Drax Destroying Louisiana Forests
By Paul Homewood
.
Drax Sustainability Report
https://www.drax.com/sustainability/sourcing-sustainable-biomass/
.
According to Drax, most of the wood they use for pellets comes from sawmill residues, thinnings and branches.
Drax operate three pellet processing plants in Louisiana, with a capacity of 1.5m tonnes:
.
.
And it is clear that all three use little else other than whole, healthy tree trunks:
.
Amite Bioenergy
Morehouse Bioenegy
https://www.draxbiomass.com/media/images/#morehouse-bioenergy
La Salle Bioenergy
http://biomassmagazine.com/articles/14292/drax-to-enter-acquisition-process-for-louisiana-pellets
.
They claim this is “low grade roundwood”, but the forests it all comes from previously supplied paper mills, so it certainly is not low grade. And it simply means that paper mills will have to source wood from elsewhere.
There is already ample evidence that huge areas of hardwood forests are being cleared for Drax pellet plants in Virginia as well. And the NRDC in Canada have just issued fresh protests against Drax’s destruction of their forests.
.
.
Supposedly, BEIS have insisted on strict sustainability rules, but these are little more than a form filling exercise, whereby Drax certify themselves.
It is abundantly clear now, that Drax’s biomass operation is not only highly destructive for American forests, but also unnecessarily putting huge quantities of carbon dioxide into the air, which may take decades to offset through new growth, if at all.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I could almost make friends with the green loonies to stop this! Has to be done in the USA though, no chance of Drax being shut down from the UK, too many fingers in the pie.
My objection to the idiocy is not the wood burning but the foolishness of the politico-economic basis on which a more expensive fuel is burned at considerably lower round-trip efficiency to satisfy a totally artificial argument.
If CO2 was really the cause of any form of climate emergency, only waste-wood would be burned in boilers (purely on economic grounds of course). China and India would not be allowed to increase their coal burn astronomically but forced to close the monsters down. Also, Australia, USA, South Africa and Indonesia would not be allowed to export coal or gas to anyone.
Fortunately, there is no climate emergency and the effect of increased CO2 is mainly beneficial. Hypocritical scientists and politicians have manufactured a situation where bureaucracy trumps sense.
But look at all the lovely subsidies.
Perhaps Kwasi Karteng would care to comment on this. Or maybe Alok Sharma, his predecessor as Secretary of State, now relieved of mundane matters in order to concentrate on making COP26 a success!!
Since nobody has managed to make the previous 25 produce anything but enough hot air to keep the balloon aloft for another year I don’t hold out much hope but it would at least be interesting to have the reaction of this gabfest’s host to the idea that burning 1,500,000 metric tons of quality wood year to make electricity is somehow environmentally friendly, especially when a) you have to transport it several thousand miles, and b) you are sitting slap-bang on top of a coal mine!
I bet Harrabin’s all over this, oh no wait its green init!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/06/15/emissions-renewable-biomass-should-taxed-report-says/
The whole thing is s racket, both politically and environmentally. The hypocrisy is barely believable.
The whole world is being run by complete idiots!
No, we vote in the ‘complete idiots’ & they do what they are told to do by the clever & very rich puppet masters … who really run the world.
With north american lumber markets at all time highs , it would seem like a crime to waste perfectly good trees to such an environmentally wasteful and counter productive industry.
It does, however , illustrate the utter hypocrisy of the whole climate fiasco.
The Drax Operation is a disgrace and one of the Directors is a member of the Climate Change Committee.
Don’t forget that the pellets are transported thousands of miles using the most polluting firm of transport known to man, ships.
So the trees suck up co2 for 4 or 5 years then are cut down compressed, sprayed and transported, all using processes that create large amounts of co2 , then when burnt the co2 sucked up by the trees 4 or 5 years ago is released back into the atmosphere.
Can someone explain in words of one syllable why this is considerd green?
BBC Dogma and Environment page
Have we planted too much faith in trees?
Video caption: A warming world may mean trees can’t do their job as effectively
Forests are often touted as a natural fix for climate change, but a warming world may mean trees can’t do their job as effectively.
It’s really a seg linked to their podcast by @NealRazzell & @GraihaghJackson
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct0xbf
This sounds like garbage. Plant growth is limited by the availability of 3 things – water, heat and CO2. Assuming availability of the first two, it is CO2 that is limiting – which is why it is pumped into commercial greenhouses. So in a warmer world with more CO2 plants will grow more quickly, as we are seeing with the greening of desert margins.
And light, of course.
Many thanks for this Paul. As I’ve mentioned here recently, I recently emailed my MP about Drax. In his reply he assured me that ‘generating stations utilising biomass only receive subsidies in respect of compliant biomass’, going on to say that one requirement for compliance is ‘that biomass fuels are derived from forest waste wood and residues’. I intend to get back to him on this (and on claims that burning biomass is ‘carbon neutral’). He’s very responsive and tries to deal with constituents honestly and promptly – not easy for him as he’s ambitious and doesn’t want to rock the boat.
I’m beginning to build a useful case – and this post should be especially helpful. Thanks again.
I investigated Drax at length for Denierland. My estimate was that to feed it with a rapid-growing softwood (loblolly pine) you’d need >11,000 km sq of plantation on a twenty year rotation to feed it. To pay back the carbon dioxide emitted in harvesting, production and transport you would need to add 1,800 km sq of new forest where there was none before, given 25 years’ operation.
70,000 tonnes a day in thinnings and offcuts, pull the other one !
