All language subtitles for BURNED Are Trees the New Coal feature length 74 minute version

[bluegrass]

Now, when y'all get up there,
you going to have to be careful.

And look at where
you're walking and stuff.

I mean, it's cold enough,
I don't...I don't think

there's any snakes out today.

But you don't never know.

We have a lot of
snakes out here.

It's amazing how quick they
can cut something like this.

I mean, they cut this
probably less than two weeks.

Every time I come out
here, you'll hear it.

[makes buzzing sound]
And it's logging.

[heavy machinery
buzzes, whirs]

[creaks, slams to the ground]

[bluegrass]

[music becomes ominous]

[pensive music]

- We call these areas
bottomland hardwoods.

They're called that because they
occur in these low, flat bottoms

that surround the big
rivers in the coastal plain,

along the Atlantic.

These bottomland hardwoods are
really among our most valuable

forests because they are wetland
forest and so connected to the

rivers and the water system.

- The bottomland wetland
forests along the rivers and in

the swamps represent the last
remnants of what we could call

natural ecosystems
across the South.

And they also happen to be
the most critical in terms of

ecosystem services, or those
services that we humans

depend on for life
and for our safety:

Clean water, flood
control, not to mention

that these forests are
also incredibly diverse.

And we're tearing them
down at an alarming rate...

and burning them
in power stations.

When policies were created
that incentivized biomass as

"carbon-free" source of energy,
that was when we started to see

popping up all over the country
more freestanding biomass

power plants that are
burning wood for electricity.

And also these enormous pellet
plants that are making fuel that

then gets shipped to Europe.

- We started getting reports
from eastern North Carolina

in particular that vast areas
of wetland forest were being

cut to supply wood
pellets to Europe.

We become involved when we
learned that, contrary to the

representations by the
companies, that they were using

sawdust and other wood waste
that, in fact, they're cutting

whole forests, whole trees as
their primary source of biomass.

- Enviva come to this
community and said,

"We're going to bring jobs
and going to be green.

We're going behind loggers,
and we're just going to

take the trash stuff.

And that's what we're going
to make into these pellets."

And that ain't
what they've done.

I mean, it's not even close.

If you don't believe it,
go to the Enviva site

and look at all the damn logs.

And I don't mind saying they've
flat-out lied to this community.

Lied to me.

[bright bluegrass]

- One of the roles that Dogwood
Alliance has played is really

investigating the on-the-ground
practices of the industry.

And how we do that is we
identify the sites in which

the industry is harvesting
its feed stocks for pellets.

And then from there,
we go down to the ground,

and we ground truth.

[sloshing steps]

We identify that those sites are
actually sourcing the facility.

We follow the trucks directly
from the site to the facility.

[camera clicks]

We follow trucks from the
facility back to the site,

and we document
that extensively.

Then from there, we'll
document the site itself.

- Enviva's raw
materials consist of....

ADAM: When you go into
these wetlands, you'll notice

that many of the trees are, as
they say, deformed or diseased.

The trees are
naturally hollow inside.

They can take what they call
low-value wood, this unwanted

wood that needs a
home, and chop it up.

DERB: The wood-based
biomass industry in the South

didn't exist here
five years ago.

This map shows the
existing pellet mills

and those that
have been proposed.

And overlapping sourcing areas
accelerating cut and harvest

of hardwoods and swamp
forest in the region.

What's clear is that there's a
concentration in what we call

the coastal plain within
100 miles or so of the coast.

The reason for that is
this is all for export.

So the trees will be harvested,
pelletized, and then taken to

a port and
transported to Europe.

This industry's
been deceptive.

They have misrepresented
their sourcing.

But I actually put at
fault the countries

that are behind
these policies.

The European Union got
together, well, probably

10 years ago, and said,
"We're going to be

the global leaders on this.

We're going to cut our emissions
of fossil fuel carbon dioxide.

So you've got to supply 20% of
your power from carbon-neutral

or non-carbon
emitting sources."

It was a laudable thing to do
except that, I think without

thinking, they
decided that biomass

should be carbon-neutral.

That biomass energy is seen
as a carbon-neutral option,

it's a pure
political decision.

Here in Brussels, they more
or less promised that Europe

will deliver, by 2020,
20% renewables.

So then the only thing that
was very important is, OK,

let's make sure we will
be delivering on this 20%.

Biomass is pretty easy.

You just get some wood and throw
it in a coal-fired power plant,

and you do co-firing.

You don't need to
change any infrastructure.

So it is an easy one, and you
do get to your percentages.

So therefore, any idea to say,
"Hey, but don't we need to do

proper accounting," was a
bit put on the back burner.

So it's, "Yeah, we'll
come to that later on."

And that's all pure politics
in order to make sure that

no matter what, this 20%
by 2020 will be achieved.

DERB: The United Kingdom decided
its approach is going to rely

heavily on converting old
coal-fired power plants

to burn wood biomass.

And a big culprit of that is
Drax Power Station, which is

the biggest carbon emitter
in the UK, the biggest

power station in the UK,
and the biggest burner of wood

for electricity in the world.

We're in the middle of
implementing a project to

turn it from being a coal
station that burns a little bit

of biomass to a biomass station
that burns a little bit of coal.

In forestry, it's mainly
when you harvest a tree,

there are lots of twigs,
branches that aren't used.

And also when you plant
a forest, you overplant,

and then you thin.

That is what we call biomass.

DUNCAN: Last year, it burnt
about 7 million tons of wood.

