Greenpeace Canada just released a report that questions the country’s current wood energy industry, its practices, and its impact on the environment and climate change. Following is a partial reprint (in italics, below) of the news release as it appears on Greenpeace Canada’s website.
Read the report and tell us what YOU think!
“Greenpeace released a science-based report today that highlights the dangers of the large-scale use of wood and tree harvesting for heating, electricity generation or liquid biofuels. The report, entitled ‘Fuelling a Biomess’, argues that burning woody biomass on an industrial scale could severely harm Canada’s public forests and further contribute to the global climate crisis.
“Forest bioenergy, as it is currently being developed in Canada threatens the health of our forests and will harm the global climate for decades to come,” said Nicolas Mainville, Greenpeace Canada forest campaigner. “The amount of wood being burnt in power plants or turned into liquid fuels is growing exponentially without the public’s knowledge and little government oversight or regulation.”
The report, based on recent peer-reviewed scientific literature, challenges the claims that simply burning forest biomass is green, clean and carbon-neutral – claims upon which the current bioenergy boom is based. The demand for biomass can no longer be met by traditional waste stream sources – the bark, sawdust and other residues from pulp and paper plants or sawmills.
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Greenpeace is concerned that the growing demand for trees associated with the bioenergy boom will drastically increase pressure on forests and out compete the traditional forest products sector, particularly with respect to available wood supply and the development of new products and jobs.
“Using woody biomass to produce energy should be restricted to local, small-scale uses of mill residues” said Mainville. “Before we continue to approve new projects, public hearings, a full accounting of the climate and biodiversity footprint and life-cycle analyses of those projects are needed. Otherwise, we risk plunging Canada’s forests and climate into an environmental ‘bioMESS’.”
In 2010, Canada exported 1.2 million tonnes of wood pellets to Europe, resulting in a 700 per cent increase in less than eight years. Canada alone releases approximately 40 megatons of CO2emissions annually from forest bioenergy production, an amount that exceeds the tailpipe emissions of all 2009 Canadian light-duty passenger vehicles. The CO2emitted will harm the climate for decades before being captured by re-growing trees.
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The development of biomass energy should take protection of the forestry as priority.