Drax Coming for California Forests by Partnering with GSNR

The iconic evergreen forests that cover much of northern California are in grave danger. Drax, a United Kingdom–based company that is the world’s largest bioenergy producer and second-largest wood pellet manufacturer, has joined forces with Golden State Natural Resources (GSNR), a government-linked nonprofit planning to expand industrial-scale wood pellet production into California. By signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) together in February 2024, the two entities have now made it transparent that GSNR’s aims are profit-driven only: Any agreement with Drax—which has a proven track record of exacerbating climate change, harming rural communities, and devastating forest ecosystems throughout North America—undermines GSNR’s claims of protecting and enhancing the environment and quality of life in California’s rural communities. 

Drax operates 18 wood pellet plants across the United States and Canada, exporting the product to utilities worldwide, including its own in the United Kingdom, where the pellets are eventually burned for electricity or in cogenerating facilities. Burning wood pellets causes more climate pollution than coal when burned: For example, Drax’s burning of wood pellets back home in the United Kingdom emitted 11.4 Mt of CO2 in 2023. In 2022, Drax topped the list as the U.K. power sector’s single-largest CO2 emitter. 

Given the increasing damages that California is facing from climate change–driven disasters like flooding and wildfires, these emissions cannot go unnoticed. Leadership in California is keenly aware of climate change’s impacts on the state, with Governor Gavin Newsom declaring, “California is at the forefront of the devastating impacts of climate change that are wiping entire towns off the maps, destroying property, and putting communities in danger.” GSNR is promoting the pellet mills as a way of preventing wildfires, but this new relationship with the U.K.’s number one climate polluter seriously questions those aims. 

Drax’s climate pollution record is concerning enough that the S&P Dow Jones Indices delisted Drax from its Global Clean Energy Index in 2021 over concerns about Drax’s environmental performance, and the financial firm Jefferies told its clients that bioenergy is “unlikely to make a positive contribution” toward tackling the climate crisis. Again, Governor Newsom has made it clear that climate change is the cause behind harmful wildfires. Allowing for GSNR-Drax’s proposal of industrial-scale wood pellet biomass to gain a foothold only stands to worsen the conditions contributing to California’s record-breaking wildfires.

On top of the climate pollution, GSNR’s agreement with the U.K. energy giant Drax poses three primary problems for California’s rural communities:

GSNR-Drax will disrupt quality of life and sicken communities

Drax-owned wood pellet production facilities in the U.S. Southeast and Canada bring dust, 24/7 noise, and other negative impacts, including the perpetuation of decades of disproportionate environmental impacts on poor and rural communities. In April 2021, regulators fined Drax $2.5 million over serious air quality breaches at its pellet mill in Gloster, Mississippi. GSNR hopes to build its industrial-scale pellet mills in California’s Tuolumne and Lassen counties, and the air pollution from these mills will compound the existing health inequalities that those communities already face. Tuolumne County currently has a higher-than-average pollution burden, high rates of asthma and cardiovascular disease, and a high poverty rate, according to CalEnviroScreen 4.0 Indicator Maps data. The production of pellets releases vast amounts of sawdust and other harmful particulates that impact air quality and stand to sicken California’s rural communities. 

Communities with export terminals suffer too. Many residents living next to a wood pellet storage dome in Wilmington, North Carolina, say that sawdust blankets their homes, cars, and pets daily. After living with this dust for eight years, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality finally forced the pellet export terminal to install fugitive dust controls. Communities living around GSNR-Drax’s proposed export terminal in Stockton are some of the most disadvantaged in the state, considering poor air quality, low-income, and poor health indicators. Drax has left communities crying out that they are sacrifice zones, and California communities are right to be concerned that they could be next. California considers itself an environmental and climate leader. In the face of a new industry that acts with impunity, California should shut the door to GSNR-Drax’s proposed developments.

GSNR-Drax will not lessen pile burning

GSNR promises to reduce the number of slash/burn piles. Yet this promise has not panned out in other communities with established pellet mills: A 2023 investigation on Drax wood pellet mills in Canada found that pile burns continue as much as before, and air quality has not improved. Slash piles are still a fixture and health hazard, and there’s no waste diversion, as promised. Industrial-scale pellet facilities require clean, uncontaminated material to meet international utility-scale power and cogeneration specifications standards. Typical slash/burn piles are contaminated with other forms of waste and cannot meet those strict criteria. The industry’s documents and research reflect that almost 90 percent of its feedstock comes from the main stems of trees or sawdust otherwise used for products, which also debunks GSNR’s claims that it will alleviate pile burning or its impacts.

Drax is the second-biggest wood pellet producer in the world. The scale of its operations shifts economic incentives away from forest management based on the best available science toward management that is based on maximizing logging trees for its product. Considering the time and effort needed to protect communities from destructive wildfires in California, the GSNR-Drax partnership is a serious distraction.

GSNR-Drax will not provide good-paying jobs or economic development

Finally, no scientific evidence supports the idea that wood pellet production contributes to substantial economic growth in rural communities; instead, the industry stands to exploit California forests and communities. Nick Joslin, a rural county resident whom GSNR’s Lassen facility would impact, states plainly: “Siting a facility of such a size in a small town is completely irresponsible. The facility would run 24 hours daily with noise, lighting, dust, and toxic fumes. These are not the kinds of jobs that rural communities deserve. They are extremely dangerous working conditions.” To put a finer point on this, GSNR opposed the prevailing wage bill for forest projects in 2022, illustrating they aren’t serious about supporting good-paying jobs.

GSNR cannot begin construction of the mills or the export terminal until it demonstrates that its environmental impact study complies with the California Environmental Quality Act. With this MOU solidified between GSNR and Drax, we now know that Drax is waiting in the wings for its opportunity to acquire California forests. The West Coast should do everything possible to stop this powerful industry from taking hold.