in European biomass facilities.

“Our Forests Aren’t Fuel” organizers reveal the scope and scale of the growing biomass industry through a series of case studies on the campaign website that include wood pellet manufacturers, domestic utilities, and European utilities. Particular emphasis is placed on the following companies:

· Enviva - one of the largest manufacturers of wood pellets in the U.S. and Europe, with manufacturing facilities and partner facilities in Mississippi, North Carolina and Virginia. The Bethesda, Maryland-based company has an annual production capacity of more than 590,000 tons. It also operates a deep water terminal at the Port of Chesapeake, which has the capacity to receive and store up to three million tons of woody biomass annually. Much of its product is sold and shipped to European utilities, like Drax. Leftover biomass “residues,” like tree tops and limbs, are sold to domestic utilities, like Dominion Resources.

· Drax – major United Kingdom-based utility that recently shifted focus from co-firing biomass in coal power plants to full conversion of its largest plant to biomass. Drax has begun building pellet mills directly through its wholly owned subsidiary Drax Biomass. In December, 2012, Drax announced it will build Amite BioEnergy pellet mill in Gloster, Mississippi, and Morehouse BioEnergy in Bastrop, Louisiana, to supply wood pellets for use in its power plants, with production set to begin in 2014.

· Dominion Resources – the Richmond, Virginia-based utility recently launched several biomass operations that could well rely on whole trees in the near future. Its 83 megawatt plant in Pittsylvania, Virginia, is one of the largest biomass power stations on the east coast. Dominion is also converting three existing peak power coal-fired power stations into full-time biomass-burning facilities. The utility currently sources much of its biomass material as “residues” from wood pellet manufacturers like Enviva that export the bulk of its product to European markets. Should the supply of these residuals become limited, Dominion’s operations could increasingly rely on burning whole trees.

Full case studies for companies driving the biomass industry can be found on the “Our Forests Aren’t Fuel” website, http://www.dogwoodalliance.org/campaigns/bioenergy/, along with recommended actions for those concerned about losing southern forests for electricity, and a list of more than 70 supporting environmental groups.

British firm to build Miss., La. wood pellet mills

http://www.sfgate.com/business/energy/article/British-firm-to-build-Miss-La-wood-pellet-mills-4117774.php

By JEFF AMY, Associated Press

Updated 1:57 am, Friday, December 14, 2012 

 JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A British power generator will build a pair of mills in southwestern Mississippi and northeastern Louisiana to make wood pellets to burn for electricity in the United Kingdom.

A unit of Drax Group PLC will spend more than $200 million to build mills in Gloster, Miss., and near Bastrop, La., each capable of yearly production of 450,000 metric tons.

The company will invest $120 million in Louisiana, including $30 million to build an export terminal in Port Allen. Bar Littlefield, senior vice president of Drax Biomass International, says the investment in Mississippi will top $80 million.

Drax says it will hire 45 people in Gloster, 47 in Bastrop and 16 in Port Allen. On average in Louisiana, Drax plans to pay $35,000 a year, plus benefits. Pay levels for Mississippi were not released.

Loggers and truckers who will supply trees to be made into pellets will also get more work.
The company plans to start construction next year and begin production in 2014.

Wood pellets are burned by European power plants and industries in an attempt to cut carbon dioxide emissions. Because trees can be regrown, capturing carbon dioxide, burning wood is looked on favorably in attempts to reduce global warming. Drax owns the U.K.'s largest coal-fired power plant, producing 7 percent of the country's electricity.

In many cases, European power companies sign long-term contracts with American firms, which then build and operate the mills. Drax is taking a different course by building them directly.

Drax Biomass is focused on building and operating clean, safe manufacturing facilities that will support local economies, create long-term jobs and interface with local forest industry," CEO Chuck Davis said in a statement.

No pellet plants currently operate in Louisiana. In Mississippi, Enviva L.P. owns a 136,000-metric-ton plant in Wiggins and a 90,000-metric-ton plant in Amory. A number of such mills have been built across the Southeast, although paper mills often eye them warily because they compete for the same size trees.

