8 ms·

This is extremely strange article from American perspective, but it probably hits British sensibilities. As I understand it, a company got a logging license in

by xyzzyz 4y ago

This is extremely strange article from American perspective, but it probably hits British sensibilities. As I understand it, a company got a logging license in BC, cut down a square mile of forest, sold most of the logs to a lumber company to be processed into lumber, and the rest of the logs that the company couldn’t use for lumber, and the logging waste, got ground up and used as biomass for energy. Sounds like… completely normal day in Pacific Northwest? I think this might be affecting British sensibilities negatively simply because the scale of forests here is completely different. British Columbia alone has size which is more than than triple the size of the entire United Kingdom, and most of it is indeed covered in forest, most probably being old growth too. Cutting down a few square miles of it is really not a big deal, unlike in Europe, where similarly old forests are comparatively extremely rare. Canadian government shares this view, which is why it sold a license to log these trees in the first place.

fy20 4y ago
That would make sense, except the investigation revealed that they are not using just the waste, the timber goes directly from the forest to the pellet manufacturer.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  That’s not what the linked article says.
  - jcheng 4y ago
    > Panorama wanted to see if logs from primary forests cut down by logging companies were being transferred to Drax's Meadowbank pellet plant. The programme filmed a truck on a 120-mile round trip: leaving the plant, collecting piles of whole logs from a forest that had been cut down by a logging company and then returning to the plant for their delivery. > Drax later admitted that it did use logs from the forest to make wood pellets. The company said they were species the timber industry did not want, and they would often be burned anyway to reduce wildfire risks.
    - xyzzyz 4y ago
      Yes, Drax alleged that the logs turned into pellets were waste. What the journalists could have done is to not follow the truck that was certain to take logs to process them into pellets, but instead follow random trucks taking logs from the site and see where they are destined to. If they did it, and then claimed that all trucks from the site went to pellet plant, that would have made this article much more heavy hit. Given that the article does not allege (despite confusing language) that every, or even majority of the logs were turned into pellets, I conclude that it is more likely that they were not.
jaclaz 4y ago
I seem to understand that the issue is about the "most of the logs" and on the company statement about their pellets being generally made not from logs (at first only by those that were "small, twisted, or rotten" and later also from "good" logs but of " species the timber industry did not want"). So possibly a good question would be which species these forests of woods are made of and in percentage how much timber is directly processed into pellets from logs.
gnfargbl 4y ago
> Cutting down a few square miles of it is really not a big deal, unlike in Europe, where similarly old forests are comparatively extremely rare. Ancient forest is so rare as to be almost non-existent in Britain. This is because we gradually cut it all down over a long period of time [1], presumably on the iterated basis that there was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles was really not a big deal. Some of it has been replaced in the last hundred years, but the replacement is of a very low quality, relatively speaking: mostly just fast growing conifers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom
- lolinder 4y ago
  > This is because we gradually cut it all down over a long period of time, presumably on the iterated basis that there was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles was really not a big deal. This feels like a critique of the parent, but if so it ignores the key point: BC's forests cover 230k square miles [0]. The entire island of Great Britain is only 80k square miles, 15% of which (12k square miles) was estimated to be forest in 1086 [1]. To put this in perspective: If British Columbia deforested itself at the rate Britain did (an average of 9 square miles of forest lost per year), it would take 25 thousand years to finish the job. Yes, BC needs to log responsibly, like everyone else. But "responsibly" for BC has a very different definition than it does for Britain, and imposing British sensibilities on Canadian logging isn't useful. [0] https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/mr113/forests.htm https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/mr113/forests.htm [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-of-englands-forests https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-of-en...
  - DoughnutHole 4y ago
    Unfortunately British Colombia isn't deforesting at a rate of 9 square miles per year, it's been deforesting at an average rate of ~1579 square miles/year for the past 21 years. [0] At that rate it'd take about 145 years to finish the job. Depite the seemingly limitless bounty of British Colombia's forests modern technology will let us wipe them out in a fraction of the time it took pre-modern Europeans to do it to their own continent. There are definitely more pressing concerns around the world with regards to deforestation than BC - at least BC are making some efforts to preserve their forests and replant, unlike many equatorial countries with arguably more precious rainforest ecosystems. But a net loss is still a net loss, and tree farms are not a one-for-one replacement for old-growth forest. As an aside: the 15% forest cover Britain of 1086 wasn't its pre-human state - it was aleady heavily deforested by humans. Prehistoric and ancient humans were very effective at deforestation, since the most popular method of early agriculture in Europe involved burning swathes of land, farming the nutritious soil left in the fire's wake, and then moving and burning more forest when the soil became useless. By the beginning of recorded history Europe had already achieved most of the deforestation it ever would. [0]: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/CAN/2/?category=summary&dashboardPrompts=eyJzaG93UHJvbXB0cyI6dHJ1ZSwicHJvbXB0c1ZpZXdlZCI6WyJ3aWRnZXRTZXR0aW5ncyJdLCJzZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJzaG93UHJvbXB0cyI6dHJ1ZSwicHJvbXB0c1ZpZXdlZCI6W10sInNldHRpbmdzIjp7Im9wZW4iOmZhbHNlLCJzdGVwSW5kZXgiOjAsInN0ZXBzS2V5IjoiIn0sIm9wZW4iOnRydWUsInN0ZXBJbmRleCI6MCwic3RlcHNLZXkiOiJ3aWRnZXRTZXR0aW5ncyJ9LCJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6ImRvd25sb2FkRGFzaGJvYXJkU3RhdHMifQ%3D%3D&location=WyJjb3VudHJ5IiwiQ0FOIiwiMiJd&map=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%3D&showMap=true https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/CAN/2/?...
kennywinker 4y ago
This “we have lots of it!” attitude is why we have very little old growth left. But the story here isn’t “company that makes power by burning wood burns wood” it’s a company that receives money from the uk gov for “sustainable practices” and says they only burn waste wood is actually burning old growth.
- briffle 4y ago
  Every Summer, the State of Oregon seems to have at least one 50,000 acre fire, which is about 78 SQ miles. last few years have been more like 400,000-600,000 acres over a few very large fires. Most of these fires are caused by lightning. Either way, its losing forests to fire, but at least the power plants the smoke is getting treated to remove particulates, filtered, etc, plus generating power.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    No. Just no. You can’t justify clearcutting logs for power generation by citing forest fires. Forest fires are happening in part because of forest management practices that support logging. Not to mention climate change causing more heat, and bringing invasive species that kill trees. This is a positive feedback loop that would have all of north america as treeless as ireland if we accept “it’s gonna burn anyway” Forest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem - when the forest is managed well a fire can burn through quickly killing VERY few trees.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  The article says that they only burned waste from logging process. This might be unclear, because the article is written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but they very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth timber for pellets. Setting aside the issue of logging an old growth forest, in any logging operation you’ll always end up with some material that’s not practically usable for various reasons. Using it as fuel sounds to me like rather effective use of resources.
  - iso1631 4y ago
soperj 4y ago
As someone who resides in the province, and near the site in question. You're wrong. There isn't much old growth left. Lots of replanted timber stands, not much old growth.
winter_blue 4y ago
> most of it is indeed covered in forest, most probably being old growth too This is incorrect. Only about 2.7% is old-growth. Source: https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-old-growth-data-misleading-public-ancient-forest-independent-report/ https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-old-growth-data-misleading-public-... In the past 250 years, people have destroyed the vast majority of old-growth forests in North America, especially in Canada (much of it exported), in the pursuit of quick money. I hope there are massive protests in British Columbia, against all of this old-growth logging nonsense, at the scale of truck protests. Protests so massive that the supposedly pro-environment NDP government of British Columbia bans this large-scale environmental destruction.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  The article you linked seems to quibble on what “old growth” means. Apparently, they only consider something to be “old-growth” if it’s both old and big. According to BC government, however, a quarter of BC is old growth. And, apparently, the government was totally fine with the logging at hand. So, again, a completely normal day in Pacific Northwest.
- telotortium 4y ago
  If there are any real protests, Trudeau will just freeze the protesters bank accounts as well as their families - no way to win.
michaelmrose 4y ago
The article made it pretty clear that the company was lying about nearly everything. >------------------------------------------- Drax told the BBC it had not cut down the forests itself and said it transferred the logging licences to other companies. But Panorama checked and the authorities in British Columbia confirmed that Drax still holds the licences. The company says it does use some logs - in general - to make wood pellets. It claims it only uses ones that are small, twisted, or rotten. Felled trees in British Columbia But documents on a Canadian forestry database show that only 11% of the logs delivered to the two Drax plants in the past year were classified as the lowest quality, which cannot be used for wood products. >------------------------------------------- So the very first issue is that its leadership ought to be fired for same. People adjacent to the burning wood might as well take up smoking as far as health effects and it should no way no how profit from any credit for "green" energy.
morans 4y ago

by xyzzyz 4y ago

fy20 4y ago

That would make sense, except the investigation revealed that they are not using just the waste, the timber goes directly from the forest to the pellet manufacturer.

