Forest biomass growth to soar through 2030, impacting tropical forests

Tree felling on an energy plantation concession in Indonesia where wood has been used to supply wood pellets to South Korea. Image courtesy of FWI.

The harvesting and burning of forest biomass to produce energy continues to surge, according to a new report on near-term global production and demand for wood pellets. This growth comes despite scientists’ warnings of the industry’s harm to the climate and its contribution to deforestation — increasingly in the tropics.

It comes even as forest advocates score early wins in their efforts to derail what scientists call an unsustainable form of bioenergy.

The numbers are stark, according to the new report. By 2030, the supply of forest biomass for energy is projected to triple compared to 2021, after expanding by 50% between 2010 and 2021.

That jump in wood pellet production to meet global demand will require a 13-fold increase in monoculture biomass plantations from current levels, especially in Southeast Asia. The ongoing conversion of native tropical forests to short-rotation plantations for crops, timber and wood pellets will continue being a significant driver of global deforestation.

The report, titled Burning Up the Biosphere, offers what it calls “a global threat map of biomass energy development.” It was produced by the Biomass Action Network of the Environmental Paper Network (EPN), an international forest advocacy group. The map and projections are based on data produced by the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Net Zero Scenario study.

Estimate of global wood pellet production and use in metric tons by nation by 2030. Data sourced from the International Energy Agency’s Net Zero Scenario study. Image courtesy of the Environmental Paper Network.

In a move viewed as ironic by campaigners, IEA’s projections for achieving global net zero emissions by 2050 rely on not counting CO₂ emissions produced at the smokestack by wood pellets — a clear carbon accounting error sanctioned by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and adopted in policies by European and Asian nations desperate to meet 2030 legal mandates to stop burning coal.

Unfortunately, say forest advocates, nature will not be fooled by UNFCCC’s creative accounting. Science has shown repeatedly that the burning of wood pellets spews more carbon emissions than coal per unit of electricity produced. In fact, it’s possible the biomass industry wouldn’t exist if the world’s nations weren’t providing multi-million-dollar subsidies to biomass companies to cut down forests and turn them into wood pellets.

“We are literally burning up the biosphere as industry and governments greenwash [biomass] as climate action, [causing] forest destruction, increased carbon pollution, harms to human health, and land grabbing for massive plantation expansions,” said Peg Putt, a coordinator of EPN’s Biomass Action Network and a report co-author. “Far from being renewable, it’s reprehensible.”

Forest biomass roars into the tropics

The U.S. and Canada are the largest producers of wood pellets today, mainly for markets in the European Union and the United Kingdom. But pellet mills are expanding worldwide, the study notes, even as adverse health impacts on local communities from toxic air pollutants become better documented and understood.

The report forecasts a dramatic increase in wood pellet supply by 2030 from tropical countries such as Vietnam, Brazil, Malaysia and Indonesia. That’s where rainforests now play a vital role in harboring biodiversity and offer forest carbon sequestration critical to mitigating global climate change.

Wood pellet use is expected to arrive in Taiwan between now and 2030 (with 5 million tons burned annually), and to continue expanding in Japan (14 million tons) and South Korea (8 tons). Use in the EU and UK is expected to top 18 metric tons each year.

“The trends are all worrying,” Putt told Mongabay, “but even more so across the tropics.”

Etsuko Kinefuchi, an environmental communication researcher with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, U.S., studies the biomass industry and its impacts. She reviewed the new report for Mongabay, and noted that “it has been established by independent research and investigations that the industrial scale of woody biomass energy relies on massive clearcutting of forests.

“The projected growth rate of woody biomass globally is not sustainable. In 2019, 6.6 million tons of woody biomass were produced in the Southeast United States, which was equivalent to 71,000 acres [28,730 hectares] of forests,” Kinefuchi said. “Using the same calculation, then, the projected 45 million tons of wood pellets worldwide by 2030 would be equivalent to nearly a half million acres of forests every year. It is simply not viable.”

An Indonesian activist protests against the export of wood taken from Indonesian tropical forests to be burned for energy in Japan and South Korea. Image courtesy of Trend Asia and the Environmental Paper Network.

South Korea shifts policy

The surging biomass supply-and-demand projections come as forest advocates cautiously cheer new policy developments in Asia.

In January, South Korea, Asia’s second-largest consumer of wood pellets behind Japan, ended renewable energy subsidies for new biomass projects, as well as for state-owned co-fired coal and biomass power plants. The nation also committed to phased reductions of subsidies supporting existing power plants using imported forest biomass. However, it will continue offering incentives for wood pellets produced domestically.

“These policy changes will take at least a few years to show real-world effects,” said Hansae Song, a forest advocate with SFOC, a South Korean NGO. “With so many variables at play, many of which are market dynamics, there’s a lot still that is uncertain or difficult to predict.”

Rainforest community resident Ipu Angit leads Mongabay in 2024 to a signpost marking a forest area near his home that an Indonesian company plans to convert into a tree plantation for wood pellet production. Image by Nanang Sujana for Mongabay.

Japan currently burns twice as much forest biomass as South Korea. And in a move that alarms environmentalists, the Japanese government and business interests are now offering incentives to Indonesia to help expand its in-country biomass use and expand Indonesian biomass plantations. Deforestation for biomass projects has already arisen in the country’s Kalimantan, Sulawesi and Papua regions.

However, Japan also plans to stop subsidizing large, new biomass power plants starting in 2026, though that likely won’t impact current demand. Meanwhile, Japanese NGOs continue pressing for an end to all biomass subsidies.

