Europe appears to believe that burning wood pellets for fuel is greener than coal, according to a National Geographic article that explores the booming wood pellet industry and the controversy surrounding it.
Wood pellets, historically used to heat houses in the American Northeast, are being shipped to Europe in higher and higher volumes each year. Global demand for wood pellets is set to double over the next decade. In the United Kingdom, for example, utility company Drax is converting three of its six power plants to burn wood pellets instead of coal, the article said.
The wood pellet industry tradesmen argue that wood pellets benefit the planet because wood, unlike coal, is a renewable fuel. Furthermore, pellets are made from wood by-products that would otherwise go to waste. Pellets also increase the value of a tree, and people plant more trees when prices go up, according to Karen Abt, a research economist with the U.S. Forest Service.
Conservationists see things differently. They believe more demand for low-quality wood incentivizes converting natural forests to plantations and that low-quality timber, were it not cut for wood pellets, would grow and form higher-quality habitats, Debbie Hammel, senior resource specialist with Natural Resources Defense Council, told the magazine. A U.K. government analysis said using "wood from a forest that would otherwise be harvested less frequently" would send more carbon into the atmosphere than burning coal.
"There's a lot we don't know," said Apt. For studies starting now, "it's going to be 20 years before we can tell exactly what's going on."
