Cut Down Trees Just to Burn Them? We Can Do Better

Apr. 14, 2022

A global wood pellet firm is sending BC forests and jobs up in smoke. A coalition wants an investigation.

British Columbia is nearly four times larger than the United Kingdom. But what the U.K. lacks in size it compensates for in reach — a reach that extends deep into the old-growth forests of Canada’s westernmost province.

To appreciate that reach it helps to consider the tremendous loss of forests in the U.K., losses that date back to Shakespeare’s day when trees had become so scarce that coal became the go-to domestic fuel source.

Today, only 13 per cent of what was once forested in the U.K. is treed. And that’s a big problem for the Drax Group, which owns and operates the world’s largest wood-fired thermal electricity plant in North Yorkshire. With trees in such short supply in the U.K., Drax must get the 10 million tonnes of wood pellets it burns annually elsewhere, including in British Columbia.

Drax’s power play in BC

Last year, a massive ocean freighter bound for the U.K. set sail from Prince Rupert on B.C’.s north coast, its hold filled with 63,601 tonnes of wood pellets. The event marked the single largest shipment of wood pellets from Canada and was recorded by Pinnacle Renewable Energy, which had weeks earlier been purchased by Drax.

The purchase of Pinnacle gave Drax full or partial control of half of B.C.’s 14 pellet mills, which accounted for 62 per cent of all the wood pellets produced in the province. Late last year, Drax further increased its control by purchasing the sales contracts of Pacific Bioenergy, a pellet mill in Prince George. Immediately after the purchase, Pacific Bioenergy’s owners announced they were closing shop. Fifty-five people lost their jobs and Drax’s share of B.C.’s pellet output increased to 66 per cent.

We fear that Drax’s near monopoly position is stifling competition in B.C. and could result in further job losses, which is why we have asked the federal Competition Bureau to investigate.

Only ‘residual’ wood?

But that’s not our biggest worry. Drax and others claim consistently that pellet mills use “residual” wood, mostly wood chips generated at sawmills when round logs are turned into rectangular lumber products. But research from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, including photographs and video footage obtained in 2021, tells a different story.

Tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of cubic metres of logs from primary forests, which have never been subject to industrial logging, are piling up at Drax operations in Smithers, Houston, Burns Lake and outside Quesnel.

Could such logs be used in other ways? Yes, they could. An example is a sawmill north of Smithers where logs that otherwise would be ground into pellets are turned into large rough-cut lumber pieces. They are then shipped to Port Alberni to make higher-value boards, providing jobs for Indigenous and non-Indigenous workers in both communities. We need to make such stories the norm, not the exception to the rule.

Yet, in response to our call for the Competition Bureau of Canada to review Drax’s monopoly position, B.C.’s forests minister Katrine Conroy reiterated that pellet mills only use wood that would otherwise be burned in slash piles at logging sites. B.C.’s chief forester and one of Conroy’s most-senior staff members, Diane Nicholls, has claimed much the same, echoing Drax’s line that pellet mills use sawmill waste or junk wood to power their operations.

British Columbians deserve better. We desperately need government leadership on the forest file. Leadership begins with a thorough, publicly transparent accounting of how much forest is directly sacrificed to make wood pellets and what might be done with those trees instead.

In our view, the alternative is clear. Stop cutting down trees just to burn them. Conserve more of what remains of our primary forests and ensure that what is logged in B.C. is always processed into long-lasting solid wood products first. It’s time to stop letting our forests and forest industry jobs go up in smoke. 

Scott Doherty is executive assistant to the national president of Unifor; Gary Fiege is president of the Public and Private Workers of Canada; Ben Parfitt is resource policy analyst for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, BC office; Michelle Connolly is director of Conservation North.

[Top photo: The authors say logs from primary BC forests are made into wood pellets by the UK-based energy giant Drax, whose dominance hurts jobs and competition in the province. Photo from handout.]