Song told Mongabay that he has “a sense that we’re seeing the early stages of a paradigm shift,” in Southeast Asia. “While Japan’s proposal [to stop subsidizing new power plants] doesn’t aim at reducing the existing biomass fleet, the South Korean government has finally and officially recognized the carbon emissions and deforestation associated with biomass. We’re closer than ever to [ending] coal campaigns we saw years ago. Governments had to first acknowledge the need to phase out coal, which led to transition plans.”

The Drax power plant in North Yorkshire in central England burns about 6.4 million tons of wood pellets per year — equal to roughly two-thirds the pellets produced annually in the U.S. in 2023. Drax is the largest biomass-only energy plant in the world and has received billions in accumulated subsidies from the British government over the past 15 years. Image courtesy of Biofuelwatch and the Environmental Paper Network.

Drax to keep getting subsidies, only less

In the U.K., Drax ranks as the largest consumer of wood pellets for energy in Europe with usage to rise by 56% by 2030 — mostly from U.S. imports. It’s also a major producer of pellets in the U.S. Deep South and British Columbia, Canada, with two proposed plants in northern California facing stiff public opposition.

In February, the British government agreed in principle to extend hundreds of millions in annual subsidies to Drax biomass power plants from 2027 to 2031. But those financial giveaways will be at roughly half the levels the energy giant is now receiving (in 2023, Drax was handed $670 million in taxpayer subsidies).

“The fact that [the renewed incentives] are not even worse is no doubt due to the strong campaign against Drax,” Almuth Ernsting, a U.K. forest advocate with Biofuelwatch, told Mongabay. “Still, it’s very disappointing because it gives Drax the certainty it needs to continue with its current business model.”

The U.K. Parliament had stated that subsidies beyond 2027 would depend on Drax deploying carbon capture technology to reduce emissions at its smokestacks. However, that technology is nowhere close to being implemented, though the extension of reduced subsidies appears likely. Ernsting said NGOs will carry on lobbying against all subsidies.

Meanwhile, in northern California, a governmental agency, Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), continues to promote plans that could enable Drax to build two new pellet-making plants. Those rurally based plants would be among the largest in Drax’s North American fleet — producing 1 million metric tons of pellets annually slated for Asian markets.

A recent state environmental impact analysis appears to support the new plants generally based on wildfire mitigation and forest resiliency criteria — reasoning contested by environmental groups. But that analysis also emphasizes that the plants will produce hazardous air pollution in the communities in which they operate, and work against California meeting its ambitious climate mitigation and land conservation goals.

“As if the biomass industry’s sordid environmental history isn’t alarming enough, the impact report that GSNR released speaks for itself,” said Rita Frost, a forest advocate with the National Resources Defense Council. “This project is an ineffective attempt at wildfire prevention and a health hazard to communities across northern California.”

Smokestack emissions at the Enviva Northampton, North Carolina, wood pellet mill. A steady flow of tractor trailer trucks arrive at wood pellet plants daily carrying whole logs and wood chips sourced from surrounding rural areas. The mills cause air pollution linked to respiratory ailments. Image courtesy of the Dogwood Alliance.

As demand increases, so do red flags for the industry

Even though forecasts are bullish for forest biomass energy expansion, there are signs the industry’s future beyond 2030 could be more difficult than during its first two decades of robust growth.

While Biomass Magazine reported U.S. wood pellet exports in 2024 topping 10 million metric tons for the first time, a slight increase over 2023, a number of recent developments portend a rocky road ahead:

• U.S.-based Enviva, the self-proclaimed largest pellet producer in the world, emerged from bankruptcy in 2024 a smaller, wounded private company. Weighed down by its $2.6 billion in debt, it stopped construction of a huge new plant in Mississippi in March 2024. It also just announced it will close an existing Mississippi plant, possibly starting to take plants offline rendered unprofitable due to costly, crippling maintenance issues.
   
• The Netherlands, the EU’s third-largest consumer of forest biomass, continues to chip away at subsidies it pays for wood pellet imports, largely from the U.S. In June, the Dutch parliament also voted to push the EU to exclude biomass as a renewable energy source which could render government subsidies far less likely (wood pellets account for 60% of renewable energy in the EU, far more than zero-carbon wind and solar energy).
   
• Hamburg, the second-largest city in Germany behind Berlin, decided in December not to convert a large coal-fired power plant to wood pellets, a rare policy reversal in the EU. The Hamburg Green Party claimed victory for the switch as the energy firm involved acknowledged that burning wood increases emissions and damages forests.
   
• The long-term prospects of the subsidy-dependent biomass industry may also be harmed by an independent policy report released in December by Principles for Responsible Investment. The analysis aimed at policymakers and investors evaluated “EU energy policy and investment risks for climate and nature.” It concluded that burning wood is not a viable climate solution as claimed by the industry. Rather, biomass increases emissions, harms forests, and undermines the EU’s 2050 climate-mitigation targets — facts posing investor risk, the report noted.
   

“The implications of the rapid growth of forest biomass energy are many and dire,” independent researcher Kinefuchi told Mongabay. “Carbon emissions occur at every step — harvesting, processing, transporting and burning.

“All these steps produce toxic pollutants that affect the health of surrounding communities and workers. Forests are one of the best defenses against climate change and biodiversity loss and [protect the] overall health of Earth. They know how to do their jobs if we just let them be.”

---

This article was originally published on Mongabay under the Creative Commons BY NC ND licence. Read the original article.