Thereâs a Booming Business in Americaâs Forests. Some Arenât Happy About It.
The fuel pellet industry is thriving. Supporters see it as a climate-friendly source of rural jobs. For others, itâs a polluter and destroyer of nature.
A tree being dragged to a wood chipper, a first step toward being transformed into wood pellets and shipped overseas.Credit.
Photographs and Video by Erin Schaff
Gabriel Popkin and Erin Schaff traveled to Northampton County, N.C., to examine the climate controversy over a fast-growing industry.
April 19, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET
GARYSBURG, N.C. â In 2013, Kathy Claiborne got a noisy new neighbor. Thatâs when a huge factory that dries and presses wood into roughly cigarette-filter-sized pellets roared to life near her tidy home in one of the stateâs poorest counties. On a recent afternoon in her front yard, near the end of a cul-de-sac, the mill rumbled like an uncomfortably close jet engine.
Several Enviva mills were soon processing material from logging sites and sawmills throughout the region. Environmental groups say they have documented truckloads of logs and whole trees, not just leftovers, entering pellet mills. Publicly available images show logs stacked at mills, and a reporter outside a pellet mill entrance saw trucks of logs entering.
Pellet makers’ pledges to rely on waste wood “painted them into a corner,” said Robert Abt, a forest economist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, because the wood-products industry already used its supplies relatively efficiently, leaving little waste.
Around 2009 or so I got into a protracted (online) debate with an NC State grad student about burning biomass as a replacement for coal. I could not get him to admit that, eventually, the industry would grow to the point it would need to consume whole trees instead of detritus. Which he stubbornly claimed would be more than enough to satisfy demands. But aside
04/15/2021 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 04/15/2021 18:15
President Biden Announces His Intent to Nominate Key Administration Leaders in the State Department
WASHINGTON - Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate seven individuals to fill key roles in the State Department:
Director General of the Foreign Service and the Chair of the Board of the Foreign Service
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and Member of the Board of Directors of the African Development Foundation
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs
Thu April 15, 2021 - Southeast Edition #8
Eric Olson - CEG CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
Joffrey Merrill said he knew he could use a Case CX160, which even at 40,000 lbs. would easily move anywhere he needed it.
Joffrey Merrill has a cool job.
Not only does he love his work, but he gets to do it outdoors amid the splendor of the southern Appalachian Mountains of North and South Carolina. The area where he operates his excavating company is beautiful but rugged country, particularly in and around his home base of Penrose, N.C., southwest of Asheville.
The highlands of southwestern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina have many peaks and several lakes bordered by high-end residential developments. It is here that his company,
The White House
WASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate seven individuals to fill key roles in the State Department:
Director General of the Foreign Service and the Chair of the Board of the Foreign Service
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and Member of the Board of Directors of the African Development Foundation
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs
Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security
Assistant Secretary of State for Conflict and Stabilization Operations and Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization