A report in the Sunday Times said that Npower’s planned Tilbury biomass power station will burn 4.6 million tonnes of wood in just 16 months and that such “green energy” projects are attracting growing opposition from environmentalists.
The article in the newspaper’s business section on August 7 said that by converting its power station from fossil fuels, Npower says it will cut CO2 emissions by 60%, which will entitle it to subsidies under the government’s Renewable Obligations Certificate programme.
However, its fuel requirement of 2.3 million tonnes of dried wood pellets – which will require 4.6 million tonnes of raw wood fibre – will exceed the total exported by America in 2010 by 800,000 tonnes.
To meet part of its needs, Npower in May opened its own pellet plant in Georgia in the US, the biggest in the world.
But a Friends of the Earth spokeperson said that “biomass stations that rely on wood imports from abroad are a threat to the world’s forests and may even increase climate changing emissions”.
The Sunday Times said that power giant Drax is also planning three biomass-only plants.
On a tour of the Npower’s Tilbury site energy minister Charles Hendry said the UK needed a “balanced energy portfolio” and described the facility as a “great example of the type of project we need as other power plants close down”.
