New UK email alerts:
+ Please click here to object to E.On’s plans to generate 270 MW of electricity from burning pellets from imported wood at Ironbridge, Shropshire.
+ The Government is reviewing subsidies for electricity classed as renewable. Current subsidy rules are behind the massive expansion of biomass power stations as well as large-scale plans for burning biofuels, mainly palm oil, for electricity. Please click here and ask your MP to speak out against public subsidies for destructive biomass and biofuel electricity and for renewable energy support to go to clean, sustainable real renewables, such as sustainably sited wind, solar and tidal energy.
+ If you live in Scotland then please click here to ask the Government to reject Forth Energy’s application for a 100 MW power station in Rosyth, as well as Forth Energy’s other plans in Grangemouth, Dundee and Leith.
IMPORTANT UK NEWS:
Our insatiable greedy appetite for more Biomass and Bioelectricity in the England/Wales and Scotland is driven by the Renewable Obligation Certificates or subsidies for dirty bioenergy.
The amount of subsidies available for all renewable energies, including dirty biomass and biofuels, are up for review.
Subsidies for biofuel and biomass electricity mean:
- Unprecedented levels imports of wood and, possibly palm oil for biofuels: As a result of public subsidies, companies have announced plans for power stations which would burn up to 60 million tonnes of wood a year – that’s over six times as much as the annual UK wood production. And a proposed ‘cap’ on electricity from biofuels is equivalent to five power stations like the palm oil one planned by W4B in Bristol – or five times as much palm oil as is used for biofuels in the Uk today.
- more forests and other ecosystems being destroyed, decimating biodiversity and worsening climate change.
- more land-grabbing for plantations in the global South, where most of the biofuels and much of the wood will come from – causing more hunger and human rights abuses;
- more air pollution and health risks for communities near new power stations in the UK.
This is why it is crucial to demand NO ROCS FOR BIOENERGY.
The governments should:
- encourage genuine renewables instead, like wind, solar, and tidal, which we have an abundance of on this island;
- prioritise reducing our consumption of energy.
Although public consultations have now closed, Government decisions are not expected until the spring so there is still time to raise this important issue with MPs and MSPs.
Please ask your MP to sign EDM 2428, which calls for subsidies for bioliquid and biomass electricity to be removed and redirected towards sutainable renewable energy. And please ask him/her to raise the same concerns with the Government and, if vote against biofuel and biomass electricity subsidies if the opportunity arises. For more information about subsidies (ROCs) for biofuels and biomass and about lobbying your MP, see here.
Reports from recent UK events:
> Two London biofuel protests, 22nd/23rd October 2011
> Presentations at the public meeting “The Real Cost of Biofuel and Biomass Electricity” which took place on 4th October can be downloaded here.
UK Campaign Background:
See here for a list of local campaign groups against biofuel and biomass power stations in the UK.
IF YOU ARE CONCERNED ABOUT PLANS FOR A LOCAL BIOFUEL AND BIOMASS POWER STATION IN YOUR AREA AND WOULD LIKE INFORMATION, ADVICE OR SUPPORT, PLEASE CONTACT US.
(Click here to go directly to information on biomass power stations below)
Biofuel power stations:
Experience in Germany and Italy, where large numbers of power plants are run on biofuels, have shown that those are almost always run on palm oil, the cheapest vegetable oil. Running power stations on other types of biofuels, particularly on a large scale, has not been shown to be economically viable so far. So far, very few biofuels have been burned for electricity in the UK but, due to the generous subsidies available, at least 15 biofuel power stations have been proposed. So far, one 7MW biofuel power station is operational (though at far less than its capacity). Four power stations with a combined capacity of 93.5 MW have been granted planning permission. In each of those four applications, palm oil was listed as a feedstock. The largest of those alone, a 50 MW power station in Bristol planned by W4B, would double the amount of palm oil used in biofuels in the UK. At current rates, W4B would receive around £53 million a year in subsidies for this and a smaller, 18 MW, palm oil power station in Portland. If all those four power stations were built and run on palm oil, they would use over 140,000 tonnes a year, requiring more than 28,000 hectares of oil palm plantations (and an even larger area if other types of vegetable oil were burned). Planning applications for two more power station applications with a combined capacity of 21 MW are pending and plans for another three other plants with a combined capacity of 84.5 MW have been proposed but not yet submitted. Four biofuel power station applications (58.5 MW in total) have been rejected or withdrawn. For a detailed list of UK biofuel power station plans, please click here.
- Banner Protest Against Biofuel Power Station, Bristol
The impacts of biofuel burning include:
- Worsening climate change: Virtually all current biofuels have been shown to be worse for the climate than the fossil fuels they replace. According to the UN Environment Programme, palm oil is the main cause of deforstation in Indonesia and Malaysia. A large proportion of oil palm concessions in South-east Asia are on peatlands and the drainage and associated burning of peatlands is a major contributor to climate change, making Indonesia the third biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Tropical forests are being destroyed for palm oil in a growing number of countries, including the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Cameroon, Uganda, Benin, Colombia and Mexico.
