South Carolina’s forests may be ripe to harvest woody biomass, a source that’s emerged as an export to European markets to power their electrical plants, but mass cutting of small trees and undergrowth may be bad in the long term for the state’s forests and its most steady forestry jobs, industry analysts say.
South Carolina now lags behind many Southeastern states in the amount of woody biomass it harvests and exports because no ports in the state are equipped to store or load wood pellets onto ships bound for Europe, a state forestry official said.
The lack of a port and slow development of giant corporate operations that turn trees and underbrush into wood pellets used as a fuel source may actually benefit South Carolina jobs in the long run because the woody biomass plants would compete for the same trees with the state’s top forestry job sector of pulp, paper and oriented strand board, said Tim Adams with the South Carolina Forestry Commission.
Now a new study that gauged impact of the industry shows the fuel source hailed by the forestry industry as a way to bridge the gap among European nations from coal-dominant energy reliance to a renewable fuel standard also poses hazards to the biodiversity and health of Southeastern forests and wetlands.
Wildlife in the Southeast, especially coastal areas, will feel even more threat from habitat loss if the production of woody biomass continues to expand throughout the region, according to findings in the study released by the National Wildlife Federation and performed by researchers at the universities of Georgia, Florida and Virginia Tech.
From GreenvilleOnline: https://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20131208/NEWS/312080024/Report-Biomass-harvest-may-hurt-state-in-long-term