Demand For Wood Pellets Abroad Could Be Good Sign For Maine

President-elect Donald Trump could make good on his promise to rescue America’s dying coal industry, with a little help from wood pellets, a Maine-based global expert on pellet fuels is suggesting. Burning a mix of 10 percent wood pellets in coal-fired power plants is common now in Europe. Doing that in the United States could save tens of thousands of mining jobs, create a similar number of new jobs in the forestry and pellet-making sectors, spur billions of dollars in investment and improve air quality, according to William Strauss, president of FutureMetrics in Bethel. Overseas, the costs of co-firing wood fuel in coal plants are subsidized by governments, to meet strict European Union rules aimed at cutting air emissions linked to climate change.