Back in the 16th century, when England began to run out of trees, it started burning coal. And by 1700, most Brits were using coal as their main source of fuel. But then coal became scarce. To come full circle, today England is burning large amounts of wood again – much of it in the form of wood pellets from the US. Wood has somehow been designated as a renewable energy source since the Kyoto Protocol in 1992 and the repercussions have been devastating. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to journalist Justin Catanoso, a journalism professor at Wake Forest University, about the dangers of this latest transition to a fuel source which is leading to deforestation and pollution. We learn about the wood pellet industry, manufacturing giant Enviva, and the wide-ranging problems caused by burning trees.

00:02 Narrator – This is Sea Change Radio covering the shift to sustainability.

00:22 Justin Catanoso (JC) – If more countries just did that one thing, if they shifted their definition of woody biomass from renewable to not renewable and you can make that a caveat because the fact of the matter is woody biomass is in time frames that aren’t relative, that aren’t salient in this particular climate crisis.

00:47 Narrator – Back in the 16th century, when England began to run out of trees, it started burning coal. And by 1700, most Brits were using coal as their main source of fuel. But then coal became scarce. To come full circle, today England is burning large amounts of wood again – much of it in the form of wood pellets from the US. Wood has somehow been designated as a renewable energy source since the Kyoto Protocol in 1992 and the repercussions have been devastating. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to journalist Justin Catanoso, a journalism professor at Wake Forest University, about the dangers of this latest transition to a fuel source which is leading to deforestation and pollution. We learn about the wood pellet industry, manufacturing giant Enviva, and the wide-ranging problems caused by burning trees.

02:00 Alex Wise (AW) – I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Justin Catanoso. He is an environmental journalist and a professor of journalism at Wake Forest University. Justin, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

02:12 Justin Catanoso (JC) – Thanks, Alex, thanks for having me on.

02:14 Alex Wise (AW) – So you have a piece up on Mongabay entitled “The Netherlands to Stop Paying Subsidies to Untruthful Biomass Firms. This is centering around wood pellets and this is a fuel that you’ve covered extensively. Why is this move by the Netherlands important?

02:35 Justin Catanoso (JC)  – Well, let’s talk first about where the move came from. I’ve been a journalist a really long time, Alex, and we hope our reporting has impact and often you never get to see it. But I had a story post on Mongabay a month ago in which I had my own observations of the harvesting of wood for wood pellets by the world’s largest maker of wood pellets, Enviva. But the real important aspect of that story was the very first whistleblower from inside the biomass industry. This was a high-ranking employee at 2 plants at Enviva in the state of North Carolina, which is where you’re reaching me right now and he worked for Enviva for more than two years. He was in charge of all the machines that turned wood and wood chips into wood pellets. He was the maintenance leader and this is the first guy to ever go public from inside the industry, basically calling out Enviva on its environmental credentials on its claims of being environmentally friendly, climate friendly, and a sustainable renewable source of bioenergy.

03:51 AW – So let’s take a step back and explain to our listeners what these wood pellets are – kind of give us a range of the biomass that we’ve heard that that’s a very kind of gentle, generous term biomass. It sounds great, and it sounds like you’re burning your compost pile in the back,