By Jamie Doward / The Observer
Britain’s new generation of biomass power stations will have to source millions of tonnes of wood from thousands of miles away if they are to operate near to their full capacity, raising questions about the claims made for the sustainability of the new technology.
Ministers believe biomass technology could provide as much as 11% of the UK’s energy by 2020, something that would help it meet its carbon commitments. The Environment Agency estimates that biomass-fired electricity generation, most of which involves burning wood pellets, can cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 90% compared with coal-fired power stations. Eight biomass power stations, including one in a unit in the giant Drax power station, are operating in the UK and a further seven are in the pipeline. None operates near capacity.
But now environmental groups are questioning where the new plants will source their wood if the technology takes off. A campaign group, Biofuelwatch, calculates in a new report that the UK could end up burning as much as 82m tonnes of biomass each year – more than eight times the UK’s annual wood production. If Drax were to operate at full capacity, it alone would get through 16m tonnes of wood a year, according to the report, which claims a Europe-wide demand for biomass is triggering a “gold rush” for wood pellets that could have implications for global land use.
The report highlights the example of Portugal, where 10% of the country is now covered by eucalyptus plantations much of which is used for biomass energy production. Two campaign groups, the Dogwood Alliance and the US Natural Resources Defence Council, have issued critical reports about the way that forests in the southern states of the US are being used for biomass production. There are also concerns that tracts of Brazil are being used to supply the wood pellets.
But the concerns have been fiercely rejected by the biomass industry. Enviva, which supplies Drax with wood pellets, said its biomass came mainly from offcuts from poor-quality trees that are left over from those grown for the construction and paper industries. It said it would be uneconomic to cut down forests purely for biomass and that the cost of shipping a tonne of wood pellets from the east coast of the US to the UK was similar to transporting the same amount some 225 miles within the UK. It said that even the most optimistic forecasts for global wood pellet demand suggested it would not exceed 40m tonnes – equivalent to 80m tonnes of wood – a year by 2020.
“Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can replace coal quickly and cost-effectively, providing the same operational benefits while dramatically improving the environmental profile of energy generation,” a company spokesman said.
Read more from The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/09/biomass-power-stations-wood-forests-report
so this is where Sherwood forest is going or destined
How is burning wood pellets made from US forest trees, shipped 4,000 miles, to power the UK National Grid a solution to climate change?
How can deforestation + shipping millions of tons of wood per year + burning wood be a solution to climate change?
Burning wood releases more CO2 than burning coal – This is a case of the solution being many times worse than the problem …
Enviva, Zilkha Biomass, Highland Pellets, UK Drax, UK National Grid and many others are participating on a sham, a false solution to the most urgent problem in history
As an unhappy Enviva Shareholder, trusting the sustainability promises made by EVA to investors on their website, the high scale, high cost, energy intensive, and high carbon false solution to the most important problem in history is unacceptable
Please see the investor comments here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3960024-enviva-partners-wood-pellets-powering-europe-shareholder-returns
I worked for 30 years in Forestry on Vancouver Island in the Coastal rainforest. When I first started in 1991 the industry was broadcast burning clearcuts in the fall. Many communities in British Columbia (BC) would be living in smoke for at least a month. Now “waste ” is piled at the roadside with excavators and then burned in the fall. They do this under the name “hazard abatement”, when the real story is that clearcuts themselves are a huge fire hazard. Fire escapes when burning piles.are fairly common now. The rainfall patterns have changed dramatically. At one point companies were paying for a giant machine to chip these piles and sell them to pulp mills for thermal energy. However, that plan was abandoned because the trucking and chipping cost was much higher than the pulp mill burning natural gas.
To make matters worse BC adopted “take or pay” legislation. For example, what this means is the company has a cutblock with 40,000 cubic meters of wood. They log it and leave 20,000 cubic meters behind because they don’t want the wood or can’t make a profit selling it. We call that “high grading”. As long as they pay the stumpage on 40,000 cubic meters it is legal to leave the waste behind. Even worse, they can burn the remaining 20,000 cubic meters as “hazard abatement”.
An old growth rainforest is covered with large downed logs that fall to the ground and slowly decompose. With bioenergy all this coarse woody debris is gone, dramatically reducing the biodiversity of the second growth forest.
“Bioenergy” is likely EROI negative when you look at the fossil fuels needed to cut, transport and process the wood. In short it is nothing more than greenwashing.