Saturday’s Times reports
Clouds over Mark Carney’s role in this year’s climate talks
after his claims that the company where he works has “net zero” emissions were dismissed as “greenwash”
Basically they move funds and book that as a huge CO2 profit
‘Yeh we had a $2bn in a coal mine
and we’ve moved that to 2 solar projects that use $100m in gas heating a year
we’ll deduct all the CO2 we’ve now AVOIDED from the coal project and call it a net 400 million tonnes in Co2 savings
so we’ll balance that against all our oil stocks and say its net zero over all’
Greens get a kicking from almost ll the commenters behind the Times paywall
– There is a lot of coal smoke & mirrors surrounding corporate greenness.
In other areas it’s referred to as creative accounting.
– Just end this wretched green crp.
It’s just a complete nonsense. Deaths from anything climate related are plummeting.
It’s a fake emergency – we need to focus on real problems.
Same page : World is failing to follow Britain’s lead on climate targets, warns UN
Only 75 countries counting for 30 per cent of emissions have signed up for Paris
And the UN says the combined impact would only be
enough to achieve a ONE per cent reduction in emissions by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.
.. a decline of *45* per cent would be needed to meet the 1.5C target.
BTW I quote the final paragraph after about 2,000 words of blah blah
Reader comments
– So basically, as Britain is emptying the tank with a teaspoon, China is filling it with an hosepipe.
– Clearly the rest of the world does not want to follow us into economic suicide.
etc.
Some key personnel:
and of course she sits alongside Deben at the CCC.
https://www.energy-transitions.org/who/
Quite a rogues’ gallery.
https://sbp-cert.org/
Talks about getting certified… is Broadmoor a destination? Self certification it seems.
pg 15 Points out the Climate loons have taken over Amnesty
“backlash over its priorities
Supporters concerned that its focus on political prisoners …
may have been diminished by growing emphasis on inequality and climate change“*
Anyone here not a sinner?
Amnesty say they don’t have to protect Navalny, cos he picked his nose 10 years ago.
sorry … ” because of comments he made about migrants 14 years ago”
* I note that key line in the print edition
has been sanitised out in the online edition
I left Amnesty a couple of years ago as a result of their fauning over Greta.
My very caustic letter of resignation received no reply, but they still keep sending me their “literature”.
And, at elections I don’t vote for any candidate that mentions climate change or net (should be nett of course) zero – therefore spoilt ballot paper with very caustic remarks.
Look on the bright side! CO2 is good plant food, and the energy from wood burning is dispatchable.
The only other option is for us to stop using electricity….
“They’re seen as a natural climate fix because they eat carbon dioxide, one of the main gases that cause global warming.”
Yes, and when they die (or catch fire) the oxygen they helped create recycles them back to CO2 and H2O. It’s called aerobic respiration… the carbon cycle. Unless a tree (or an alga) is buried geologically it will sooner than later be oxidized. Planting millions for trees is at best a costly short term option. A few lightning created wildfires and back to square one? Most wildfires are man-made anyhow. It’s tough being green with little understanding.
In Drax’s reports, they believe they are “truthful” Those logs are thinnings and low grade roundwood. It is just that those logs are too small to cut up for lumber and they practice a 100% thinning ratio.
Drax operate three pellet processing plants in Louisiana
Those would need to be *sustainable* pellet plants, otherwise the energy used in drying the wood and pellet production defeats the supposed object of the exercise. And that’s before they’ve even sent them off on the diesel-powered trucks/trains/ships to the UK.
Not only does Drax destroy North American forests, but its CO2 emissions also negate any of the CO2 savings from the other UK Weather Dependent “Renewables”. See the numbers:
https://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/the-inconsistencies-in-green-policies-to-limit-co2-emissions/
In the UK the policy to use Biomass at Drax completely negates all CO2 emissions reduction efforts that might have been achieved using Weather Dependent Renewables, (Wind Power, Onshore and Offshore and Solar).
The use of imported Biomass in the UK and Germany is essentially self-defeating as a means to reduce CO2 emissions that might affect the Climate. The estimates above show that in the UK the Green policies for Renewables and Biomass actually result in additional CO2 emissions.
This is the nonsense of self-defeating Green policies in the UK
That’s an excellent analysis – thank you.
Imho it merits a separate post. Hopefully Paul will agree?
One question about the adverse impact of using biomass: do your figures include the lost absorption capacity of the timber felled to feed Drax? (I am not sure whether that might be a significant figure).
Wow !
What does Louisiana Greenpeace have to say about this logging and transatlantic shipping practice ?
None of the warmists predictions have ever come true.
There’s a similar story unfolding in Estonia and its neighbours:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/14/carbon-neutrality-is-a-fairy-tale-how-the-race-for-renewables-is-burning-europes-forests?fbclid=IwAR3Lfz2WW9f_gqNrtymGbxRiGoGqg1QMIA-4Ya9dIYvspAbr1ScMaid7aEQ
Found this from the past on my Bio file ref. the Massachusetts Forest Watch.Dont know how to send as you all do,so here it is longhand.
http://www.maforests.org/MFWCarb.pdf.
Ive just tried it and it is still available.
Ooer! I didn’t know that WP did it automatically,highlighted in blue as well.
something else for Harrabin to get his teeth into. Tesla partners with nickel mine https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56288781. Actually reported on the BBC with a green spin!
When I originally commented I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on every time a comment is added I get 4 emails with the exact same comment. Perhaps there is a means you can remove me from that service? Thanks a lot!
Sorry, but I don’t think there is a way to reverse it. I have had this conversation with WordPress before.
It should dry up in a day or so.