Birds fly past a pile of wood used to make pellets during a tour of a Drax facility in Gloster, Miss., Monday, May 20, 2024. Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South to feed the European Union's push this past decade for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels like coal. GLOSTER, Miss. — This southern Mississippi town’s expansive wood pellet plant was so close to Shelia Mae Dobbins’ home that she sometimes heard company loudspeakers.
Wood pellet production skyrocketed across the U.S. South to feed the European Union’s push this past decade for renewable energy to replace fossil fuels such as coal. It is an increasingly popular form of biomass — renewable organic material that stores solar energy. But many residents near plants — often African Americans in poor, rural swaths — find the process left their air dustier and people sicker.
The market brought hope for revitalization to small, disadvantaged communities. But interviews with residents of towns with large Black populations, from Gaston, North Carolina, to Uniontown, Alabama, surfaced complaints of truck traffic, air pollution and noise from pellet plants. But critics aren’t swayed by showings of corporate goodwill they say don’t account for poor air. Krystal Martin, of the Greater Greener Gloster Project, returned to her hometown after her 75-year-old mother was diagnosed with lung and heart problems.
But Korth said the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act made tax credits available to companies that create pellets for countries in Europe and Asia. The corporation signed an agreement in February with Golden State Natural Resources to identify biomass from California’s forests. The public-private venture hopes to build two plants by year’s end and produce up to 1 million tons of wood pellets annually. Another Drax project in Washington would produce 500,000 tons a year.
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