President Joe Biden has made it his mission to improve the quality of the climate during his presidency. However, introducing new laws that encourage people to use green energy has caused more problems than good for some people.
Environmentalists say that government-subsidized wood pellet production is wreaking havoc across the Southern states of the United States of America.
Poor Air Quality Linked to Green Energy Source
One resident, Shelia Mae Dobbins, reported that residues from the nearby wood pellet plants cover her truck, she can’t spend time outdoors due to the poor air quality, and she can often hear the loudspeakers from the plant.
The UK energy giant Drax opened the facility near Dobbins’s home and compresses 450,000 tons of wood chips annually in the majority Black town of Gloster, Mississippi.
The Growing Demand for Wood Pellet Burning
While the US production of wood pellets meets the European Union’s demands for renewable energy to replace coal or other fossil fuels, the Climate and Environment Team examines the impact and growth of the wood pellet industry booming through Southern states and its ongoing expansion to the West.
James Pollard, the leader of the task force, joined forces with Julie Watson and Terry Chea in California and WDC’s Matthew Daley to study how wooden pellets are affecting communities.
The Growing Complaints in the South
Pollard’s reporting and interviews uncover complaints from residents across the South about the nearby plants and the excessive dust, noise, and public health problems they have been causing.
It is no coincidence to Dobbins, who has asthma, and diabetes, and was diagnosed with heart and lung disease in 2017, that the federal regulators found that residents who are exposed to unwanted air particles experience asthma more than in the country.
The Push for Renewable Energy
After the European Union classified biomass as renewable energy in 2009, the Southeast’s annual wood pellet capacity increased from about 300,000 tons to more than 7.3 million tons by 2017, according to University of Missouri researchers.
Federal energy statistics show that nearly three dozen southern wood pellet manufacturing plants account for nearly 80 percent of the US’s annual capacity.
Wood Pellet Production Skyrockets
Wood pellet production skyrocketed in the US, mostly in the South where land is cheaper and more widely available, to help feed the demand the European Union has for renewable energy.
Countries, including the US, are increasingly using wooden pellets to replace fossil fuels on the coast. But the switch to green energy is costing residents near plants—often rural, low-income POC residents—who experience the dustier process that leaves them sicker than most.
Misusing the IRA
Under Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which was meant to help America’s air quality, forests, and rivers, billions of dollars became available for these projects to continue burning wood pellets for energy and slowly expand West.
“Something is going on. And it’s all around the plant,” Dobbins says to the Associated Press. “Nobody asked us could they bring that plant there.”
The Support for Wood Pellets
Supporters of wood pellets say that they are a long-term solution to the climate crisis, and help revitalize small, disadvantaged communities by bringing in necessary revenue.
But residents of towns from Gaston, North Carolina to Uniontown, Alabama have been complaining for years about truck traffic, air pollution, and noise from the pellet plants.
Looking Into Complaints
Environmentalists investigating the complaints and the effects on residents in those communities believe the attempt to curb carbon emissions has been largely misguided. They argue that not only are communities of color being polluted, but burning the wood pellets is also warming the atmosphere.
Scot Quaranda, a spokesman for the Dogwood Alliance, tells the Daily Mail that he knows the IRA subsidies were meant to prompt efforts to stop climate change, but he believes the wood pellet industry is just a way for them to sneak in their old caveman ways and pretend it’s something new.
Wood Pellets Do More Harm Than Good
Environmentalists want Biden to stop aiding an industry that they believe is running counter to his green energy goals after studies found that firing wood pellets puts more carbon immediately into the atmosphere than coal.
In a 2018 letter, hundreds of scientists warned the EU that the “additional carbon load” from burning wood pellets means “permanent damages” including glacial melting.
The Goodwill of Drax
Spokesperson Michelli Martin said that Drax installed pollution controls, including incinerators to reduce carbon emissions back in 2021.
They found ‘no adverse effects to human health’ and that ‘no modeled pollutant from the facility exceeded’ acceptable levels, Martin said.
More and More Residents Are Becoming Sick
Quaranda and others believe the pellets are even dirtier than fossil fuels and that a company’s goodwill doesn’t justify the poor air quality caused by the plants.
After discovering that her mother was diagnosed with lung and heart problems, Gloster native Krystal Martin shows pamphlets about air quality at a community meeting. “You don’t really know you’re dealing with air pollution until most people have breathed and inhaled it for so long that they end up sick,” she says.
