Stop expanding the wood…

Stop expanding the wood pellet industry – it’s a false climate solution that is dirtier than coal at the smokestack! It's so hard to believe that this is even being considered while we face a climate crisis. It's not hard to see the faults of the forest biomass industry:

1. Like coal and oil, biomass is a carbon-burning form of energy production that emits carbon dioxide and contributes to the climate crisis. In fact, biomass power plants are California’s dirtiest electricity
source—releasing more carbon at the smokestack than coal. Adding to these harms, cutting trees for
biomass energy reduces the forest’s ability to sequester and store carbon. All in all, biomass power is a
double whammy for the climate: it emits more carbon at the smokestack and leaves less carbon stored
in the forest.

2. Biomass power plants rely heavily on regulatory incentives and subsidies paid for by taxpayers and ratepayers. In a time when we're bouncing back from a pandemic that has hit low-income families the hardest, are you seriously going to use taxpayer's dollars to create subsidies for these biomass power plants?

3. Forest Biomass Energy ineffective for protecting communities and forests during wildfires. Have you been paying attention to the rest of the world battling wildfires every dry season? Australia, California, and even in Parry Sound a few summers ago? Why make matters worse?

4. Biomass power plants are also a significant source of air pollutants, harming the vulnerable communities where biomass facilities are located and worsening environmental injustice. When thousands of people are hitting the streets protesting racism, why are you planning to make matters worse? Where are these plants going? I'll bet you're planning to place these in racialized communities because you wouldn't dare to put one in the Muskoka Lakes or anywhere near Toronto's top earners.

On close inspection, it’s clear that biomass energy is not the solution – and would in fact impede
Ontario’s ability to build a truly clean energy economy, all while endangering Ontarians along the
way.