New biomass research leads to MSP questions

New Biomass research that claims to fill a "an important scientific gap in our understanding of the greenhouse gas implications of wood energy," has led local MSP Malcolm Chisholm to write a letter to the Scottish Government. In the letter he hopes the "Scottish Government will reconsider its enthusiasm for electricity from biomass in the light of this research as well as in response to all the other objections that have been made by local people and myself."

What does this new research say?

Currently, all biomass power generation is regarded as 'carbon neutral' as it is assumed that a new tree will be planted to replace the one that was cut down and burnt. It is taken for granted that as the newly planted tree grows, it will re-absorb the CO2 released by the tree used as fuel, and thus over time the climate changing CO2 balances out with no net harm to the climate.

The trouble is, this new research shows that this balancing act can take many, many decades to complete. Worst of all, burning biomass in a straight replacement of conventional coal fired electricity generation actually releases more CO2 than a coal fired plant in the first decades of it's operation - even if the fuel is sourced from sustainably managed forest. If the fuel is from less well managed forests, then the time that plant takes to pay it's 'carbon debt' increases by many more decades. It would appear then, that large scale biomass, where the heat is not used efficiently, and where no independent guarantee is given on the sustainable sourcing of the fuel, should be regarded by public policy as ' slow renewables' - and the public subsidy attached to it significantly reduced to take account of this.

Why does this matter?

The science says that we need to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million (ppm). The trouble is we're currently at about 390ppm and this number is going in the wrong direction. In fact it's going up by about 2ppm per year and this has lot's of profound implications. That's why the Scottish government passed the Climate Change Act in 2009. The act requires that Scottish carbon emissions are reduced by 80% by 2050, and that the government adopts annual emissions reduction targets. The key point is that we need to cut our emissions now - not fifty or one hundred years in the future.

Forth Energy are currently proposing to build a massive biomass plant on Leith Docks, and so far, we've not seen any plausible uses for the massive amount of heat that the plant will generate - certainly none that will be in place at the time of its construction. Forth Ports themselves acknowledge that the redevelopment of the area will take many decades. Given this, if Forth Energy get the go ahead for their huge biomass plant, it will have to dump some, or more probably, all the heat it generates into the sea - just like a large conventional coal fired power plant.

And if this is the case, then these new plants may do much less to help Scotland meet it's carbon emissions targets in the timescales that the legislation requires. Indeed, the plant could be in 'carbon debt' for at least the first 20 - 50 years of it's operation. In fact, in the worst case scenario they may even hinder our progress up to 2050. Given this, we believe that the Scottish Government must seriously consider this research before giving the green light to these proposals - afterall once built, they will attract a £40million annual public subsidy for 'renewable energy generation.'

You can read the full text of Malcolm Chisholms letter to John Swinney, the Cabinet Secretary for Enterprise and Sustainable Economic Growth by clicking here.

You can read the Manomet Biomass research by clicking here.

Is there another way?

Yes, there is - and we've blogged about it before. Indeed, Forth Ports have a back up plan in case the giant biomass plant proposal is rejected by the Scottish Government. There is a planning application set to be considered next week by the City of Edinburgh Council from Forth Ports for the first two 'urban villages' and in it there are two much smaller energy centres, each running off different fuel supplies. Building a diversified, decentralised renewable energy system in Leith docks would be much less wasteful, and much better for the climate - as the power system would 'scale-up' alongside other developments, with much less excess capacity, wasted heat and because of the diversity of fuel supplies - a  lower carbon 'debt' to pay off.

The council are minded to grant planning permission for this proposal, and Greener Leith, along with Leith Links Community Council and Leith Central Community Council has been invited to make a joint representation at the hearing.

We plan to support this diversified, decentralised approach to powering the regeneration of the docks in the planning hearing (although we still have things to say about other aspects of the plan!). You can read a draft of our joint statement and comment on it, over in the Greener Leith Social.

Update on June 20, 2010 by Ally

Judging by this article in the Sunday Herald, it looks as though more and more members of the Scottish Government share our 'small is beautiful' conclusion:

Tide Turns against docks plan to branch out into wood power.

"Controversial £1.7 billion proposals by Forth Ports and Scottish & Southern Energy to build four ­woodchip-burning power plants may be in danger of being rejected after several Scottish Government ministers appeared to speak out against them.

Joint venture Forth Energy’s plans to build the 120MW biomass electricity plants in Edinburgh, Grangemouth, Dundee and Rosyth, to be formally proposed to the government for consent in the coming weeks, have been undermined by statements to wood suppliers by environment secretary Richard Lochhead and environment minister Roseanna Cunningham.

Lochhead told a conference organised by the Confederation of Forest Industries (ConFor) several weeks ago: “The Scottish Government is keen to see Scottish-produced biomass utilised mainly for heat-only or for combined heat and power plants ... In terms of scale, we want to encourage new biomass plants that are relatively small in scale, in order to both optimise local supply and to serve localised heat markets.”

Click here to read the whole article.