“If the U.S. wants to scale up the use of wood pellets to produce energy, either the government or power customers will have to pay an extra cost, according to UGA research published in Energy Economics. Right now, “it’s just not economically feasible to use wood pellets in energy production,” says Bin Mei, associate professor of forest resource finance and economics in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources.
Wood pellets are used heavily in European power plants because of a mandate to cut fossil fuel emissions, according to Mei, but that energy production is heavily supported by government subsidies.”
UGA Research Magazine Spring 2018 (page 13):