And by the time its program
of conversion to 50% biomass

is complete, it will be burning
more than 15 million tons

of wood a year.

That's 1 1/2 times the
entire UK production of

wood for all purposes.

The subsidies are a
very significant part of

their economic model.

The UK taxpayer, or bill
payer--because it comes out of

our power bills--is paying
disproportionately large amounts

for a so-called renewable
technology that is destroying

forests, biodiversity, and
making climate change worse.

- If you're interested in
reducing emissions now, then

burning something that puts more
carbon into the air than the

thing you're replacing, which
is coal, doesn't make sense.

Nothing could be
further from the truth.

When you burn wood pellets or
other kinds of woody biomass,

what you're releasing in the
atmosphere is biogenic carbon.

Biogenic carbon is part of
the natural lifecycle of wood.

It's about what
the atmosphere sees.

That's the only
thing that matters here,

is what does the
atmosphere see?

How much carbon is
the atmosphere seeing

when you burn
different kinds of fuel?

And it's just a fact that
there's more carbon coming out

of the stack when you burn
wood than when you burn coal.

[ominous music]

The physics are the physics.

There's CO2 coming
out of the stack.

There's nothing special about
that CO2 that makes it have less

climate-warming potential
than fossil fuel CO2.

What's different with bioenergy
is that there's an assumption

that sometime in the future
those emissions will be offset.

No one's making
sure that happens.

There is no bioenergy company
that I'm aware of that is

actually managing forests and
assuredly proving that the wood

that they burn today, which is
emitting CO2, is being offset

by new trees being planted,
which are equivalent in mass

to the trees that
they just cut.

If you want to be sustainable,
that means that you have to be

restoring an area 20, 30 times
as large, so that you're soaking

up as much carbon from the
atmosphere as you put into

the atmosphere when
you burn that wood.

A fourth-grader will tell you,
trees are big, and seedlings

are small. And it
really is that simple.

The industry likes to make
it sound like it's super

complicated, you know,
"Leave it to the experts.

Don't trouble your heads.
We got it under control.

We would never do
anything to harm the climate."

Well, they are, and
they will, and they do.

And they'll get
you to back them up

by telling you
that it's green and clean.

You end up being duped
by this industry.

The UK department of environment
has come out with a report that

shows that the use of wood
pellets for energy actually

decreases the greenhouse gas
footprint of energy between

74% to 90% as opposed
to the use of coal.

- Switching to biomass from coal
can reduce carbon emissions by

between 74% and 90%.

MARY: The claims that Enviva is
making are based on just not

counting any of the CO2 that's
emitted when you burn biomass.

The carbon accounting framework
that they use only counts the

emissions that are associatd
with harvesting and transport.

But they would not count they
CO2 that's emitted by burning it

at the stack.

And this was identified as the
critical climate accounting

error in the Tim Searchinger
et al. paper, which was so

important in getting this
conversation started.

- So here's where the actual
accounting error came from.

In a long story, we ended up
developing an accounting rule

for global national reporting,
that said for bioenergy purposes

we're going to count the carbon
when you cut down the tree, so

we don't have to count it again
when it goes up the smoke stack.

That rule works if and only
if you're actually counting

the carbon when you
cut down the tree.

[chain saw revs]

MARY: But the U.S. isn't really
reporting those numbers,

at least not in an official way,
and the UK is not reporting

trees that are being cut down
in the United States.

So when it comes to
those trees being burned

in UK power plants, those
emissions are treated as zero.

Because if you were counting
it both when the tree is cut

and at the power plant, then
you'd be double counting it.

TIM: So a rule that's designed
to prevent you from counting

carbon twice became a rule that
says you never count it at all.

Once that mistake
had been made,

all kinds of people
started thinking

"Well, bioenergy can help
solve our climate crisis."

The problem is that this mistake
happened to also co-exist in

a way that would allow
people to make a lot of money.

- By reliably providing
customers throughout the world

with an alternative to coal,
Enviva is part of a cleaner,

greener, low-carbon
energy future.

The only green in this industry
is the enormous amount of money

that these speculators are
making in this pellet industry

in response to a policy in
Europe that makes no sense.

- That wood as energy is carbon-
neutral or is zero-carbon,

comes from the notion
that if you burn something,

something else will
grow and absorb the same

amount of carbon dioxide.

I used to accept
that without question.

I thought, "Well,
this is great, yeah.

Sure, this is wonderful.

What a great way to
deal with this problem."

What I hadn't thought about was
the lag time, and the lag time

is hugely important.

MARY: Yes, these trees may grow
back in time, but we don't have

50, 70, 100 years to wait
for those trees to grow back,

to take that carbon
out of the atmosphere.

We need to
do it right away.

BILL: We've jumped to a
conclusion on a very simple

notion of carbon-in
carbon-out of trees.

And because it grows back,
it's carbon-neutral,

but it's not planet-neutral.

[bird calling]
Pileated Woodpecker.

This land has been in
my family since 1898.

Some of these tress
are over 140 years old.

When I was small, our outings
were squirrel hunting,

and we'd walk through these
huge forests, trees so tall

that you couldn't
see the tops.

I felt like I had
stepped off into a adventure.

And now where they've logged and
there's planted in pines, when

you walk in the woods there,
you walk in the reed thickets.

You can't see the ground
for the reeds and briars.

And every tree is
planted in a row,

and they're all the same.

Some of the land around here,
I've seen it cut three times

in my lifetime.

