Energy transition and city–port symbiosis in biomass import–export regions

Port cities have long served as essential nodes in energy transportation. European port cities look to bio-based industries and the circular economy to transform traditional port industrial infrastructure and maintain city–port symbiosis in energy transition. Wood pellets—a type of biomass—are introduced for firing and co-firing electricity and heat generation installations in the United Kingdom, European Union, and East Asia. The United States southeast is the principal wood pellet export region for world markets. US wood pellet export terminals are smaller, and they locate near feedstock pine forests. The article uses a comparative multiple qualitative case study methodology to analyze three lead firms in the biomass wood pellets industry. It focuses on their production and export terminal strategies amidst ambivalent, ever-changing energy transition policies in biomass consumer markets. The article uses global production networks (GPN) as an analytic frame that delimits the increasing complexity of global commodity chains. The comparative methodology across the supply chain helps to identify linkages through a constellation of local, regional, and international governance, and the broader significance of port networks in the geography of energy transition.