Cover Story Global wood pellet markets 2024 in review and thoughts on the next decades By William Strauss, president, FutureMetrics I t has become traditional for Future -Metrics’ presentations at conferences to begin with a reminder of the urgency of the climate crisis. This article follows that tradition. This article then proceeds to review current trends in the “industrial” pellet market. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the emerging use of biogenic carbon for refining iron ore in blast fur -naces. 12 Canadian BIOMASS WINTER 2025 Photo: © Irina / Adobe Stock Since industrialization the coal, petro -leum, and methane (natural gas) that contains millions of years of sequestered carbon is being cycled out of the ground and into the air over a period of just a few hundred years. There are consequences to the un -mitigated use of fossil fuels. The energy trapping effects of increasing CO 2 concen-trations in the atmosphere means that both the atmosphere and the oceans are warm -ing rapidly. As Figure 2 shows, the oceans are get -ting warmer. But most troubling is the ECOLOGICAL DISEQUILIBRIUM FROM THE COMBUSTION OF FOSSIL FUELS IS OVERWHELMING THE EARTH’S SYS-TEMS
Canadian Biomass Winter 2025: Page 12
