Photo: Map showing the 100 mile radius that the Lassen County plant will collect wood from
Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR) is seeking approval for the largest wood pellet production project in the country, from Golden State Finance Authority (GSFA), whose affiliate is the Rural County Representatives of California (RCRC). SEA is working with a broad coalition of environmental groups and community organizations to oppose the project, which would pose threats to our forests and the health of people living near these polluting plants.
The GSNR Forest Resiliency Demonstration Project would construct and operate three facilities: two wood pellet production facilities, one in Tuolumne County and one in Nubieber in Lassen County, and a storage and shipping facility in the Port of Stockton. Together the facilities would produce 1,000,000 megatons (MT) of wood pellets per year that then would be exported to burn in power plants overseas. The Project would also authorize “wildfire resilience and forest restoration” projects on a programmatic level, which would provide over 890,000 MT of roundwood for the facilities per year.
The economics of these wood pellet plants is simple. Various countries in Europe and Asia have declared electricity produced by burning wood pellets to replace coal in former coal-powered plants is “clean energy” and companies get special handouts for producing “clean energy” in addition to the income from producing electricity. By the time the forests are logged, the wood is transported to production plants that turn them into wood pellets by chipping and grinding the wood, heating it to get out the moisture, pressing it into wood pellets, and shipping it across the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean, it will have released 1.5 times as much CO2 as coal to produce the same amount of electricity and the carbon sequestering trees is gone.
The British learned centuries ago that clearcutting forests to power steam locomotives with wood was inefficient and that using coal which burned much hotter was much more efficient.
Companies such as Drax, which owns many current and former coal plants, are supporting the proposed plant for Lassen County. This logging for wood pellets in the southeastern United States has clear-cut much of the private forest land taking out the carbon in the forest, destroying habitat for wildlife as well as producing a considerable amount of pollution.
SEA is working with many environmental groups locally, regionally, and nationally to stop this plant in Lassen County. For more information, you can go to these websites:
https://www.wildcalifornia.org/post/donate-to-epic-to-help-stop-dirty-mega-biomass-project
Much of the article came from the Environmental Information Center (EPIC)
https://www.nrdc.org/bio/rita-frost/drax-coming-california-forests-partnering-gsnr