Europe is burning our forests for “renewable” energy. Wait, what?
Europe is burning our forests for “renewable” energy. Wait, what?
In March 2007, the E.U. adopted climate and energy goals for 2010 to 2020. The 27 member countries set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increasing renewables to 20 percent of their energy portfolio. Unfortunately, they underestimated the carbon intensity of burning wood (a.k.a. “biomass”) for electricity, and they categorized wood as a renewable fuel.
The E.U.’s initial rationale was not totally crazy — it just turned out to be totally wrong. Citing research that suggested that young trees consume more CO2 than older trees, policymakers figured that burning a tree for energy could be carbon neutral if you planted a replacement tree.
More recent studies, however, have shown that to be much too optimistic. Not all young trees consume more CO2 than older trees — it depends on the species and various other conditions. The process of chopping trees into wood pellets and shipping it across the Atlantic, and the energy involved in burning it all, add to the total carbon intensity.
“Burning very few wood fuels shows any carbon benefit over coal,” says Scot Quaranda a spokesperson for the Dogwood Alliance, an anti-deforestation group in Asheville, N.C. “In most cases it’s actually worse than coal or natural gas.”
Everything we try to do these days regarding energy comes with an "Oops" attached. Remember algal biofuels? From a recent MIT press release:
How to count methane emissions
More accurate comparisons of the effects of methane and CO2 can also be important when evaluating other technologies that produce emissions of more than one type of gas. For example, the study found that algae-based biofuels that incorporate a biodigester may leak enough methane to outweigh the emissions benefits over corn ethanol — a consideration that may weigh on decisions about which technology designs should be invested in and how they should be regulated, she says.
Oops.
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