I am concerned that this…

I am concerned that this plan will promote even more logging of the forests. It says that it will only uses “mill by-products” aka, waste wood, to manufacture wood pellets. However, many Canadian provinces including Ontario are logging whole trees from primary forests to meet the growing demand for wood pellets.
One of the key objectives (objective 3) of this action plan includes, “streamline permitting and reduce regulatory burden for all sectors which use forest biomass,” which is concerning because that essentially means there would be fewer environmental checkpoints. Ontario has already gutted the Endangered Species Act, which is a key regulatory body.

Burning wood to generate power is also a very, very inefficient way. Efficiency numbers are very low compared to other ways of power generation. Most of the energy will go through the stack as heat.

Amidst an ever growing climate crisis, we simply can’t afford to keep chopping down forests to make a fuel that emits immense amounts of carbon dioxide. Moreover, it can take centuries for forests to regain the majority of their carbon storage after being logged. Once again, wood pellets are a false climate solution.

Everybody knows that money will drive this business and that more trees will be cut to fill the demand for wood pellets that is driven by people who are not educated about the fact that biomass from wood is not sustainable, not carbon-neutral and not a renewable source of energy. I cannot believe that in 2021 when climate change is so obvious and deforestation is one of the contributors to climate change that we still need to defend and protect our forests.