While the UK government continues to espouse the value of developing a low carbon economy, reducing our carbon footprint, improved energy efficiency, building zero carbon homes etc, etc, at the same time it is paying electricity-generating companies generous subsidies in the form of Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs) to burn wood.
Woody biomass has a role to play in the mix of renewable fuels; but is it right that wood suitable for manufacture, not least in carbon terms, is being burnt in inefficient large-scale power stations and that we as consumers are paying for it through our electricity bills? Burning wood for energy should, in general terms, be an end of life use, after recycling and reuse. Anything less squanders our forest resource.
The domestic wood-processing industry continues to take the fight to government, but it is an uphill struggle. When government officials suggest that the wood industry is promoting ‘scare stories’ it is nothing less than an insult. While they acknowledge that there may be ‘problems’ for the wood sector, they have yet to give any indication that they would be prepared to devise safeguards for the sector. To continue to refer to the problems as being ‘potential’ is similarly insulting. The problem is here and will get worse as long as governments continue to use the blunt instrument of the ROC regime to reward generators for burning wood. This disregards the hierarchy of use, which promotes maximising the carbon attributes of wood. Elsewhere in government adoption of a precautionary principle in cases of doubt is well established, so why not deploy it in this case?
Government ministers have reminded us that “we need to keep the lights on”, as if that justifies the risk of irreparable damage to the domestic wood-processing industry. It seems that biomass is seen as a quick fix for the government’s increasingly pressing problem of international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, ageing coal-fired power stations and the lack of new nuclear generating capacity. But should the domestic wood-processing industry be sacrificed as a means of plugging the gap?
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