International Paper Co. closed its Bastrop paper mill in 2009, slashing demand for pulpwood in the region. Gov. Bobby Jindal made new development in Morehouse Parish a priority when the closing was announced. "We committed to working together to get the people in this area back on their feet," Jindal, who made the announcement Thursday in Bastrop, said in a statement. "We talked about making the local communities in this area stronger than before."

Mississippi officials say loggers each year cut down trees equal to only half the amount of new growth, and they've lured other firms that use wood.

"With Mississippi's abundance of biomass resources, our state offers important advantages to businesses that rely on biomass for their operations," Mississippi Development Authority Director Brent Christensen said in a statement.

MDA spokeswoman Tammy Craft said Mississippi will provide Drax $2.63 million in Hurricane Katrina-related federal community aid to improve roads and other infrastructure, as well as $100,000 in cash. Also for infrastructure work, the town of Gloster will give $75,000 and Amite County will give $87,500.

Louisiana will give Drax $1.7 million in aid that wouldn't have to be repaid if the company meets job commitments. Drax is also eligible for benefits including a tax credit on capital investment worth up to $1.8 million, a 10-year property tax break and free job training.

The company will send pellets by rail from Bastrop and by truck from Gloster to Port Allen to load onto ships. In November, the Port of Greater Baton Rouge approved a lease with a Drax unit that will build three storage domes plus unloading conveyors on 10 acres of port property. The port expects revenue of $672,000 in 2014 and $1.6 million in 2015.

Sluggish economy hampers Louisiana timber industry

http://www.thetowntalk.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012210040327&adjusted=1

10:32 AM, Oct 4, 2012

MARKSVILLE -- The buzz at the Louisiana Forestry Association Convention was mostly about -- no surprise -- the economy.

"Housing starts really drive a lot of this industry and they are down considerably," said LFA Executive Director Buck Vandersteen. "It is scary when you think we have the lowest interest rates for a 30-year mortgage since World War II, yet we don't have a big boom in the housing market."

The sluggish demand has been particularly hard on the state's logging industry.

Louisiana has lost about half its loggers since the downturn, Vandersteen said. Those who remain are "trying to keep their heads above water."

It will take time to recruit and train a new work force, Vandersteen said, meaning if demand were to shoot up quickly, it could cause problems in the supply chain.

The good news, Vandersteen said, is landowners still are planting timber. Louisiana's forest land is growing, he said, and the forests are producing 30 percent more wood than what is being harvested or dying.

"It all depends on the family landowner," Vandersteen said. "Most of them are small operations -- the average is about 40 acres. They're the ones who start the whole chain in what is a multi-billion dollar industry in Louisiana. It all starts with the mom and pop landowner."

Those landowners are looking for new markets, and there is some excitement about the potential for wood products in renewable energy.

Wood is being used as a component in manufacturing synthetic gas -- including at a pilot plant being developed in the Alexandria area by Sundrop Fuels, which will convert woody biomass and natural gas into "green gasoline" that can be used in vehicles.

Wood pellets are being burned as an energy source, particularly in Europe.

"This is not a dying industry," Vandersteen said. "With renewable fuels, we don't know where that's going to take us. It will be exciting to see what potential markets open up."

Vandersteen stressed that the industry is not turning its back on its traditional bread and butter, especially the construction industry. He is hopeful building will ramp up in the near future, though that will depend on the mindset of Americans.

"It's the economic uncertainty," Vandersteen said. "When people start feeling good about the economy, they're more likely to buy homes, buy furniture. Right now, people don't know where the economy is going. People need to know what our taxes going to be, what is health care going to be, do I invest in a business, do I go out of business? Once all that is cleared up, then we can move forward."

The LFA convention is being held Tuesday through today at Paragon Casino Resort. Speakers are covering topics such as new lumber standards for building and water rights issues.

On Wednesday, William "Bubba" Rasberry from Shreveport was recognized as the state's Outstanding Tree Farmer while Jeffrey Martinez was recognized as Outstanding Logger.