"Everything Is Worse Since Drax Came Here": "Green" Energy For UK, Pollution & Lung Disease For LA, MS Residents

[hatrack]

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Operated by the British energy giant Drax, the mill and two newer ones in Louisiana — near Urania in the center of the state and Bastrop near the Arkansas line — churn out billions of pellets each year to meet surging overseas demand for electricity produced by burning wood, what the company markets as “sustainable biomass.” Alongside the mills, in communities of mostly poor, Black residents, the air is tainted with cancer-causing gases and tiny particles that can burrow deep into people’s lungs and trigger a long list of health troubles.

It’s not clear whether Drax’s activity has caused any particular individual’s health problems, but the mills release chemicals at levels federal regulators and scientists say can be toxic to humans. In living rooms around Gloster, on front porches, and between the crumbling facades and boarded windows along the town’s main street, it’s hard to find anyone who doesn’t believe their life was better before the mill, called Amite Bioenergy. “When I go out, I can’t hardly catch my breath,” said Helen Reed, a Gloster native. “Everything is worse since Drax came here.”

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Wood pellets have been touted by European countries as a greener, climate-friendly alternative to coal and gas. Made from sawdust and comparatively cheap trees grown in the American South, pellets now power a large share of the United Kingdom’s electrical grid. Drax has turned the U.K.’s largest coal power station, a mile-wide complex in rural Yorkshire, into what is essentially an immense wood stove fueled with Mississippi and Louisiana pine. Raking in billions of dollars in both profits and government subsidies, Drax foresees substantial growth in the coming years — especially in the U.S., where it’s planning new mills and an ambitious push into the booming carbon capture and storage business.

In Gloster, the industry promised prosperity for the town’s 850 residents when Drax’s mill opened 11 years ago. Gloster, Urania, and Bastrop had once been booming mill towns, producing pulp, paper, and lumber for a global market. When those mills closed in the 2000s, the local economies collapsed. Drax was seen as a godsend — a rejuvenator of the jobs, money, and pride that come with a mill that roars with life. But many people say they’ve received little more than noise, dust, and toxic air: The three nearly identical Drax mills in Mississippi and Louisiana have been forced to pay millions of dollars for hundreds of pollution violations over the past five years. In Urania, a central Louisiana town about two hours northwest of Gloster, the penalties are having little effect, said Glen Henderson, a longtime Urania resident who lives a mile from Drax’s LaSalle BioEnergy mill. “I was born and raised in the area, and I love it here,” he said. “But if I get a chance, I’m definitely going to move.”

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https://grist.org/health/europe-green-energy-wood-pellets-mississippi-louisiana/

[CrispyQ]

1. So we're letting Saudis drain our aquifer to grow alfalfa to feed to their livestock back home,

& we're letting the Brits trash our local environments to process our wood to heat their homes. WTF?

From the article:

Wood pellets have been touted by European countries as a greener, climate-friendly alternative to coal and gas. Made from sawdust and comparatively cheap trees grown in the American South, pellets now power a large share of the United Kingdom’s electrical grid. Drax has turned the U.K.’s largest coal power station, a mile-wide complex in rural Yorkshire, into what is essentially an immense wood stove fueled with Mississippi and Louisiana pine.