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Government Lacks 2020 Vision On Biomass
15 June 2013 Today’s policy measures for renewable energy are just the start and there could be bigger challenges for timber in future, says Alastair Kerr, director-general of the Wood Panel Industries Federation With the Energy Bill going through its last parliamentary stages and proposals for the non-domestic Renewable Heat Incentive tariff currently out for consultation, the UK’s package of measures aimed at meeting the EU’s 2020 renewable energy targets is virtually in place. Much of our concern and recent media attention has focused on large-scale power generation for reasons which still remain, ie. there are no assurances that these subsidised energy companies won’t substantially target the UK’s commercial coniferous stands for fuel. However, if pressure on the domestic resource is going to increase to the point where it jeopardises established wood processors, it will come from the cumulative impact of demand from both renewable electricity and renewable heat. Renewable heat, in particular, provides an opportunity for domestic growers and indeed wood processors, but placing a reliance on market pull to bring more wood to market, particularly from private growers, may not be enough on its own to prevent a disproportionate demand being placed on the coniferous resource. Something we shouldn’t lose sight of is that policy measures in place today are only just the start. Governments are in discussion with the European Commission regarding the 2030 renewables targets. The energy companies are already lobbying to make an even larger contribution from biomass (wood). If the flow of wood from material uses towards energy is to be controlled, then collectively the woodprocessing industries must continue with efforts to speak up for the carbon benefits that using more wood products brings. The recently confirmed EU carbon accounting rules open a door for the development of policies that actively promote the use of harvested wood products, but it is not a given that such policies will emerge, not least because competitors are fighting to oppose such benefits being bestowed on wood. These challenges may seem to be remote and some way off but they are very real, and a robust industry defence has to be put up if wood products are not to be sidelined in the future. Continue reading
MSU Planting Poplars To Generate Biomass For Power
Updated 3:41 pm, Sunday, June 16, 2013 EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan State University has planted the first of six plots of poplar trees as part of an initiative to generate power from renewable sources. The 10-acre plots will grow fuel for the university’s T.B. Simon Power Plant, the East Lansing schoolannounced this month. The trees will be harvested, chipped and burned as an alternative to coal, said Michigan State spokeswoman Holly Whetstone. She said the university adopted an energy transition plan last year that includes spending on sustainable energy research and development. The Simon Power Plant now produces about 1.7 percent of its energy from untreated wood chips, and only one of four boilers now can burn wood chips. “Through a process called torrefaction, MSU scientists can create a material … that is suitable for boilers,” Whetstone said in a posting on the university’s website. “Torrefaction occurs when a plant material is roasted to eliminate moisture and unstable chemicals. These chemicals can then be burned to power the process. The result is a concentrated material that can be transported and burned like coal.” About 300 tons of the torrefied biomass will be pulverized in the power plant’s burners in 2013, the university said. “If test burns are successful, torrefied biomass will replace a fraction of MSU’s coal use as early as 2014,” Whetstone said. Online: Biomass project: [url=”http://bit.ly/12Pp6q8″] http://bit.ly/12Pp6q8 Continue reading
Africa: ‘Carbon Farming’ Makes Waves At Stalled Bonn Talks
BY STEPHEN LEAHY, 12 JUNE 2013 Uxbridge — U.N. climate talks have largely stalled with the suspension of one of three negotiating tracks at a key mid-year session in Bonn, Germany. Meanwhile, civil society organisations claim the controversial issue of “carbon farming” has been pushed back onto the agenda after African nations objected to the use of their lands to absorb carbon emissions. At the Bonn Climate Change Conference this week, Russia insisted on new procedural rules. That blocked all activity in one track of negotiations called the “Subsidiary Body for Implementation” (SBI). The SBI is a technical body that was supposed to discuss finance to help developing countries cope with climate change, as well as proposals for “loss and damage” to compensate countries for damages. The SBI talks were suspended Wednesday. “This development is unfortunate,” said Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Figueres also said the two-week Bonn conference, which ends Friday, had made considerable progress in the two other tracks. A complex new global climate treaty is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2015 with the goal of keeping global warming to less than two degrees C. “Governments need to look up from their legal and procedural tricks and focus on the planetary emergency that is hitting Africa first and hardest,” said Mithika Mwenda of the Pan African Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA), an African-wide climate movement with over 300 organisations in 45 countries. And where there is “progress” at the climate talks it is in the wrong direction, according to civil society. “We’ve seen many governments in Bonn call for a review of the current failed carbon markets to see what went wrong, why they haven’t actually reduced emissions and why they haven’t raised finance on a significant scale,” said Kate Dooley, a consultant on market mechanisms to the Third World Network. “If we don’t learn these lessons we’ll be doomed to repeat these environmentally and financially risky schemes, at the cost of real action to reduce emissions,” Dooley said in a statement. In Bonn, two key African negotiators appear to be pushing the World Bank agenda rather than their national interests, civil society organisations claim. Those negotiators are also working for organisations receiving World Bank funding. One appears to want African nations’ mitigation actions to be based on agriculture, they said. The World Bank and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation and other organisations favour what they call “climate smart” agriculture. This is defined as forms of farming that are sustainable, increase productivity and with a focus on soaking up carbon from the atmosphere. African environment ministers from 54 nations recently stated they were not obligated to use their lands to mitigate carbon emissions since Africa is not responsible for climate change. They also instructed African negotiators at the Bonn climate talks to focus on helping African agriculture adapt to a changing climate. “Are these people serving two masters?” asked Mariam Mayet of the Africa Centre for Biosafety, which works to protect farmers’ rights and biodiversity across the continent. “What is the World Bank’s level of influence over these individuals, and is there a risk that this is impacting on their actions and the outcome here?” Mayet told IPS. In December 2011, more than 100 African and international civil society organisations sent a joint letter to African ministers asking for “no soil carbon markets in Africa”. Globally, agriculture is a major source of global warming gases like carbon and methane – directly accounting for 15 percent to 30 percent of global emissions. Changes in agricultural practices such as reducing or eliminating plowing and fertiliser use can greatly reduce emissions. Agriculture can also be used to absorb or trap carbon in the soil. When a plant grows, it takes CO2 out the atmosphere and releases oxygen. The more of a crop – maize, soy or vegetable – that remains after harvest, the more carbon is returned to the soil. Civil society organisations warn that if agriculture becomes part of a carbon market, it will spur more land grabbing in Africa, with woodlands being used mainly for carbon sequestration instead of food production. “There is a profound danger to agriculture here, with real potential for more land grabbing and expansion of monocultures in order to harvest credits,” Helena Paul of EcoNexus, an environmental NGO, previously told IPS . Soils are extraordinarily variable and different climatic regimes affect how they function, said Ólafur Arnalds, a soil scientist at the Agricultural University of Iceland. While soils are a key part of the planet’s carbon cycle, we don’t know enough about soil carbon, Arnalds told IPS at a recent Soil Carbon Sequestration conference in Iceland. That complexity does not suit carbon markets well and drives up costs of accounting and verification. However, Arnalds does believe that soils and agriculture have an important role in climate change and farmers should be compensated for their efforts. Continue reading
