Inside this issue

When we launched this magazine in the shadow of the Great Recession, plenty of people thought we were chasing a fad; “renewable energy” was more so a buzzword than business plan. We didn’t have a crystal ball, but we did have something just as valuable: Faith in the resilience of the forest products sector and nearly a century’s worth of experience covering the industry to draw from. We didn’t know what the future would look like, but we knew enough to recognize that the story wasn’t over. We knew it was going to be worth watching. And, more than a decade later, we can say without hesitation that we were right. But the real kicker is—we still don’t know what is coming for the future.

Over the years, our pages have chronicled a rapidly changing industry. Industrial wood pellets, in particular, have loomed large. Few names have appeared more often than Drax, the UK-based giant whose scale has made it both a trailblazer and a target. The company’s most recent appearance in the headlines came on September 10, when it announced a settlement with the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) related to violations at its Gloster plant.

As part of the settlement, Drax has agreed to pay MDEQ a civil penalty of $225,000, with $150,000 of that paid directly to MDEQ. The remaining $75,000 will go towards a supplemental environmental project (SEP) to build a new dust suppression screen at the Gloster plant. Drax is voluntarily investing more than the SEP requirement with the total enhancement project estimated to cost $150,000. The SEP will be completed in connection with the settlement of an enforcement action taken by the MDEQ.

For anyone familiar with manufacturing, it’s no surprise that compliance issues can pop up. They’re not insignificant, but they’re also not unusual. To the casual observer, however—especially those who only skim headlines about “dirty energy” or “greenwashing”—stories like this become another black mark, a quick judgment that overlooks the more important, broader picture.

And that broader picture is the one worth paying attention to. Despite the ups and downs of export-driven mega mills, the world of woody biomass is not defined solely by its largest players and instead is defined by its consistent players.