xyzzyz 4y ago
That’s not what the linked article says.
- jcheng 4y ago
  > Panorama wanted to see if logs from primary forests cut down by logging companies were being transferred to Drax's Meadowbank pellet plant. The programme filmed a truck on a 120-mile round trip: leaving the plant, collecting piles of whole logs from a forest that had been cut down by a logging company and then returning to the plant for their delivery. > Drax later admitted that it did use logs from the forest to make wood pellets. The company said they were species the timber industry did not want, and they would often be burned anyway to reduce wildfire risks.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    Yes, Drax alleged that the logs turned into pellets were waste. What the journalists could have done is to not follow the truck that was certain to take logs to process them into pellets, but instead follow random trucks taking logs from the site and see where they are destined to. If they did it, and then claimed that all trucks from the site went to pellet plant, that would have made this article much more heavy hit. Given that the article does not allege (despite confusing language) that every, or even majority of the logs were turned into pellets, I conclude that it is more likely that they were not.

jaclaz 4y ago

I seem to understand that the issue is about the "most of the logs" and on the company statement about their pellets being generally made not from logs (at first only by those that were "small, twisted, or rotten" and later also from "good" logs but of " species the timber industry did not want"). So possibly a good question would be which species these forests of woods are made of and in percentage how much timber is directly processed into pellets from logs.

gnfargbl 4y ago

> Cutting down a few square miles of it is really not a big deal, unlike in Europe, where similarly old forests are comparatively extremely rare. Ancient forest is so rare as to be almost non-existent in Britain. This is because we gradually cut it all down over a long period of time [1], presumably on the iterated basis that there was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles was really not a big deal. Some of it has been replaced in the last hundred years, but the replacement is of a very low quality, relatively speaking: mostly just fast growing conifers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forestry_in_the_United_Kingdom

lolinder 4y ago
> This is because we gradually cut it all down over a long period of time, presumably on the iterated basis that there was a lot of it and that cutting down a few square miles was really not a big deal. This feels like a critique of the parent, but if so it ignores the key point: BC's forests cover 230k square miles [0]. The entire island of Great Britain is only 80k square miles, 15% of which (12k square miles) was estimated to be forest in 1086 [1]. To put this in perspective: If British Columbia deforested itself at the rate Britain did (an average of 9 square miles of forest lost per year), it would take 25 thousand years to finish the job. Yes, BC needs to log responsibly, like everyone else. But "responsibly" for BC has a very different definition than it does for Britain, and imposing British sensibilities on Canadian logging isn't useful. [0] https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/mr113/forests.htm https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/mr113/forests.htm [1] https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-of-englands-forests https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/27/history-of-en...
- DoughnutHole 4y ago
  Unfortunately British Colombia isn't deforesting at a rate of 9 square miles per year, it's been deforesting at an average rate of ~1579 square miles/year for the past 21 years. [0] At that rate it'd take about 145 years to finish the job. Depite the seemingly limitless bounty of British Colombia's forests modern technology will let us wipe them out in a fraction of the time it took pre-modern Europeans to do it to their own continent. There are definitely more pressing concerns around the world with regards to deforestation than BC - at least BC are making some efforts to preserve their forests and replant, unlike many equatorial countries with arguably more precious rainforest ecosystems. But a net loss is still a net loss, and tree farms are not a one-for-one replacement for old-growth forest. As an aside: the 15% forest cover Britain of 1086 wasn't its pre-human state - it was aleady heavily deforested by humans. Prehistoric and ancient humans were very effective at deforestation, since the most popular method of early agriculture in Europe involved burning swathes of land, farming the nutritious soil left in the fire's wake, and then moving and burning more forest when the soil became useless. By the beginning of recorded history Europe had already achieved most of the deforestation it ever would. [0]: https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/CAN/2/?category=summary&dashboardPrompts=eyJzaG93UHJvbXB0cyI6dHJ1ZSwicHJvbXB0c1ZpZXdlZCI6WyJ3aWRnZXRTZXR0aW5ncyJdLCJzZXR0aW5ncyI6eyJzaG93UHJvbXB0cyI6dHJ1ZSwicHJvbXB0c1ZpZXdlZCI6W10sInNldHRpbmdzIjp7Im9wZW4iOmZhbHNlLCJzdGVwSW5kZXgiOjAsInN0ZXBzS2V5IjoiIn0sIm9wZW4iOnRydWUsInN0ZXBJbmRleCI6MCwic3RlcHNLZXkiOiJ3aWRnZXRTZXR0aW5ncyJ9LCJvcGVuIjp0cnVlLCJzdGVwc0tleSI6ImRvd25sb2FkRGFzaGJvYXJkU3RhdHMifQ%3D%3D&location=WyJjb3VudHJ5IiwiQ0FOIiwiMiJd&map=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%3D&showMap=true https://www.globalforestwatch.org/dashboards/country/CAN/2/?...

