Atlanta-based Georgia Power is seeking approval from the state Public Service Commission (PSC) to build three plants in South Georgia that would generate about 80 megawatts of electricity by burning wood pellets and other forms of biomass. The utility made its case to the PSC last Thursday.

Most of that power — 70 megawatts — would come through a 30-year power-purchasing agreement (PPA) with Altamaha Green Energy LLC, which operates a mill in Wayne County. Two other 10-year PPAs with International Paper Co. would yield the rest of the biomass from mills in Port Wentworth and Macon County.

 Georgia Power officials are pitching the proposal as a way to create jobs in rural parts of the state and give a forestry industry with an oversupply of trees another market for Georgia timber.

But environmental groups argue burning biomass spews harmful pollution into the atmosphere.

“Burning wood pellets releases more greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy than burning fossil fuels like gas, oil, or even coal, accelerating climate change,” the North Carolina-based organization Dogwood Alliance writes on its website. “We need to use low-carbon technologies like solar and wind to produce energy, not wood pellets or fossil fuels.”