By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
From Mongabay:
- On December 15, Australia became the first major economy worldwide to reverse its renewable classification policy for wood biomass burned for energy. According to the new national policy, wood harvested from primary forests and burned for energy production cannot be classified as a renewable energy source.
- That decision comes as the United States, Canada, Eastern Europe, Vietnam, and other forested countries continue to prepare to harvest their forests to create large quantities of wood pellets, intended to supply factories. biomass-fired electricity in the UK, EU, Japan, South Korea and elsewhere.
- In the EU, forest advocates continue with final lobbying efforts to remove woody biomass from the renewable energy designation and end the practice of consistently providing large subsidies to the industry. biomass industry for wood pellets.
- Science has found that burning biomass releases more carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy produced than coal. Australia’s decision, and the EU’s continued commitment to biomass, create a conundrum for policymakers: How can major economies have different definitions of energy renewable when it comes to biomass?
Australian forest advocates — 13th in the worldorder world’s largest economy — said it had won a major environmental victory on December 15 when the ruling Labor Party revised a key regulation, rejecting the classification of timber harvested from virgin forests. generated and burned to generate energy into renewable energy. Previously, according to the country’s renewable energy policy, wood biomass was classified as a renewable energy source.
The impact of this regulatory change is perhaps the most significant for the setback it could have on the biomass industry globally, hampering the multi-billion dollar wood pellet industry. started Down Under at a time when tablet production is increasing in the Southeastern US and British Columbia to supply growing demand for the EU, UK and Asia.
“Changes [in Australia] which means that natural forest biomass is no longer considered a ‘qualified renewable energy source’ for purposes [the nation’s] The Renewable Energy Target and the electricity it generates cannot be used to generate a tradable Large Scale Power Generation Certificate [for replacing coal],” Chris Bowen, Australia’s minister of energy and climate change, said in a statement. “We listened to the community and took action to address their concerns.”
Under its decision, Australia is taking a very different route than the European Union, where woody biomass – despite growing public opposition – is still identified as a renewable energy source, is therefore heavily subsidized by the government and accounts for 60% of EU production. renewable energy mix. Australia is one of the few G20 countries without a thriving biomass industry; It currently neither produces nor burns wood pellets of any size.
But that situation is poised to change, says Virginia Young, a forest advocate for Wilderness Australia, an NGO.
“Two major power plants in Queensland are about to convert from coal to biomass,” Young told Mongabay in an interview from Montreal, where she is attending the United Nations COP15 biodiversity conference. “Have [coal] Factories in Victoria and New South Wales are looking to convert. They are talking to Drax [the world’s largest consumer of wood pellets for energy based in the United Kingdom] about how to make it happen. All of this is about to begin.
But without the renewable indication, biomass growth in Australia is almost dead in the country.
Part of the policy shift appears to be spurred on by the new government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, which is intent on rapidly meeting its target of a 43 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2030, meeting the pledge of Paris Agreement. Young says that when forest advocates realized the short timetable available to fulfill that pledge, they “got into action” to lobby vigorously for renewable energy policy change. .
The scientists note that it takes decades for wood biomass to qualify as a renewable energy source and actually help a country reach its net zero carbon emissions target; that’s because it takes a decade for the carbon released into the atmosphere from burned trees to be reabsorbed by newly planted, slow-growing replacement trees.
“This is a huge win for the community, who want the power sector to be decarbonized as quickly as possible and do not want to see virgin forests being cut down to allow coal-fired power plants to switch to burning. instead of burning coal,” said Bob Debus, president of Wilderness Australia, an NGO, in a statement.
Australia’s reluctance to embrace wood biomass has led it to invest more in zero-carbon renewable energy.
In 2021, 29% of Australia’s total energy comes from renewables such as solar, wind and hydro; only 1% comes from burning biogas and non-timber biomass. By comparison, the 27-nation EU gets 22% of its total energy mix from what it calls renewable energy in the country 2020. But when wood pellets are removed from that calculation, the EU’s carbon-free renewables account for almost 9% of total energy.
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