Biomass Isn’t the Answer

One of the first cleantech investment opportunities I represented when 2GreenEnergy was launched in 2009 was a wood pelletization plant in Georgia that had a huge take-off agreement with several utility groups in the UK and Europe.  This has just recently become an appealing proposition, because of the newly minted regulations in that part of the world requiring that coal be diluted with a certain percentage of biomass.

Today, more than 40% of the EUs “renewable energy” is generated by burning biomass (crooked trees, treetops, sawdust, etc., which is pressed into pellets and heat-dried in kilns).  Moreover, the majority of all that biomass comes from the US.  In 2010, the US exported about 500,000 metric tons of biomass to Europe; in 2018, the US Southeast exported 6.5 million metric tons.

Thus, I really was in the right place at the right time, but I lost the deal to another player in this field.

Would I take on a biomass plant today, knowing what I’ve learned since?  Probably not.  Biomass claims to be carbon neutral, since the carbon captured on plants as they grow is re-released when they are ultimately combusted.

But this seems today to be faulty accounting.  If you’re felling a tree that would have otherwise lived, you’re removing a carbon sink.  Then you use energy processing it and shipping it across the Atlantic.  The whole exercise, while it’s light-years ahead of burning coal, really isn’t the answer.