The world’s largest producer of biomass for energy, Enviva, has seen its stock price tumble, as operational, financial and legal problems pile up, with investors possibly also concerned about the company’s tarnished green image.
On Saturday, May 13, Nguy Thi Khanh, the Goldman Environmental Prize-winning Vietnamese clean energy advocate, posted a surprising update on her personal Facebook page. The English translation read: “Endless happiness…
State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
MEXICO CITY — A court in Mexico has eliminated a major financial resource for fighting climate change, raising doubts about how willing the country will be to invest in future…
A court in Ecuador ordered oil companies to stop the hazardous practice of burning natural gas at extraction sites because it was a major driver of cancer and other illnesses…
Revisions to the long-debated European Union Renewable Energy Directive (RED) have been approved. Those policies still support the burning of wood pellets to make energy, despite evidence of harm to forests and climate, say NGOs.
MOCOA, Colombia — “We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon but throughout humanity,” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist who…
As biomass burning to make energy surges, nations are setting standards that fail to count carbon emissions at power plant smokestacks, worsening climate change even as those same countries dub biomass “carbon neutral.”
Seemingly contrary to French President Macron’s green image, France is asking for an EU policy exemption to make biomass energy for Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana — resulting in the clearing and burning of rainforest.
MEXICO CITY — It was considered a major environmental victory, back in 2017, when El Salvador’s government announced it would be the first country in the world to issue a…
Last July, as the Ukraine war raged, the EU barred all Russian woody biomass imports; even as South Korea took in Russia’s supply. Illicit woody biomass may also still be flowing to the EU from Turkey, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
Venezuela sits on one of the largest deposits of proven crude oil and natural gas reserves in the world. For decades, it’s been the backbone, if not the lifeline, of…
In 2022, the public in Indonesia often talked about the energy transition as an effort to fight the future climate crisis. In fact, the climate crisis occurred in 2022 –…
Home to the world's third-largest expanse of tropical forest, the world's fourth-biggest population, and frequently ranked among the world's top 10 greenhouse gas emitters, Indonesia is a country where what…
A Mongabay story featuring a whistleblower who debunked the green claims of Enviva — the world’s largest wood pellet maker — has prompted the Dutch to ban subsidies to biomass firms who make false sustainability claims.
An existing regulation designating the burning of forests to make energy as being renewable has been reversed in Australia. That decision seems unlikely to alter the EU’s heavy commitment to biomass burning.
COLCHANI, Bolivia — Bolivia is taking another shot at lithium investment. After decades of stalled projects and soured relationships with international investors, the central government, under left-wing President Luis Arce,…
In 2016, Bangkok opened its first waste-to-energy incinerator in the district of Nong Khaem, turning up to 500 metric tons of solid waste into electricity every day. The 9.8 megawatt…
Policymakers could finalize revisions to the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive by year end, even as forest activists offer new evidence denouncing wood pellets as an energy source, and calling for an end to subsidies.
A biomass industry insider tells Mongabay in exclusive interviews that Enviva, the world’s largest maker of wood pellets for energy, is disingenuous in its green, eco-friendly claims to the public and stockholders.
JAKARTA — Indonesia will continue building new coal-fired power plants, despite a recent $20 billion deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries to help it transition to clean energy.…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has struck a historic deal with the G7 group of industrialized countries on a $20 billion financing package to help it speed up its transition from fossil…
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile — The Bío Bío River is the second-longest in Chile, forming in the Andes near the Argentine border and running 380 kilometers (240 miles) northwest before emptying…
SANTA BÁRBARA, Chile — For the last 30 years, more and more hydroelectric power plants have been popping up along Chile’s Bío Bío River, the second-largest in the country. Every…
MINDANAO, Philippines — In the remote mountain village of Ned, on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the arrival of heavy machinery signals that development is underway on a controversial,…
In November 2021, during the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the Thai delegation announced ambitious plans to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2065. Just…
An ongoing power crisis in Bangladesh – prompted by a gas shortage – is encouraging Bangladeshi industries to slowly transition to renewable energy sources such as solar power. Although Bangladesh…
While forest advocates had high hopes, the EU parliament voted this week not to declassify woody biomass as a renewable energy source, paving the way for more EU, U.S., and Canadian forests to be turned into wood pellets and burned.
Proponents of Swiss biomass are subject to an “Alice in Wonderland Syndrome,” expecting the public to believe in many impossible things, including that burning forest biomass is carbon neutral, sustainable and clean, critics say.
The death knell of coal has been proclaimed, but policy loopholes in Asia allow for cofired power plants, where coal and wood are combined as fuel. Both fuels produce lots of carbon emissions, but those from wood aren’t counted.
