Burning wood for electricity may be renewable, but it may not help the climate

Here's another example of a climate-change solution that may actually be the opposite. Wood pellets made from trees cut in the forests of North Carolina and the Southeast are a growing alternative fuel for power companies in Europe that want to be more climate friendly.

Growth in wood pellet exports from the United States to Europe has been driven by European policies that treat wood pellets as zero carbon, and by government subsidies on both sides of the Atlantic. But a new report says producing and burning wood pellets actually winds up being more polluting than coal, which it's replacing.

The report "Greenhouse gas emissions from burning US-sourced woody biomass" was released Thursday by think tanks Chatham House in the U.K. and Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.