Golden State Natural Resources
Wood Pellet Export Scheme:
What it means for Richmond
Richmond City Council Educational Agenda Item
Guest Presenter: Gary Graham Hughes
Americas Program Coordinator
Biofuelwatch
• An ’affiliated entity’
of Rural County
Representatives of
California
• Sister affiliated entity
is Golden State
Finance Authority
• GSFA is also lead
agency on CEQA
review
Who/what IS Golden State Natural Resources?
Which counties are represented on the
board of directors of GSNR?
•Modoc
•Inyo
•Butte
•Humboldt
•Siskiyou
What is the status of the project now?
• Scoping on California Environmental Quality
Act initiated in November 2022, public
comment period closed Dec 19, 2022.
• Awaiting the imminent release of the Draft
Environmental Impact Report.
• DEIR release will offer public comment
period.
wood pellet
manufacture
and export scheme
• Site and construct two new
wood pellet manufacturing
facilities
• One each in Tuolumne and
Lassen Counties
• Feedstock sourcing from 100
mile radius around each
facility (and more?)
• Feedstock sourcing from
Public and Private lands
• Lassen facility proposed to be
700,000 tons/year facility, one
of the biggest in the world
• Manufacture 1,000,000 tons
of wood pellets a year
wood pellet
manufacture
and export scheme
• Wood pellets shipped by
rail to ports in SF Bay
Area: Richmond, Stockton
• Conversion of Levin
Terminal in Richmond
from exporting coal to
exporting wood pellets
• Export wood pellets to
global markets to burn in
coal plants converting to
burning biomass
What are wood pellets?
Civil society and grassroots climate justice organizations around the world, in the US, the UK, Europe, Latin
America, and Asia are organizing to challenge conversion of coal plants to biomass as a climate solution.
Founded in United Kingdom and USA. International in Scope.
Biofuelwatch provides information, advocacy and campaigning in relation to the climate, environmental, human rights and public health impacts of large‐scale industrial bioenergy.
Central to the Biofuelwatch mission is promoting citizen engagement in environmental decision making in relation to bioenergy and other bio‐ based products – including bioenergy‐related decisions on land use and environmental permitting.
Biofuelwatch in the USA is under fiscal sponsorship of Global Justice Ecology Project.
www.biofuelwatch.org.uk
Threats from the proposed Golden State Natural
Resources wood pellet project
Threats to:
• Community health
and safety
• Environmental
justice
• Climate
• Forest ecosystems
Shaye Wolf, Ph.D.
Climate Science Director
Center for Biological Diversity
Oakland, CA
[email protected]
Credit: cn.ca
Harms at every stage for communities, climate and forests Credit: Dogwood Alliance
Credit: Dogwood Alliance
Credit: Dogwood AllianceCredit: Dogwood Alliance
Pellet storage at ports (fire and explosion
risk + methane release), ship to Asia/EU/UK
Logging forests Long‐distance trucking Wood pellet mills Burning pellets in converted coal‐fired
power plantsTransport by rail across state
Credit: panews.com
• Wood pellet storage facilities at ports and pellet mills pose substantial fire and explosion hazards
• Wood pellet piles prone to spontaneous combustion
• Fine wood dust released during pellet production,
transportation and handling can “pose catastrophic
fire and explosion hazards” (OSHA)
• The Environmental Integrity Project reported that at
least 8 of the 15 largest US wood pellet facilities have had fires or explosions since 2014
• Repeated fires and explosions at ports:
• injure or kill workers, first responders
• harm residents with air pollution from smoke
and dust
Harms to Port Communities and Pellet Mill Communities:
Fire and Explosion Hazards
Fires (red) and explosions (yellow) at dozens of wood pellet mills and storages silos. Source: Dogwood Alliance
Fire and explosion hazards to port communities
and workers
• Pellets stored in large silos at ports,
typically 50 ft diameter, 65 ft high, hold
several thousand tons of pellets
• Fires in storage silos and warehouses:
• Difficult to detect early
• Difficult to fight: water is ineffective
• Burn days, weeks, or months
• Emit health‐harming smoke
Credit: IndexNews
Fires at Wood Pellet Storage Silo at Port Arthur, TX
• In April 2017 wood pellets inside the German Pellets
storage silo at Port Arthur, Texas,caught fire:
• Burned for 102 days
• Sent smoke for months into predominantly Black
Port Arthur West Side neighborhood
• Many residents sent to the hospital
• Woman who was paraplegic reportedly died
from symptoms caused by the fire
• Silo collapsed in June
• Worker Jesus Cuevas was killed when pellets fell on
his Bobcat machine and smothered him
• Other recent fire incidents at this port pellet
storage facility:
• February 2017
• Closed for 18 months, rebuilt
• January 2020
• October 2022
• Repeated OSHA violations
Credit: panews.com
Credit: FleetMon
Credit: Google maps
Fire and explosions at wood pellet storage warehouse
at Port of Brunswick, GA