It started out as hardwoods
and ended up as pines.

My neighbors tried talked
me into logging mine at the

same time they logged theirs.

They said they could come
right in and knock it out

in just a little while.

I said, "Yeah, it's a shame that
they could devastate a forest

that took 150 years to develop,
and they could wipe it out

in a couple of weeks."

Well, both my neighbors come to
me after they had theirs logged

and said it wasn't
worth the money.

They wished they
had their trees back.

And you can come in here
in the early summer,

and there's millions
of fireflies back here.

And the whole ground,

they're just blinking,
millions and millions of them.

[bird call] Our woodpecker
friend is back.

I invite each and every one of
you to join the SOS, Save Our

Southern forest movement,
because it's as much about

pushing back the wood
pellet industry as it is about

projecting a better future
and scaling up protection

of our forest here
in the southern U.S.

[upbeat bluegrass]

[cheering, laughing]

ADAM: People are filling out SOS
messages, and they're going to

be sent to the President
of the European Union.

Europe is developing
what they're calling

the 2030 package.

So that's their
post-2020 climate plan,

the well-intentioned plan
that set off this industry.

This is taking that local
action on a global scale.

CROWD: Save our Southern
forest! [cheers]

[applause]

So thank you all so much
for coming out tonight.

We're really excited to
be here in Panama City.

In 2009, we were exporting
a couple hundred tons

of wood pellets
a year, the U.S. South.

A couple hundred tons
is not a lot.

In 2014, we exported over five
million, just a explosion of

an industry that's being
completely driven by subsidies.

There's no one better to protect
the forest of the panhandle

than the citizens
of the panhandle.

We're really concerned that
a lot of the private lands

in these flood plains
now have a new market.

They claim that they only
use wood that is not usable

for lumber and other uses.

They imply that wood residues
such as bark, saw dust,

tree tops, limbs make up
most of their raw material.

- What got sold to us as a
really green, bio-diverse

biomass project
was a lie, folks.

I mean, it was just a
damn bold-faced lie.

ADAM: There are constant trucks
coming in there loaded with

whole trees, mostly pine,
trees that are going

into this facility to be
processed into pellets.

- How many trucks
did you count?

- There was 10 with trees and
8 with chips the whole time.

- What was that,
in 20 minutes?

- 20 minutes 19 trucks:
It's almost a truck a minute.

- That's pretty crazy.

The pellet industry here in
North Carolina has worked with

our state department of
commerce, who care more about

the pellet industry than they do
about the local communities that

are going to be adversely
affected by these pellet mills.

- It's loud.

You can hear it more
at night than daytime.

The banging, it
sounds like somebody's

just banging in a pan.

The dust, we're breathing it.

I let them know that it was
not right for us to jump up

and leave, just because
you know, this plant.

REPORTER: In North Carolina,
a small community's

quiet lifestyle
has been disrupted.

Some have even moved out.

You have residents that are
stuck here because this is home.

They can't afford to, you know,
just pick up because something

came in their neighborhood
that's disrupting their lives.

They're being aggravated
now with the constant noise,

the constant trucks 24/7.

DANNA: That's bad enough, but
a lot of people don't realize

the extent of logging that's
occurring in the southern

United States is significantly
impacting these rural

communities' ability to
revitalize their economy.

One of the reasons why these
communities continue to be poor

is because the
landscape is so degraded.

If logging were a way to
pull these communities

out of poverty, they would be
some of the richest communities

in the world, because
we're at global ground zero

for industrial logging.

- The loss of natural
vegetation types in the region

has been profound.

96%, 97% of the longleaf
ecosystem having been lost

over the last several centuries,
and something like 3/4

of the landscape is now covered
by fields, cities, highways,

pine plantations that do not
provide the kind of

bio-diversity values
that natural or even

semi-natural forests provide.

There's an important distinction
to be made between natural and

semi-natural forests
and pine plantations.

They differ in
quite profound ways.

We do sampling of forests and
plantations where we basically

catalogue all the plant
species in an area

roughly the size of a house.

In a natural forest, we often
find 80 or 90 or 120 or even 150

different plant species
growing in that small an area.

In general, in pine plantations,
we just find a few species.

That means that the remaining
natural and semi-natural forests

that we have in the southeastern
United States are bearing an

increasing burden for
maintaining the biodiversity

for the whole region.

The southeast U.S. as a
ecoregion is the most heavily

disturbed forest
landscape in the world.

On a percentage basis, we
estimate in roughly a decade's

worth of time a third of the
tree cover is either re-growing

or cleared, and that percentage
is higher than any other

like landscape globally.

And it's really just the
turning of the landscape

into a tree farm.

- What we've seen is a huge
increase in these industrial

tree plantations,
these tree cornfields.

This has been a real scam and a
ploy that the forestry industry

has really promoted and been
happy about, because they want

to be able to grow these tree
plantations and harvest and get

more and more, and more and
more, and that's a convenient

industrial
monoculture way to do that.

And if you call it a forest,
they get all the kudos for

growing forests, but they're
not planting forests.

They're planting monocultures.

A plantation is
nothing like this.

In a plantation you
have one species of tree.

They're often managed
with herbicides, if they're

coniferous plantations, to
get rid of everything else.

Fertilizers are being used.

That means they're impacting
the soil community as well.

So what you have is a
very compromised system

that really lacks that
biotic diversity and has

less resilience than
a forest like this.

