The report by Duncan Brack, a freelance researcher who worked as a special adviser at the Department of Energy and Climate Change in the UK, suggests subsidies should end for many types of biomass because they are failing to help cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The increasing demand for renewable energy across the globe has led to a large increase in the production and burning of wood pellets. Those who support the use of wood for electricity generation and heat claim it is a relatively cheap and flexible way of supplying renewable energy.
Opponents say it can release more greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere than the fossil fuels it replaces, and threatens the maintenance of natural forests.
The Renewable Energy Association of the UK responded to this statement saying, “This misses the entire point of the use of biomass. Carbon contained in woody biomass is already part of the atmospheric cycle, whereas burning fossil fuels is adding carbon to the natural carbon cycle.”
In the UK, as well as many other countries, biomass is classified as a source of renewable energy, benefiting from financial and regulatory support on the grounds that, like other renewables, it is a carbon-neutral energy source. The report disputes the underlying assumptions used to produce this classification.
One such assumption is forest growth will balance the carbon emitted by burning wood for energy. However, the report states, the truth is much more complicated and depends on various factors including the energy-efficiency of the wood-burning plant; the supply-chain emissions from harvesting, collecting, processing and transport; and the loss of carbon-sequestering trees.
The report suggests only biomass energy with the shortest “carbon payback period”-- the time it takes for regrowth of the forest to reabsorb the emissions from biomass—should be eligible for financial and regulatory support.
Dr Nina Skorupska CBE, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, responded saying: “This report hangs on the fallacy that it takes decades for a forest to recapture carbon. That isn’t true. A well-managed forest is continually growing and it locks in carbon at an optimal rate.
The debate is likely to continue as it becomes apparent the issue of biomass use and subsidies supporting it is more complex than originally thought.
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