From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
From Mongabay:
- On December 15, Australia turned the primary main financial system worldwide to reverse itself on its renewable classification for woody biomass burned to make vitality. Beneath the nation’s new coverage, wooden harvested from native forests and burned to provide vitality can’t be categorised as a renewable vitality supply.
- That call comes because the U.S., Canada, Japanese Europe, Vietnam and different forest nations proceed gearing as much as harvest their woodlands to make large quantities of wooden pellets, with a view to provide biomass-fired energy crops within the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.
- Within the EU, forest advocates proceed with last-ditch lobbying efforts to have woody biomass stripped of its renewable vitality designation, and finish the continuing apply of offering massive subsidies to the biomass {industry} for wooden pellets.
- Science has discovered that biomass burning releases extra carbon dioxide emissions per unit of vitality produced than coal. Australia’s resolution, and the EU’s continued dedication to biomass, creates a conundrum for policymakers: How can main economies have totally different definitions of renewable vitality in terms of biomass?
Forest advocates in Australia — the world’s 13th largest financial system — say they scored a serious environmental victory on December 15 when the ruling Labor Occasion revised a key regulation, rejecting the renewable vitality classification of wooden harvested from native forests and burned to make vitality. Beforehand, below the nation’s renewable vitality coverage, woody biomass had been categorised as a renewable vitality supply.
The affect of this regulatory change is maybe most vital for the setback it might pose to the biomass {industry} globally, hindering the multibillion-dollar wooden pellet {industry} from getting began Down Beneath at a time when pellet manufacturing is rising within the U.S. Southeast and British Columbia with a view to provide rising demand to the EU, UK and Asia.
“The modifications [in Australia] imply that native forest biomass is now not thought-about an ‘eligible renewable vitality supply’ for the needs of [the nation’s] Renewable Vitality Goal, and electrical energy it generates can’t be used to create tradable Massive-scale Era Certificates [for replacing coal],” Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister of local weather change and vitality, stated in a press release. “We’ve got listened to the group and acted to handle their considerations.”
Australia, by its resolution, is taking a really totally different course than the European Union, the place woody biomass — regardless of rising public opposition — stays outlined as a renewable vitality supply, is closely authorities sponsored consequently, and makes up 60% of the EU’s renewable vitality combine. Australia is among the many few G20 nations and not using a thriving biomass {industry}; at current it neither produces nor burns wooden pellets at any scale.
However that state of affairs was poised to vary, in response to Virginia Younger, a forest advocate with Wilderness Australia, an NGO.
“Two huge energy stations in Queensland had been on the verge of changing from coal to biomass,” Younger instructed Mongabay in an interview from Montreal, the place she was attending the United Nations COP15 biodiversity convention. “There are [coal] crops in Victoria and New South Wales that had been seeking to convert. They had been speaking with Drax [the world’s largest consumer of wood pellets for energy based in the United Kingdom] about tips on how to make it occur. All this was about to start out.”
However with out the renewable designation, biomass growth in Australia is all however lifeless within the water.
A part of the coverage change seems to be pushed by the brand new authorities of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which is intent on shortly hitting its 43% carbon emissions discount goal by 2030, assembly its Paris Settlement pledge. Younger stated that when forest advocates acknowledged the brief timetable obtainable for carrying out that dedication, they “flew into motion” to foyer intensely for the renewable vitality coverage change.
Scientists notice that it requires many a long time for woody biomass to qualify as a renewable vitality supply and actually assist a nation obtain its internet zero carbon emissions targets; that’s as a result of it takes a a long time for the carbon launched into the environment from burned timber to be reabsorbed by newly planted, slow-growing alternative timber.
“This can be a huge win for the group, who need the electrical energy sector decarbonized as shortly as doable and don’t need to see native forests logged to allow coal-fired mills to change to burning forests as an alternative of coal,” Bob Debus, chairman of Wilderness Australia, an NGO, stated in a press release.
Australia’s reluctance to embrace woody biomass has led it to take a position extra closely in zero-carbon renewable vitality.
In 2021, 29% of Australia’s complete vitality combine got here from renewables corresponding to photo voltaic, wind and hydro; simply 1% got here from burning biogas and nonwoody biomass. By comparability, the 27-country EU obtained 22% of its complete vitality combine from what it calls renewables in 2020. However when wooden pellets are faraway from that calculation, the EU’s zero-carbon renewables are nearer to 9% of complete vitality.