So this structure out here,
these stumps, the downed debris

of limbs and trunks of trees is
called coarse woody debris, and

there's whole hosts of fungi,
beetles, bacteria, all sorts of

things that are just
specialized to decomposing

coarse, woody debris.

So if it's present, your system
is much more biologically

diverse and much
more resilient.

If a person has a compromised
immune system, they're much more

likely to get sick, or if
they get sick, have serious

complications
from that illness.

Well, all the biota in that
coarse, woody debris is part of

the immune system of
a forest ecosystem.

It's part of that resiliency.

DANNA: The amount of wood
that is going to be required

to generate even
a small fraction

of our electricity
needs is huge.

- FuturaGene's solution:
Sustainable biomass production

through genetically
modified plantation forestry.

FuturaGene, Arborgen...

there are a number of
other companies that have been

promoting the idea that if
we can engineer trees to grow

really fast, or have certain
properties that make them easier

to harvest, or to otherwise be
more useful to our bioenergy

demands, that we can
grow more wood on less land.

That's what they keep saying:
More wood on less land.

- Using biotechnology,
we are going to cultivate

more productive and
sustainable forests.

It's good for the
environment and for you.

With trees, especially
wind-pollinated trees,

ones that can hybridize, I'd
be really worried about those

manufactured genes getting
into natural populations.

And who knows how they
morph or what that does.

We're in our infancy
understanding these systems,

and when we start doing stuff
like this, when we don't really

understand fully what the
outcomes are, we could find

that we're really messing
things up in a big way.

[birds, insects
fill the forest]

We cut timber pretty much
annually, so we're constantly

working at cutting timber.

We got more timber now than
we had when we got started.

So you don't have to have
it in rows and have it where

it's got to be a crop.

We're growing timber out here,
but we're also dealing with

being able to keep endangered
species where everybody else

is losing that.
We got Gopher tortoises.

We got wire grass.
We got the ground oak.

We got the
Red-Cockaded woodpecker.

We got all of that.

You can sell quality for a lot
bigger price than quantity.

So this is perfect.

I mean, it's your
cake and eating it too.

- Okay. And largely right here,
it's biomass is an emerging

market, and here I have in
parentheses for all of us.

Yes, I know we've been using
biomass in the industry

for quite a long time, but
not to the potential scale

that some people
have been talking about.

So when people talk about
massively increasing bioenergy,

what they're talking about is
massively increasing the amount

of trees we
harvest on the planet.

The mistake that thinking that
trees are carbon-free, which

leads you to harvest wood, could
become a truly dramatic mistake,

if you keep making
that mistake.

One study that was done by
researchers at University of

Maryland, basically showed
that to produce something on

the order of a little more than
20%, 30% of world energy by

2100, you would've cut down
all the world's forests.

If there is this incentive for
industry to go into wood pellet

production, and hardwoods
are preferred, there's

a finite resource
in the southeast.

And where are the remaining
hardwood forests in the U.S.?

You think about the 50-100 year
re-growth in the mid-Atlantic

northeast, these are the big
stands of hardwood forests.

And if this incentive and driver
is there, you could imagine

displacement outside of the
southeast into higher latitude

forests, from Maryland up to
Maine, as being a source

for "green" energy.

[atmospheric music]

- The forests of the eastern
U.S. are almost the only place

on planet earth that went from
brown to green over the course

of the last century, as they re
-grew, as people stepped back,

as we began to preserve either
because of the accidents of

economics or through
conscious public policy.

The planet tries
valiantly to sequester carbon.

It does it in the oceans,
and it does it in the forests

primarily, and these
temperate forests

are big sinks for carbon.

And it's safely locked up
for the moment in those trees.

TOM: If we truly want to
mitigate climate change,

then we've got to
make sure our forests

are storing
a lot of carbon.

Leaves are basically
like photovoltaic panels.

Instead of making electric
current, they're making

energy storage molecules.

So they're taking
in carbon dioxide.

That's going in through small
holes on the underside of

the leaf called
stomatal pores.

So a leaf like this
would just have millions

of stomata under here.

The carbon dioxide goes into
the cells in the leaf where

photosynthesis takes place,
and the roots of the tree

are taking up water.

That's another valuable
resource in this process.

The cells are removing the
oxygen from the carbon dioxide

molecule, removing the oxygen
from the water molecule.

That oxygen from the water
molecule gets released into

the air so we can breathe.

Then they link the hydrogen
atoms onto the carbon atoms,

converting it into sugars, which
is an energy storage molecule.

Those can get converted into
cellulose and lignan to make

the wood of the trees
that are around us.

In our forests, the soil
is the major carbon sink.

By the time we get to about an
80-year-old forest around here,

half of all the organic
material is down in the ground.

It looks like a lot of
biomass in the trunks,

in the leaves and
everything else.

It's dwarfed by what is actually
down in the soil below our feet,

where carbon ends up and organic
material ends up, and where you

have all these mycorrhizal
fungi, that are linking

everything together, creating
this system that's very tight in

holding its nutrients
and very, very resilient.

Mycorrhizae associate with the
roots of trees, and in that

association, they extract their
carbohydrate energy from the

tree roots, but
they're not parasites.

They actually benefit the trees
they associate with, because the

mycelium, or the fungus in the
soil, is so extensive that any

tree that associates with
mycorrhizae can increase their

nutrient water uptake
up to about tenfold.

Not only are nutrients and water
going between plant species via

the mycorrhizae, but energy
transfer is happening as well

even between
different species of plants.

