Expansion of US wood pellet industry points to positive trends but the need for continued monitoring

Francisco X Aguilar,Stephen R Shifley,Dallas Burtraw,Ronald G Mcgarvey,Ashkan Mirzaee

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-75403-z

Abstract

Implementation of the European Union Renewable Energy Directive has triggered exponential growth in trading of pelletized wood fibers. Over 18 million tons of wood pellets were traded by EU member countries in 2018 of which a third were imported from the US. Concerns exist about negative impacts on US forests but systematic assessments are currently lacking. We assessed variability in fundamental attributes for timberland structure and carbon stocks within 123 procurement landscapes of wood pellet mills derived from over 38 thousand forest inventory plots in the eastern US from 2005 to 2017. We found more carbon stocks in live trees, but a fewer number of standing-dead trees, associated with the annual operation of large-scale wood pellet mills. In the US coastal southeast—where US pellet exports to the EU originate—there were fewer live and growing-stock trees and less carbon in soils with every year of milling operation than in the rest of the eastern US—which supplies the domestic market. Greater overlap of mills’ procurement areas exhibited discernible increments across selected carbon stocks. These trends likely reflect more intensive land management practices. Localized forest impacts associated with the wood pellet industry should continue to be monitored.

Highlights

Implementation of the European Union Renewable Energy Directive has triggered exponential growth in trading of pelletized wood fibers
In 2018, renewable energy accounted for 18% of total final energy consumed in the EU-28, with its generation increasing by 64% over the previous 10 years
Coefficients that tested the association between wood pellet manufacturing and descriptors linked to EU RED, US coastal southeast and large-scale manufacturing, exhibited several statistically-significant associations (Fig. 4a)

Summary

Introduction

Implementation of the European Union Renewable Energy Directive has triggered exponential growth in trading of pelletized wood fibers. Wood fibers compressed into pellets emerged as an important type of commercially traded biofuel partly due to multiple factors. These included: fiber malleability, high energy content, relative ease of combustion, and existing supply-chains that facilitate competitive transportation and procurement costs further enabled by pellet standardization and environmental certification of forests[8,9,10]. Implementation of EU RED National Action Plans triggered the establishment of new manufacturing facilities pelletizing wood fibers across the US coastal southeast[13,14]. Others posit that new energy markets could have a positive effect on forestland area by preventing deforestation and encouraging investments in multi-purpose tree plantations[13,23]

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Discussion

Conclusion