Read the whole thing.
BBC-UK power station owner cuts down primary forests in Canada
One of the Drax forests is a square mile, including large areas that have been identified as rare, old-growth forest.
The provincial government of British Columbia says old-growth forests are particularly important and that companies should put off logging them.
Drax’s own responsible sourcing policy says it “will avoid damage or disturbance” to primary and old-growth forest.
However, the latest satellite pictures show Drax is now cutting down the forest.
Only in government would it make sense to replace a coal-fired power plant with a wood-burning power plant and proclaim it a success. They should try burning cattle dung, that’s probably even more renewable.
Burning politicians and greenies would be much better.
There seems to be an endless supply of both.
And proclaim that burning wood is “carbon neutral”. This is the exact kind of statistical mumbo jumbo that proves the Global Warmists are certifiably INSANE!!!
Why aren’t the gang green zealots in BC all over this, protesting, destroying logging trucks, shutting down Vancouver bridges?
‘Cause, you know, like, burning old growth D. fir doesn’t release ANY CO2 or particulates!
So much better for the environment than burning natural Gas… /sarc. off.
I thought James Bond took care of Drax once and for all?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Drax
Remember, the Fossil Fuel Industry saved the forests and the trees. Then they saved the whales. Now they are saving Life on planet Earth by providing CO2 against all natural sequestration forces.
But for some reason some politicians don’t want that to happen.
For some reason, they keep forgetting the things they were trying to save in the first place.
I remember “Use plastic, save a tree” when the government and gang greens wanted us to stop using paper grocery bags.
Guy’s, this is from the BBC, about as reliable as the CBC. At least 80% of the pellets come from sawmill residue and the remainder from low value logs and debris that would otherwise be burned in slash fires. When they can get the low value material for $25 / cubic metre, do you really think they will pay $160/cubic metre for the prime logs, whether old growth or not.
It still doesn’t make any sense to move low energy density wood pellets across the planet to burn as a replacement for higher density coal at their doorstep but that is another issue.
Pellet plants have been operating in BC since 1989, primarily supporting the European market I believe. The BBC is a few decades behind. These plants have even received government support. https://www.northerndevelopment.bc.ca/explore-our-region/success-stories/pinnacle-pellets-meadowbank-plant-capitalizes-on-alternative-fibre-sources/
Thanks John, the article is a bit disingenuous..
I have a friend since childhood who lives in the interior of BC and his family has been in the logging industry for generations. He confirms what you said, all high value logs go to the mills first, especially the ones they use for making plywood “peeler logs” and the rest go to lumber.. Most mills can’t handle extra large old growth trees, they are too big to fit thru modern sawmills as they are tailored to current tree sizes, they don’t get the big logs enough anymore to warrant large diameter capacity mill heads..
In the old days, the waste was wasted, there were slash piles in the forested areas that were just burnt off, mill waste was burned in large “bee hive” sawdust burners. Now almost everything is used, the sawdust, small scrap and non desired species are made into pellets, they make chip board for construction, MDF and HDF, paper, tooth picks and chopsticks, etc etc… Almost everything taken out of the forest is used somehow.
The fact that foreign companies are the ones handling our resources is the most concerning part, it should be all handled ‘nationally’, not by the government, but by its citizens…
We missed the boat (pun intended) on the LNG exports, Germany has agreements with Mexico to supply them with it, Mexico is building 3 large export facilities, 2 on the west coast and 1 on the east coast and Germany is building an import facility at breakneck speed.. we are supposedly going into the hydrogen market, which no one is ready for and the product is hard to ship, store and work with, having low energy density and requiring much energy input to create….
In Ontariowe, slash pile burning is the norm. Millions of tons of forest debris is burnt annually. Biomass from slash is virtually non-existant.
As Zon says, yes, the article is disingenuous.
I’m still going to beat the greens over the head with it.
As my freind says: “The only reason they are using pellets is it is a more convenient form to handle, ship, store and use… Here we use biomass directly! (burns firewood)”
He heats his rural property with an outdoor wood boiler, hydronics, a wood stove in his house and an electric furnace, if necessary..
It’s the BBC this leftwing propaganda machine has had at least ten years to dig up this dirt that is how long Drax has been operating this lunatic green nonsense fully supported by the BBC and it’s acolytes,something has happened for the BBC to have aired this “hatchet” job.
Environmentalists are, by and large, more deadly to the environment than anyone else.
This is Canada, a square mile of forest is miniscule. A square mile cannot possibly contain “large areas that have been identified as rare, old-growth forest”. If you were talking about a thousand square miles (say 20 miles by 50) you would still not be talking about anything significant in relation to Canadian forests.
exactly right
Coal, oil and gas has done more to preserve habitat than anything else.. Burning your building materials or food for energy is not a good idea in the long run..
“Panorama analysed satellite images, traced logging licences and used drone filming to prove its findings. Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of precious forest.”
They make it sound like the logging companies were trying to hide or were doing something illegal. If they went to the local Ministry of Forests and asked they would have been told everything they needed to know.
“Panorama discovered Drax bought logging licences to cut down two areas of environmentally-important forest in British Columbia.”
If they bought “licences” from the BC government then it was part of BC’s long term forestry plan.
“The company told Panorama many of the trees there had died, and that logging would reduce the risk of wildfires.”
Almost all old-growth forest in BC is dead or dying. Even trees don’t live forever. And finally,
“One of the Drax forests is a square mile, including large areas that have been identified as rare, old-growth forest.”
260 hectares. There are 60 million hectares of timber to be logged in BC and roughly 3-5 trees per hectare. We are talking about less than 1000 trees out of 200 million. Much ado about nothing.
It doesn’t matter what the carbon source is, you still need to burn X amount of carbon to generate Y amount of electricity. In the end the same amount of carbon dioxide is released into the air whether coal or tree pellets.
As a side note, the trees in our “precious” boreal forests are only good for firewood and toilet paper.
Paper straws are killing the planet!
Clean burning whale oil is renewable.
I’m telling the LORAX.
BDFT wrote, “…BC and roughly 3-5 trees per hectare. We are talking about less than 1000 trees out of 200 million. Much ado about nothing.”
That’s bizarre; a hectare is about 2 1/2 acres…3-5 trees per?! I live on the West Coast, in the rain forest. There’s easily 10x that number of loggable trees on any given hectare.
Actually 100 times that number.