And phytochemicals can convey

plant information through
the mycorrhizal network.

The mycorrhizae are critically
important in the health

of these systems.

[melancholy music]

- I ran for mayor,
and I was elected mayor

in the trough of the misery.

The mill was closed and briefly
reopened, and then they were

closed again when I got sworn in
with no prospects of reopening.

Up until about 10 years ago,
northern New England

relied heavily on
the paper industry.

And at some point, the
multinational corporations

that owned these paper mills
decided that it was a bad

investment to keep modernizing
old mills, so they starved them

out, liquidated their forest
holdings, sold them off.

PAUL: We were losing tax base.
The community's getting older.

We're not keeping
our young people.

JAMIE: More than half of
the storefronts are vacant.

So we're in the process
of trying to figure out

how do we revive our economy?

PAUL: We worked very hard to
get the Burgess Biopower plant

permitted and up and running.

[mellow jazz]

Wall Street abandoned us.
It plundered our forests.

It ran down our mills.

It refused to invest
to keep them competitive,

and then it dumped us.

And you want to bring them back
and hope that the story is going

to end better this next time?

I don't see that.

We have been going on two tracks
to re-invent our economy.

One is to chase another
Wall Street investor to build

some big factory.

The other approach that is
gaining a lot of support in our

communities here is to focus on
the sort of things that limit

our vulnerability to
global economic forces.

So let's focus on local
ownership of businesses instead

of absentee
investors and ownership.

Burgess represents the absolute
worst kind of public policy.

It represents huge subsidies
that are going to players who

don't live in our community, and
if they didn't get those credits

and subsidies it wouldn't
make economic sense

to invest in these plants.

What nobody talks about is the
hidden subsidies that the public

is giving them in the
form of externalities.

TOM: Forests provide a huge
amount of services for us,

besides just the wood
products they're growing.

They're really critical
in the water cycle

and clarifying water.

They're critical
in erosion control.

They're critical in sequestering
carbon, in producing oxygen,

in removing pollutants.

They do all sorts of services
that if we actually had to pay

for them on our own, the
cost would be astronomical.

So they have real important
roles for our well-being.

[water burbling]

- I'm looking here at the
gouge in the land here.

Where there wasn't free-running
water before this logging

operation, and now there's a
kind of a stream bed that's been

cut carrying all kinds of
silt down into the brook

at the bottom of the hill.

- When you do a heavy logging
like that, you annihilate

that mycorrhizal community.

And of course, there's
a huge flush of nutrients

right out of the forest soil.

Not just carbon coming out from
decomposition, but huge flushes

of, you know, nitrogen and
potassium and phosphorus, that

go right out into
the watershed.

And it takes a good 20 years
before that nutrient loss is

stabilized as the
forest recovers.

JAMIE: These folks in the
biomass plant are not paying for

the damage that they're
inflicting to forest ecosystems.

They're given a
free ride on that.

If they had to pay for the
cost to society, it would be

an impossible
thing to invest in.

It would be a absolute
financial disaster.

So it's only due to misguided
public policy that this

kind of plant is
even plausible.

It's an important question as to
whether our public subsidies are

actually rewarding the most
efficient use of biomass.

I think if we're going to use
wood for energy, we want to use

it in the most
efficient manner possible.

The whole reason to do it is
to displace fossil fuel use,

and we want to displace as
much fossil fuel for unit of

wood that we harvest.

And in that sense you're
much better off using the wood

to generate heat.

Many people, particularly in
rural areas, heat their homes

with wood.

But that's not what
we're talking about here.

We're talking about industrial
scale that is just devastating

becauses it's so inefficient.

The basic efficiency of burning
wood chips to make electricity

alone is 25%.

That also means that you are
discarding 75% of the energy.

Well, if you've got a project
with 100 trucks a day going in

to feed it, that means that 75
of them are being discarded.

- They are burning trees at that
plant to the tune of 113 tons

an hour, which is more biomass
than you would get if you went

out and cut down an acre
of New Hampshire's forests.

So they are burning the
equivalent of clear cutting

more than acre an hour.

To try to feed a 50-megawatt
plant or a 100-megawatt plant

the amount of fuel is just
huge, and the distance you have

to bring that wood is huge.

The fact that the whole tree
is removed, everything, even

the rotten parts, you know, the
crooked parts, anything that

can be run through a chipper,
the branches and the tops

that have nutrients, that have
organic matter. All the things

that help a forest be diverse
and to grow and be productive

are taken from it.

- Our forests are the greatest
carbon storage medium we have,

and we should have public
policies that encourage that

forest to store more carbon.

That may run afoul of the
economics of commercial forest

management, but I think the
emerging markets for forest

carbon offsets can
help in that regard.

It can provide landowners some
financial compensation for

keeping more carbon on the
stump, than might otherwise

make economic sense.

JAMIE: Biomass is the ultimate
commodification of the forest.

It's that simple.

It treats it as an inanimate
object to be degraded or used

and exploited for human
purposes with no consequences.

And so I look at a
project like this, and I say,

"This is what qualifies as
sustainable green, clean,

carbon-free energy?"

This is a disaster.

This is not sustainable; and
it is not green, and it is not

clean, and it is certainly
not carbon-neutral.

The fact is Mr. President, that
biomass energy is a sustainable,

responsible, renewable
and economically

significant energy source.

Susan Collin's quotes are lifted
directly from the website of

the American Forest and Paper
Association word for word.

Our amendment supports this
carbon-neutral energy source

as an essential part of
our nation's energy future.

