UK Renewables Obligation: Last chance to stop subsidies for destructive biomass and biofuel electricity (2011)

Destruction of Brazilian Rainforests. New tree plantations in Brazil are expected to become a major source of UK bioenergy. Photo: National Geographic

In June, the UK Government is expected to announce its decision about future renewable electricity subsidies.

There is still time to lobby your MP, Please ask him or her to insist that renewable energy support must go to clean, sustainable real renewables, such as sustainably sited wind, solar and tidal energy, and not to destructive biomass and bioliquid electricity.

If you have more time and can visit your MP’s surgery to discuss the government’s renewables electricity policy, this could be particularly effective. Please forward any replies to biofuelwatch@ymail.com

Please note: For those living in Scotland, there is a separate Scottish consultation on the Renewables Obligation. If you would like to get involved in the campaign against destructive biomass and biofuel subsidies in Scotland, please email us.

Background

The government believes it can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by providing finance to renewable energy technologies through subsidies called Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) . As well as providing support for clean technologies like wind farms, ROCs also finance electricity from biomass and bioliquids, which have been shown to increase greenhouse gas emissions, cause deforestation, and worsen air quality locally.

The sourcing of biofuels and biomass from overseas has been widely implicated (directly and indirectly) in human rights abuses – including the forced eviction of people from their land and inhumane treatment of workers. The Renewables Obligation also subsidises the incineration of waste, which can be derived from fossil fuels, thus worsening air quality and discouraging recycling.

The Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently reviewing the level of support to be given from April 2013 to all types of electricity classed as renewable, including from biomass and bioliquids. They propose to continue to support biomass on an unlimited scale – even more than at present as far as co-firing of biomass with coal is concerned. They also propose to support the burning of up to 400,000 tonnes of bioliquids per year (on top of the large-scale use of biofuels for transport). If all this bioliquid were palm oil – a realistic prospect given that this is by far the cheapest vegetable oil – then 110,000 hectares of new oil palm plantations would be needed.

The Renewable Obligation Scheme is financed through money taken from our fuel bills, so it is OUR MONEY that is being spent. If things stay as they are, it will cost us more than £3 billion every year by 2020 to fund this dirty, false solution at the expense of people and the planet.

Forests sustain the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people in South America, South East Asia and elsewhere, yet continue to be destroyed to supply European 'Renewable Energy' Markets. Source: Friends of the Earth Scotland

Enough is enough: if the UK is to hold itself out as a world leader in providing solutions to the climate crisis and respecting human rights, it must stop spending our money on these false solutions.

Instead, it must focus on the true solutions: curbing our energy consumption by investing in home insulation schemes and in better public transport networks, and by promoting genuine and sustainable renewables such as appropriately sited wind, wave, and solar energy. Germany for example has already installed 17 GW of solar PV (250 times the UK), and is forecasted to have nearly 30 GW in 2020, whereas DECC is suggesting the UK will have up 6 GW of biomass by 2020, and only 2.6 GW of solar PV.

Please contact your MP today to ask him or her to call on Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and Charles Hendry, Energy Minister to ensure that bioliquids, biomass and waste will not be eligible for Renewable Obligation Certificates in future.

It would be very helpful if you could copy any correspondence you may get back from your MP to biofuelwatch@ymail.com

Please personalise your letter to your MP if at all possible – and if you can visit your MP to talk about your concerns, that could be particularly effective. More background information on ROCs..

Email your MP (UK residents only)

To:lookup.mp@parliament.uk

Dear [name],

I am writing to express my concern that through the Renewables Obligation Order, money from my fuel bill provides finance for generating electricity from biomass, bioliquids, and waste incineration, supporting companies involved in activities that are environmentally destructive and which damage human rights. If the anticipated expansion of bio-electricity materialises, annual subsidies of up to £3bn will be paid in 2020 to generating companies.

I understand that DECC will announce planned changes to the Renewables Obligation ‘banding’ in June, following a recent public consultation.   DECC has so far proposed to continue to finance biomass electricity on an unlimited scale, and also to provide finance for up to 400,000 tonnes of bioliquids to be burnt in each year in power stations, despite the evidence that biomass, bioliquids, and waste incineration are highly damaging for people and the planet. The questions in the consultation focussed on economic factors alone and ignore all sustainability impacts.

In particular, I have the following concerns:

–          Increased carbon dioxide emissions: unlike wind and solar, biomass and bioliquid electricity results in higher not lower carbon emissions. Emissions from burning biomass are around 50% higher than those from burning coal per unit of energy. The European Environment Agency’s Scientific Committee  has warned:  “legislation that encourages substitution of fossil fuels by bioenergy, irrespective of the biomass source, may even result in increased carbon emissions – thereby accelerating global warming.”  (tinyurl.com/c92cywz).

–          A threat to health: biomass and bioliquids produce significant levels of local air pollution affecting health in this country, as well as black carbon (soot) which accelerates polar ice melt.  Per unit of energy, biomass burning produces similar levels of air pollution as coal burning  – and possibly even higher levels of nitrogen dioxide and small particulates which are linked to respiratory and heart diseases. The Environmental Audit Committee recently found that the Government is already putting thousands of UK lives at risk by not adequately addressing air quality problems, and the European Environment Agency has just reported on air quality noting with concern the increasing use of wood burning in Europe.

–          A threat to food production: the great majority of biomass and bioliquids used to generate electricity will continue to be imported. The experience with transport biofuels is that land, water, and farming capacity (land and labour) is diverted from food production. Food shortages mean hunger, displacement and reduced life chances for people in the Global South.

–          Human rights abuses: the production of biofuels and biomass overseas is associated with human rights abuses, land grabs, rainforest deforestation, malnutrition, soil & water pollution. Yet the sustainability criteria proposed by the UK on biomass do not even recognise the need to protect human rights.

–         An inefficient source of electricity: biomass power generation is a highly inefficient process. Up to 80% of the energy available in the biomass is wasted as heat.

–        Waste incineration a false solution: The energy generated by incinerating waste is a small proportion of that which would be saved by recycling and reducing the same materials, while causing emissions of a particularly large range of dangerous toxins.  Under EU legislation, energy from fossil-fuel derived waste is not renewable, so including it into the Renewables Obligation may even contravene EU law.  For more background information and references about the above, please see www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2011/rocs_impacts .

I would ask you to urgently contact Ed Davey and Charles Hendry. Please call on them  to ensure that no Renewable Obligation  Certificates will in future be available for bioliquids, biomass and waste.  The government should re-direct funds earmarked for bio-electricity towards curbing energy consumption, and to supporting genuinely sustainable renewable energy solutions such as appropriately sited wind, tidal and solar energy.  I would be grateful if you could share concerns raised in this letter with both.

I  look forward to your response and to seeing correspondence on this matter. Many thanks in advance.

Yours sincerely,

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