Even burning European rapeseed oil has been shown to be, directly and indirectly, worse for the climate than burning mineral oil.
- More hunger and malnutrition and more landgrabbing: According to th UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, less vegetable oil is used for food now than in the 1990s worldwide, while vegetable oil use for biofuels has grown from 11% in 2000 to 24% in 2010. Families in countries like Indonesia struggle to buy essential vegetable oil for cooking as prices rise. Biofuels cause hunger and malnutrition not only through price rises but also through land-grabbing for plantations. According to Action Aid, EU companies have requested at least 5 million hectares of land in Southern countries to grow biofuel feedstock and in Africa, an area the size of Belgium has been converted to biofuel plantations already. Growing numbers of small farmers, indigenous peoples, pastoralists and other communities are being displaced from their land, often violently.
- Biodiversity destruction: Tropical forests, peatlands, biodiverse grasslands and biodiverse small-scale agriculture are being destroyed for monocultures, including for biofuels.
- Air pollution in the UK: Biofuel burning leads to significant emissions of nitrogen dioxide and small particulates as well as emissions of PAHs and other toxins.
Biomass power stations:
In 2010/11, over 2.8 million tonnes of biomass were burned in dedicated biomass power stations and at least another 1.5 million tonnes were co-fired in coal power stations in the UK, according to a recent ENDS report. Drax is by far the biggest user of biomass for bioenergy, having burned over 1.1 million tonnes, mainly imported wood last year. At present, most of the biomass burned in dedicated power stations comes from the UK whereas most co-fired biomass is imported. However, plans for biomass power stations far dwarf the current capacity and will rely primarily on imported wood. Over 2,560 MW of new biomass power station capacity has already been approved. Applications for another 1,342 MW are pending and a further 1,421 MW are proposed but not yet in planning. Those figures do not include power plants below 18 MW. Operating just those larger power stations (including existing ones) would require around 58 million tonnes of biomass, mainly wood, a year. By comparison, annual UK wood production is less than 9 million tonnes a year. And the UK is just one of many countries, mainly across Europe and North America, with fast growing and generously subsidised plans for wood bioenergy. So far, most of the imported wood comes from the EU, Russia Canada and the US, however major plans for tree plantation expansion for bioenergy have been announced and UK companies are looking at other countries in South America, Africa and elsewhere for future wood supplies.
Faster climate change: Forest degradation, deforestation and the destruction of other ecosystems for monoculture tree plantations for bioenergy will accelerate climate change much in the same way as palm oil biofuels do at present. Furthermore, burning wood results in instant carbon emissions which are commonly 50% higher per unit of electricity than those from burning coal. Although some of that carbon will be re-absorbed by new trees, it takes some 30 years for trees to grow in temperate regions and much of the carbon may never be reabsorbed, for example if biodiverse and carbon-rich forests are replaced with monoculture tree plantations. According to scientific studies, it will take decades or even centuries for the carbon emitted from biomass burning to be reabsorbed, even in the most optimistic case that all of it will be reabsorbed.
Biodiversity losses: Excessive demand for wood is already a key underlying cause of deforestation and forest degradation in many countries. Bioenergy is already the fastest growing market for wood worldwide. Grasslands, peatlands and other biodiverse ecosystems are also being targeted for monoculture tree plantations.
Land-grabbing: Much of the new wood demand for bioenergy will, directly or indirectly, be met through the expansion of tree plantations, particualrly in tropical and subtropical countries where trees grow fastests. In countries such as Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Mozambique or Indonesia, the displacement of communities for tree plantations and the destruction of people’s lands and food sovereignty are already commonplace. See here for a briefing by the Global Forest Coalition about the impacts of wood bioenergy on forest-dependent peoples and here for a description of the impacts of tree plantations on communities in Mozambique.
GE Trees: Bioenergy is being used to promote the development of Genetically Engineered trees by companies such as Arborgen or Suzano Papel e Ceclulose, who are promoting, for example, fast-growing trees for electricity. GE trees can cross-pollinate and spread themselves over larger distanes and thus, once introduced, cannot be contained. Their impacts on forest ecosystems cannot be predicted but could be severe.
Air pollution in the UK: According to figures by the US Environmental Protection Agency, a power station burning only untreated wood (i.e. not chemically treated wood, paper sludge, sewage sludge, etc as many UK firms do or propose) emits around 79 different pollutants. Those include significant levels of small particulates and nitrogen dioxide as well as volatile organic compounds, dioxins and furans and heavy metals. Different of those pollutants are linked to respiratory and heart disease as well as cancer and birth defects. According to the former Energy Minister, a government study predicts that between 340,000 and 1,750,000 life years as a result of increased air pollution from biomass burning in the UK by 2020.
Leith residents outside Holyrood protesting Forth Energy's biomass power station plans