If this amendment
goes through, it will have

very serious consequences.

First of all, it will mean
that in the, U.S. power plants

trying to reduce their
greenhouse gas emissions under

the clean power plan, would be
able to falsely claim that

burning wood
reduces those emissions.

But it's even more
significant than that because

if the U.S. makes this error,
then countries all around

the world will make the error.

Next slide.

What I'm trying to illustrate
here is if you think about it

on a larger scale, when you cut
down a tree, it takes that stand

of timber less time to
sequester that carbon.

And then when you think about it
on the landscape level, you know

it's almost sort of an
instantaneous sequestration,

so long as you have a positive
growth to drain ratio and

sustainable forest
management practices.

So this is a question.

I'm Mary Booth with Partnership
for Policy Integrity.

Given that EPA and the science
advisory panel explicitly

disavowed the approach that
instantaneous sequestration

happens, I'm wondering why the
panelists are advancing this

completely discredited
approach to carbon accounting.

It's not instantaneous.

The atmosphere sees the carbon,
and it affects climate.

EPA MC: Seth or Justin?

SETH: Yeah, so I'm not sure
about the EPA's policies.

I focus on economics
and the industry.

So it's really important to
consider that too, that these

are rational economic actors
who are managing the forests.

And if a tree isn't
cut for biomass or pulp

and paper or whatever, then
there's really no reason

for it to be a forest
from an economic perspective.

New Hampshire has an energy
strategy, and in that strategy

one of the reasons in
support of biomass is to try

to increase fuel independence.

EPA MC: Two final questions,
and then we're going

to move to the break.

Mary Booth, Partnership
for Policy Integrity.

Per megawatt hour, biomass at a
free-standing plant emits about

50%-60% more than
a modern coal plant,

more CO2 per megawatt hour.

So I just wonder if you
could comment a little bit

on how you are reconciling
these physical realities,

of more molecules of CO2 coming
out of the stack per megawatt

hour, with the need of the
clean power plan and the planet

to reduce emissions.
Thanks.

In response to the question, I
don't think it's fair just to

compare the emission rate
of biomass power plants

to coal-fired power plants.

You really have to look at the
lifecycle, and you do have to

take into account that there
is some carbon sequestration

that goes on in the forest.

[pensive music]

I am approximately
100 yards away from

the Warden electric plant.

The so-called green energy or
biomass that they're burning

here, is creating a toxic cloud
of ground-up railroad tie dust.

This is a creosote-treated wood
fiber that's going airborne,

becoming fugitive dust.

In the industry they call
them "fines" that blow

right down into town.

Yeah, that's the plant here
that close to our place here.

Oh, yeah, it's affect my
breath especially when

I do gardening
around here.

You know, it's like maybe my
chest is burnt like that and

then also my,
irritates my eyes also.

You can't barbeque
outdoors at my house.

I can't open the
windows on my house,

because the stuff
gets in so heavy.

I tried putting furnace filters
in my windows so I could

still open them, but the
ultrafine dust from this process

is still getting in.

I don't want to die early.
[nervous laughter]

Yeah.

In the beginning, when they
first announced they were

going to open up this plant, it
was going to be a green plant.

And they were going to be using
forest products, residues

and things like that.

They never told us
they were going to be

burning railroad ties.

I think people wanted to believe
them when they first came here.

People here don't speak out
very much, and they don't think

there is anything they can do.

They don't feel empowered.

Once a company or a plant is
opened up here, and local people

have jobs, then people don't
want to speak out because they

might have friends or
family that work there.

I've got a lot of
friends in there too.

It's a small town.

The problem is we're going to
have a rash of cancer in this

town, 10 years down the
road that's going to be epic.

You don't want to be perceived
as somebody against jobs,

even though you know in the back
of your mind or in your heart

that this is not a good idea.

So in 2008 we enacted the clean,
renewable, and efficient energy

act requiring that the state
utilities derive 10% of their

electricity from
clean energy resources.

The definition of clean
energy resources is of course,

wind and solar, but it
also includes biomass.

I know there was a lot
of enthusiasm for it:

Well, it's green and it's
sustainable and it's renewable.

And I'm not even sure what green
means anymore, because I think

anybody can give it an
interpretation that sounds good,

and they don't really mean it.

It's just a word that they
use in order to make it

more palatable, to my mind.

And sustainable? I'm not
sure about that either.

So there might be a lot
of deception involved in it.

MARY: The L'Anse Warden Plant
in Michigan is representative

of plants in the U.S that
are not just burning wood

but burning
post-industrial waste

and other kinds of
contaminated materials.

At the Warden plant,
they've been burning

kind of a witch's brew
of a lot of different fuels,

including chipped railroad ties,
chipped railroad ties that are

treated with Pentachlorophenol,
which is a banned pesticide

in the United States.

But they're importing
those ties from Canada.

They're burning clean forest
wood, and they're burning tires.

They're burning chipped tires,
which might contain 20% rubber

by content, and so that
has been treated in some

regulatory contexts
as biomass.

CATHERINE: We love living
here. We love our lifestyle.

A lot of us aren't here because
we're making a lot of money,

but we're here because
we love being here.

It's just a beautiful place, and
we don't want to see it spoiled.

[heavy engine
grinds to a halt]

- I worked in the pulp yard
from February of 2006

to August 1st of 2014.

I just started not feeling well,
and the first thing was always

as soon as I would get
to work, about an hour

I'd have a headache, and
it would last all day.