kennywinker 4y ago

This “we have lots of it!” attitude is why we have very little old growth left. But the story here isn’t “company that makes power by burning wood burns wood” it’s a company that receives money from the uk gov for “sustainable practices” and says they only burn waste wood is actually burning old growth.

briffle 4y ago
Every Summer, the State of Oregon seems to have at least one 50,000 acre fire, which is about 78 SQ miles. last few years have been more like 400,000-600,000 acres over a few very large fires. Most of these fires are caused by lightning. Either way, its losing forests to fire, but at least the power plants the smoke is getting treated to remove particulates, filtered, etc, plus generating power.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  No. Just no. You can’t justify clearcutting logs for power generation by citing forest fires. Forest fires are happening in part because of forest management practices that support logging. Not to mention climate change causing more heat, and bringing invasive species that kill trees. This is a positive feedback loop that would have all of north america as treeless as ireland if we accept “it’s gonna burn anyway” Forest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem - when the forest is managed well a fire can burn through quickly killing VERY few trees.
xyzzyz 4y ago
The article says that they only burned waste from logging process. This might be unclear, because the article is written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but they very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth timber for pellets. Setting aside the issue of logging an old growth forest, in any logging operation you’ll always end up with some material that’s not practically usable for various reasons. Using it as fuel sounds to me like rather effective use of resources.
- iso1631 4y ago

soperj 4y ago

As someone who resides in the province, and near the site in question. You're wrong. There isn't much old growth left. Lots of replanted timber stands, not much old growth.

winter_blue 4y ago

> most of it is indeed covered in forest, most probably being old growth too This is incorrect. Only about 2.7% is old-growth. Source: https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-old-growth-data-misleading-public-ancient-forest-independent-report/ https://thenarwhal.ca/b-c-old-growth-data-misleading-public-... In the past 250 years, people have destroyed the vast majority of old-growth forests in North America, especially in Canada (much of it exported), in the pursuit of quick money. I hope there are massive protests in British Columbia, against all of this old-growth logging nonsense, at the scale of truck protests. Protests so massive that the supposedly pro-environment NDP government of British Columbia bans this large-scale environmental destruction.

xyzzyz 4y ago
The article you linked seems to quibble on what “old growth” means. Apparently, they only consider something to be “old-growth” if it’s both old and big. According to BC government, however, a quarter of BC is old growth. And, apparently, the government was totally fine with the logging at hand. So, again, a completely normal day in Pacific Northwest.
telotortium 4y ago
If there are any real protests, Trudeau will just freeze the protesters bank accounts as well as their families - no way to win.

michaelmrose 4y ago

The article made it pretty clear that the company was lying about nearly everything. >------------------------------------------- Drax told the BBC it had not cut down the forests itself and said it transferred the logging licences to other companies. But Panorama checked and the authorities in British Columbia confirmed that Drax still holds the licences. The company says it does use some logs - in general - to make wood pellets. It claims it only uses ones that are small, twisted, or rotten. Felled trees in British Columbia But documents on a Canadian forestry database show that only 11% of the logs delivered to the two Drax plants in the past year were classified as the lowest quality, which cannot be used for wood products. >------------------------------------------- So the very first issue is that its leadership ought to be fired for same. People adjacent to the burning wood might as well take up smoking as far as health effects and it should no way no how profit from any credit for "green" energy.

morans 4y ago