Tuesday 17 December 2019

Move to biomass is playing with fire claims thinktank

The thinktank Sandbag has looked at plans in Europe to convert coal-powered power stations to biomass. Its research says that if completed these projects would need 36 million tonnes of wood pellets every year. That’s the equivalent of the world’s current wood pellet production.

It adds that this would require the cutting down of large tracts of forest, approximately 2,700 km2 or in other terms half of Germany’s Black Forest. It also notes that the power stations would produce less than 2% of the EU’s electricity. In comparison, every year Europe adds an equivalent amount of new wind and solar capacity.

Sandbag quotes a 2019 finding from the European Academies' Science Advisory Council (EASAC): Research has shown that the time needed to reabsorb the extra carbon released can be very long, so that current policies risk achieving the reverse of that intended, initially exacerbating rather than mitigating climate change.

In conclusion Sandbag calls on Governments to rethink biomass conversion and to support renewables such as wind and solar.