It would take probably the
weekend to feel better, and

as soon as I'd go there
Monday, it'd start all over.

Of course, they're burning
volatile hydrocarbons,

which are carcinogenic.

And again, they're not
monitoring the air quality,

so these things have been a
chronic source of irritation

and concern for me.

MARY: What's not coming out of
the stack at the Warden plant?

It's basically the periodic
table of heavy metals,

contaminants, polycyclic
aromatic hydrocarbons, which

PAHs, which is partially
burned compounds that are

highly toxic and carcinogenic.

And also from the chipping
operation there, that's a lot of

dust from the fuel
before it's burned.

CATHERINE: There is a Catholic
elementary school within

very close proximity.

There's a BHK Head Start
school for pre-school kids

right next to the facility.

There was a lot of concentration
of this black material

all over the snow.

And when we would go
outside to play, the children

with lighter-colored snow
clothes then would get

this black material
on their clothing.

A protest is growing in L'Anse
as more and more villagers are

speaking out against the L'Anse
Warden Electric Company and

alleged air and
water pollution.

- We sent the DEQ videos
of fugitive dust releases,

massive fugitive dust
releases, and they came up.

And because they didn't
see it they said,

"Well, you know we can't admit
there's a fugitive dust release

unless we see it."

When we have to determine
whether there's a violation on

rule 901 creating a nuisance, we
have to see that that dust is

actually impacting a
residence or another property.

I don't know what
more evidence you need.

- I'm not saying this
is the kind of problem

they're experiencing in Flint,
but I'm saying that somebody,

not necessarily you people, but
somebody in your agency has been

sitting around like last
year's Christmas tree

and not doing their jobs.

[applause, whistles, cheers]

So we're trying to negotiate
with the company a compliance

plan that we know is solid
that we can ensure that

the facility's in compliance.

We're going to have another
public meeting and public

hearing, once we have a draft
compliance plan in place.

- The community is wondering
how is it that it can continue

to run when they're
not in compliance,

and why is that allowed?

I mean, you and I aren't able
to burn tires as individuals.

We are not able to burn
railroad ties, and somehow

corporations are
able to do that.

How is that possible?

I mean, that's a real basic
question for most people

in our community.

- We're going to start out with
a one-hour question and answer

session, and then the official
public hearing starts at 7:00.

The plant is in my front yard.

Twice now I had come outside,
and the gas or the poison in

the air took my breath
away, and it terrified me.

I have three small children.

I ran inside, and I had to
close all of my windows.

I think it's important that
we know who owns Warden Plant.

Warden is owned by a
conglomerate called Traxys.

I'll spell it: T-R-A-X-Y-S.

Traxys provides,
"Worldwide finance and

commercial services," unquote.

Traxys Peru, Traxys Mexico,
Traxys Germany, Traxys Turkey,

Traxys Luxembourg, Traxys Spain,
Traxys Moscow, Traxys Paris,

Traxys China, Traxys
Hong Kong, Traxys Shanghai.

Would you think Traxys
cares about us here?

Do you think they
care about us?

Do you think they
care about our children?

Do you think they care
about our environment?

Do you think they care about
our air, our water, our health?

Who cares about us here?

We need your help.

Who else do we
have to turn to?

Thank you.
[applause]

The EPA ordered air monitors
and a meteorological tower

inside the plant.

We were thrilled
when we heard that.

Somewhere during the consent
negotiations, that disappeared.

That's the only hope that we had
was getting these air monitors,

having the plant pay for them
as they should, put them near

the fence so we could
have some real data.

You know, it's like
you don't believe us.

Go down to South 4th street.
There are five houses,

and one house has residents. The
other four houses are empty.

What does this tell you?
What do we have to do?

Do we have to come
up here and drop dead

while we're talking to you?

- Thirty seconds.

- You are our only hope,
but nothing is being done,

nothing is changing.

- Your time is up.

In this consent agreement,
you're permitting 20 tons

an hour of railroad
ties to be burned.

That's about 480 tons a day.

So that means the Warden Plant
downtown can burn 19 truckloads

of railroad ties every day.

Are you kidding me?!

You guys negotiated that
for us, the community?

You negotiated with the
Warden Plant with us in mind?

Let's talk about the tires.

All right, four ton an hour.

That's 8,000 pounds
of tires to be thrown

in the hopper every hour.

I did the math, simple math.

A tire weighs about 20 pounds.

Divide that up in the course
of a day, and you've permitted

the Warden Plant to burn
close to 10,000 tires a day.

Are you kidding me?

- 30 seconds.

- Yeah, well,
we'll make it quick.

This is an incinerator!
[applause]

It's terrible.

You've got to throw out that
paper altogether and start all

over, and make it
known as an incinerator.

I mean, we're not
going to stand for it.

This community, we've
decided, you can go back

to your office tomorrow,
tell your people

the people in L'Anse
are not buying this.

[applause, boisterous cheers]

[accordion waltz]

ADAM: One of the really exciting
things about this campaign is

that there is a growing
international coalition of

organizations who
are working very closely

together on this issue.

- I think it's absolutely
crucial that organizations like

Dogwood Alliance, the NRDC,
people from organizations that

see what the impacts on the
ground are, and see what are the

influences of European policies,
come over here to the European

decision makers to tell that.

I'm Danna. I'm executive
director at Dogwood Alliance.

I think it's really important
for everyone in Europe

who's looking at this issue
to understand the context

in which the biomass
market and the wood pellet

export market is happening.

