Are Industrial Wood Pellets Renewable, Green Energy? Don’t Believe It for a Second.

The industrial wood pellet industry, which manufactures and exports wood pellets to burn in power plants to produce electricity, has leveled forests, spewed air pollution, and harmed human health in the Southeastern United States for over a decade. The industry’s sights are now set on the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.

Wood pellet producers and many wood pellet burning countries claim that this is a green, renewable source of energy (you know, because trees). In reality, this industry is a climate and people-harming hoax — with greenwashing that has led to public subsidies despite the industry’s harm to people, communities, and forests.

In Washington, Earthjustice, community groups, and environmental organizations are fighting two wood pellet plants proposed in Grays Harbor and along the Columbia River.

Here are the top 10 reasons industrial wood pellet production is a false solution to the climate crisis:

1. Burning industrial wood pellets releases more greenhouse gases than burning coal. This fact alone should be enough to say no to these projects.
2. Greenhouse gas emissions from this industry are not counted by consuming countries. An accounting trick allows governments to count none of the emissions from burning pellets against their own greenhouse gas emission targets. In 2021, more than 500 scientists and economists signed a letter to President Biden and leaders of the major biomass-consuming countries, pleading with them to end this irrational carbon accounting system.
3. Carbon stored in trees that are cut down for industrial wood pellet is lost for decades. Older trees store significant amounts of carbon, and trees in a cut and re-grow cycle cannot grow fast enough to make up for the carbon released during manufacturing and burning.
4. These plants harm human health. Making industrial wood pellets releases hazardous air pollutants, dust, and fine particles that harm the health of local people and communities. Residents near these facilities are subjected to a near-constant stream of wood dust and other air pollutants, leading to asthma and other significant respiratory issues.
5. The noise pollution is deafening. Industrial wood pellet plants run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, their “hammermills” creating noise pollution all day and all night long.
6. These plants also harm fish and wildlife. Particulate matter and dust deposited on tide flats, shorelines, and in the water harms birds, fish, wildlife, and aquatic ecosystems. Cutting down forests for wood pellets destroys important fish and wildlife habitat.
7. Inevitably, these plants lead to more logging. Industrial wood pellet plants in other areas have led to increased logging and deforestation — they cannot produce the amounts of pellets they need for export using wood waste alone.
8. Let’s not forget about transportation emissions and risks. Industrial wood pellets are exported internationally, using marine vessels that themselves emit harmful greenhouse gases and increase navigation risks in our local waterways.
9. Taxpayer money is funding this hoax. Many of these pellet plants have received federal and state government subsidies for the supposed innovation of turning forests into fuel, with the U.S. Forest Service giving $10 million in grants in 2023 alone. Taxpayer money should not support this harmful industry, nor should public money be diverted away from real climate solutions.
10. This industry has a terrible track record. Despite over a decade of air permit violations, monetary fines, and harm to communities in the U.S. Southeast, these private companies (even companies in the financial red) have set their sights on the West Coast.

Washington’s proposed pellet plants — and what we’re doing to stop them

Two wood pellet plant facilities are currently proposed, one on the Washington coast, in Grays Harbor, and the other on the bank of the Columbia River in southwestern Washington.

If built, these would be the first wood pellet plant facilities in the Pacific Northwest.

Hoquiam

In June 2024, a coalition of Northwest and national conservation groups filed an appeal challenging a faulty air permit that will allow construction and operation of the plant in Hoquiam, proposed by Pacific Northwest Renewable Energy (PNWRE).

PNWRE proposes to produce and export 440,000 tons of fuel pellets annually to ship to Asia and would operate around the clock.

The groups, Friends of Grays Harbor, Grays Harbor Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, Twin Harbors Waterkeeper, and Wild Orca, represented by Earthjustice, are challenging the Clean Air Act permit for underestimating the amounts of toxic and harmful pollutants the plant will emit and for failing to consider the full harm of producing and burning wood pellets on our climate. The appeal challenges the permit issued by the local air agency, the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency; the Washington Pollution Control Hearings Board will review the validity of the permit.

Longview

The Longview plant is proposed by Drax, a British company with at least 18 wood pellet plants operating in the southeastern U.S. and Canada and a troubling history of repeated air pollution violations and permit noncompliance.

The plant is designed to produce, store, and export up to 440,800 tons of dried wood pellets annually, operating seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Longview, a small timber town, successfully fought off the threat of a coal export terminal only a few years ago. Now, community groups are again uniting to combat this new climate-harming project.

The local air agency, Southwest Clean Air Agency, issued the Longview facility’s draft air permit for public comment early in 2024. Local community members caught Drax beginning construction before a final permit issued and alerted the air agency, which issued a hefty fine for this violation. Continued community pressure then led the air agency to withdraw the draft permit with the goal of implementing stricter pollution controls. We’re currently waiting to see what a revised draft permit will look like.

How You Can Help

We encourage Earthjustice supporters to learn more about this false climate solution and community-harming industry. Voice your opinion when public comment periods open on proposed new permits and projects. Visit the Earthjustice action center to subscribe to our action alerts and to learn more.