Editor’s note: This commentary is by Ron Krupp, who is the author of “The Woodchuck Returns to Gardening.”
Most people who saw the film “Burned: Are Trees the New Coal,” had no idea about the issue and its devastating impacts on the environment. The documentary was produced by Alan Dater and Lisa Merton of Marlboro films in Southern Vermont.
“Burned” tells the little-known story of the accelerating destruction of our forests for fuel. It looks at the latest electric power industry solution to climate change. Can you believe that woody biomass has resulted in a rise in carbon emissions that exceed those of coal-burning? None of this could be happening without major policy loopholes, huge subsidies, and the blatant greenwashing of the growing biomass power industry.
Every morning, when I go down to the Tommy Thompson Community Garden in the Intervale in Burlington, I pass the McNeil Generating Station that produces electricity for the Burlington Electric Department and Green Mountain Power. Almost all the power comes from woodchips produced from northwest Vermont and New York state carried by rail on boxcars beginning in Swanton. From there, the boxcars travel into Burlington in the Intervale to the McNeil Plant. Sometimes, I need to wait about 10 minutes as the boxcars rumble down the tracks blocking Intervale Road. Besides the power produced at the McNeil plant, hydro, solar and wind farms also supply electricity for Burlington Electric. Their goal is to produce all its power from sustainable sources by 2030. This would be a first in the country.
Not far away in Berlin, New Hampshire, the forests are being clear-cut in order to produce electricity from woodchips at the 75-megawatt plant. It used to be former Fraser Pulp Mill. Along the southeast coast of the U.S. large swaths of forestland are being cut down, processed into woodchips and sent by barges across the sea to England where they are burned to produce electricity at the Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire, the largest biomass power station in the world.
So I must ask the question: Are trees the latest energy industry solution to climate change? According to Jamie Sayen, forest activist and author who writes for the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire, the answer is no.
“Biomass is not sustainable; and it is not green and it is not clean and it is certainly not carbon neutral,” Tom Wessels, an ecologist at Antioch New England said. “If we truly want to mitigate climate change, then we’ve got to make sure our forests are storing a lot of carbon.” Sure, many schools and homes use wood and there a couple of wood burning plants including the McNeil Generating Station, but our woods are not the “Green Solution.”