So part of where we are
right now is that we don't see

the problem in Europe,
because the solution came from

imports from the U.S.

We now have a
traffic jam of boats

on the North Sea coming here.

And a little anecdote: In
2007, we made a McKinsie study

showing that the shortage
of wood would be enormous.

At the very last meeting, we
were drinking a beer, finalizing

the study and someone said,
"Let's get it from the U.S."

The entire team of
consultants said,

"No, that would be stupid."

- Since we will be discussing
now the policies in place until

2030, it becomes very important
that we have the criteria right,

that we have the
accounting right.

So the discussions
that are coming up

is really crucial
at the moment.

I think the political fight
is going to be that everyone

will acknowledge that no,
of course, burning a tree is

a stupid thing to do,
but we are not doing that.

They will all play
the game to say,

"No, we are only
using waste flows."

Well, it's going to be
very important that we are

getting this proof
on the table.

To show really, "Guys, what we
are doing here is not burning

waste flows. We are just burning
roundwood and trees here."

Today we are
delivering the voices of

over 100,000 U. S. citizens.

And the message is very simple:
Burning trees to produce

electricity is bad for
ecosystems, it's bad

for climate, and it's
bad for communities.

[Baroque music]

DANNA: That was
fun. [chuckles]

DUNCAN: We were
meeting officials at the

Department of Energy
and Climate Change.

We were talking to
bureaucrats, I felt.

And the problem is that doing
away with biomass electricity

is very, very problematic for
them, and we were sympathetic.

This government, no fault of
these guys, is doing all sorts

of absurd things like cutting
genuine low-cost, low-carbon

renewables like wind, onshore
wind and solar, and so biomass

is ending up being funded at the
expense, not of fossil fuels

but of genuine solutions.

So it felt slightly like
talking to a sponge.

BILL: To me one of the most
stunning things was, here

we have a policy that declares
something to be zero emissions,

when, in fact, it's not zero.

And so I pointed out several
reasons why that was the case.

And finally the lawyer said,
"Well, you don't understand.

If we don't count this
as zero, we cannot meet our

obligation to the
European Union."

Which, I almost fell off
my chair when I heard that.

The amount of biomass
that's being burnt for making

electricity in the UK is
exponentially increasing.

It's doubling every
year at the moment.

- There is an
alternative to Drax.

There is an alternative
to filthy energy,

to dirty, destructive energy.

We can power the UK renewably.

♪ You make subsidies
that keep you alive ♪

♪ while sun and wind and water
have to struggle and strive ♪

♪ So hit the road Drax and
don't you come back no more ♪

♪ no more, no more, no more ♪

♪ Hit the road Drax and
don't you come back no more ♪

[upbeat music]

As we stand here, corporate
biomass CEOs and profiteers

are wining and dining each
other, and patting themselves

on the back for figuring
out a way to profit off of

the destruction of
southeastern forests.

Biomass has got to go

Hey, hey, ho, ho
Biomass has got to go

Hey, hey, ho, ho...

[same chant continues, echoing
through the building]

What do we want?
Climate justice.

When do we want it?
Now.

[cheers]

[turbine blades slice the air]

If fossil fuels continue to
increase, and we say goodbye to

the two degrees and go on to
three degrees, four degrees,

five, then it really almost
doesn't matter what you do

with forests or
anything else, I think.

We're cooked.

I'm making the case that you
can use forests to keep the CO2

concentration from going up
as you phase out fossil fuels.

We can stop deforestation,
which is now accounting

for some emissions.

We could let young forests grow
back, just leave them alone,

let them store
carbon as they age.

And then we can
even establish forests

on areas that used to be
forested and that are not now.

Those three things together are
big enough to offset the carbon

that would be emitted from
fossil fuels as we phase

them out, as we went
to a renewable future.

They give you a bridge to get
from today, 10 billion tons

of carbon emitted a year,
to zero from fossil fuels.

A few decades.
Has to happen.

DUNCAN: The thing about
bioenergy is that if we give it

the green light, it
will take over the world.

Because there
simply isn't enough biomass

to remotely
replace the free gift

of fossil energy that we've
had over the last century.

And we will kill
ourselves in trying.

We will stamp on
the biosphere.

JAMIE: When I look at a huge
biomass plant, I don't just see

that this is a business that
generates energy by burning

trees; I see this as a cultural
phenomenon that affects

every aspect of our life.

And it has implications
for how we, as a species,

relate to the land itself.

This is what we're up against is
that our economic system values

forest destruction over
forest protection, and at the

end of the day that's
what we have to change.

It boils down to money.
They're making money.

Somebody's making money on that
deal, so you know, when it gets

to that bottom line, the land
is always the one that suffers.

It's always that way.

And certainly the public should
not be subsidizing actually

putting more carbon into
the atmosphere in the name of

addressing climate change; and
when those subsidies go away,

which I think they will, this
industry is going to go away

as fast as it
appeared in the U.S.

And we have to be actively
reducing carbon dioxide,

not even just
holding it constant.

The best technology
for that is trees!

It seems to me like
climate change is a kind of

final exam for our species.

We'll find out if the big brain
was in fact a good idea or not.

Maybe if it's connected
to a big enough heart

to make a difference.

And I just refuse to believe
that this interesting creature

that we are can't come to grips
with this and do something.

We've been given
ample warning by

the world's scientists.

Now the question is
whether we'll heed it or not.

[bluegrass]