• In May 2021 massive explosion and fire at Logistec
wood pellet warehouse at port of Brunswick, GA:
• Firefighters tried to go inside to put out the fire
but pushed back by a second explosion
• More than 100 firefighters and police officers
responded; stayed for weeks
• Warehouse collapsed
• Sent heavy smoke into neighborhood; residents
could hear and feel the explosion blocks away
• Other fires at this port warehouse:
• In 2015, wood pellet fire destroyed two 50,000‐
square‐foot wood‐frame warehouses
• Logistec built new aluminum warehouse in 2016
• Four fires at the new warehouse in 2017, 2018
and 2019, followed by the massive fire in 2021
Credit: Google maps
Environmental Justice Harms:
Communities and Workers
• Port communities of Richmond and Stockton
have some the highest pollution burdens in CA:
• high exposure to particulate matter
• high rates of asthma, low birth weights,
and cardiovascular disease
• high poverty rates
• majority communities of color
• Richmond: Recent victory in phasing out
storage of coal and petcoke by end of 2026
• Tuolumne wood pellet production site:
• higher‐than‐average pollution burden
• high poverty rate
• high rates of asthma and cardiovascular
disease
Credit: www.celebratestockton.com
Port of Stockton
Source: Google Maps
Levin‐
Richmond
Terminal
Harms to Public Health
• Wood pellet mills and pellet burning release
health‐harming pollutants:
• particulate matter (fine dust), NOx (smog),
SOx, CO
• heavy metals (lead, mercury)
• hazardous air pollutants including
carcinogens (benzene, toluene,
formaldehyde, dioxins)
• linked to premature death and serious
illnesses: respiratory and heart disease,
cancer
• Increased truck traffic from this project:
~285 daily truck trips through small rural
communities: noise, dust, diesel pollution
• Increased rail and ship traffic
• Dust issues from pellets
Credit: Dogwood Alliance
Credit: Dogwood Alliance
Woody Biomass Energy Is Harmful to the Climate
• Woody biomass, including wood pellets, is currently categorized as a “renewable” energy source alongside solar and wind
• But like coal and oil, woody biomass is a carbon‐burning form of energy production that emits CO2 and worsens the climate crisis • More climate‐polluting than coal: Burning trees to generate energy produces more carbon emissions per unit of electricity than coal • This project would increase greenhouse gas emissions and decrease forest carbon stocks, harming the climate
Biomass Energy is Not Carbon Neutral
• Biomass industry claims that new tree growth will offset the carbon pollution released by burning wood to make electricity
• But forest regrowth takes time and is highly uncertain • Even if forests are allowed to regrow, burning wood for energy increases carbon in the atmosphere for decades to centuries
• Cutting trees for biomass energy ends their carbon storage and sequestration • This project would worsen carbon pollution at a time when global emissions must be cut in half this decade to limit the worst damages of the climate crisis Triple Hit to the Climate
•“ burning forest biomass is a
triple hit to climate mitigation.
It increases emissions,
decreases the [planet’s] forest
carbon sink, and soaks up
subsidies that could instead
be allocated to zero
emissions technologies or
efficiency.”
-Mary Booth, PFPI
Enviva’s Sampson county, North Carolina, facility. Most U.S.‐made wood pellets are shipped to Europe where they’re burned to make electricity. Photo credit: Dogwood Alliance
Cutting Forests for Biomass Energy Is Not Effective for Protecting Communities from Wildfire
• Logging/thinning forests is not effective for
reducing wildfire intensity or protecting
communities during wildfire
• Community fire‐safety retrofits work, not
cutting forests:
• What works: home hardening, air filters, fire and
smoke shelters, defensible space work immediately
around home
• Dead trees do not increase wildfire activity
• Broad‐scale thinning to alter fire activity
releases more carbon emissions than it
prevents from being released in a wildfire
Biomass logging, Stanislaus National Forest, 2019, photo by Chad Hanson Credit: Rick Kuyper, Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office Credit: Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
Credit: Ryan Hagerty, US Fish and Wildlife Service
This project would:
• Remove trees of any type and size
within a 100‐mile radius of each
pellet mill
• Harm sensitive species and
wildlife habitat
• Cover 18 national forests
• Incentivize increases in logging
Pellet facilities would be located
within 100 miles of treasured places:
Yosemite National Park, Lake Tahoe,
Mono Lake, June Lake, Mammoth,
Lassen Volcanic National Park, Mount
Shasta, and Shasta Lake
Cutting forests for biomass energy harms forest
ecosystems and wildlife habitat
Thank you!
Contacts:
Shaye Wolf, PhD
Climate Science Director
Center for Biological Diversity
Oakland, CA
[email protected]
Gary Graham Hughes
Biofuelwatch
[email protected]