Carbon Direct forest scientist Dr. Bodhi Cabiyo discusses the carbon accounting methodology used to evaluate biopower facilities.
Assertion Supported
Cabiyo: Enviva turns whole, lumber-grade saw logs into wood pellets for export
“I have a colleague that has toured their facilities in the past and saw that they were pulling whole saw logs, which is, like, stuff you would turn into lumber, like, two-by-fours, pulling saw logs and turning it into pellets to be burned in the UK or elsewher…”
Opinion
Cabiyo: A Montana cobalt mine is far better than DRC child labor
“On the surface, you know, like, a cobalt mine in Montana seems like a pretty bad deal from that lens, but it's a whole hell of a lot better than the alternative, which is, you know, mining cobalt in open pits in the DRC with child labor.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Cabiyo: Global biomass demand in 2050 exceeds sustainable supply by 11x
“There's a huge mismatch between the supply and demand there of biomass and biomass uses and that mismatch is, based on the best estimates that, that I've seen, that mismatch is something on the order of, like, 11 to 16 X. In other words, 11 to 16 X more uses i…”
Insight
Cabiyo: True "waste wood" does not exist due to competing commercial demands
“Waste wood is not really, especially if we think about that twenty-fifty scenario, waste wood is not really a thing. There's always going to be a use for waste wood.”
Assertion Contradicted
Cabiyo: High-quality wood pellets require whole logs, not just waste residues
“You can't make good pellets out of treetops and branches and sawmill residues. You need whole logs to do that well.”
Insight
Cabiyo: Biomass CDR developers ignoring counterfactual baselines are fooling themselves
“I think that if you're working on biomass CDR, and you're not thinking about counterfactuals every day, you're probably fooling yourself, or you have a really easy case that's going to get harder in the next couple decades.”