Subsidies of up to £1billion given to firms for burning wood in power stations could be axed – as critics argue it creates same CO2 as coal

By Paul Homewood

 

 

Interesting news from the Mail:

 

Controversial subsidies for burning wood in power stations could be scrapped in the drive to clean up Britain's air.

Firms that burn wood pellets currently receive about £1billion a year because, unlike coal, these are considered renewable sources of energy.

But critics say burning wood produces similar amounts of carbon dioxide to coal, contributing to air pollution.

It also increases the logging of forests in the US, while shipping them to Britain in vast quantities has a further negative effect on the environment.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove yesterday revealed subsidies for burning wood could be scrapped as he unveiled the Government's clean air strategy.

The U-turn comes after years of state support for 'biomass' such as wood pellets, in schemes pioneered by disgraced former Liberal Democrat energy secretary Chris Huhne.

He was hired by US firm Zilkha Biomass, which makes wood pellets, after serving a prison sentence in 2013 for perverting the course of justice.

The clean air strategy includes proposals to scrap some subsidies paid under so-called 'contracts for difference'.

The contracts, which last until 2027, offer payments of about £100 per megawatt hour for burning imported wood – more than double the wholesale energy price.

Britain's biggest power station, Drax, near Selby, North Yorkshire, burns about 7million tons a year of compressed wood pellets imported from the US and Canada.

Drax supplies around 7 per cent of the UK's electricity, with four of its six units converted to burn the pellets.

Britain is committed to closing all its coal power stations by 2025 unless they can be adapted to 'capture' carbon without releasing it into the air.

A Drax spokesman defended the technology, stressing it is 'critical to the UK electricity system because it provides low-carbon, cost-effective power reliably, whatever the weather' – unlike wind and solar energy sources.

But Sasha Stashwick of the Natural Resources Defence Council, an environmental campaign group, said: 'Burning trees in giant power plants is bad for the climate and the air Britons breathe.

'It's important that [the clean air strategy] recognises the drawbacks of biomass energy … and rings the death knell on new rounds of subsidies for this dirty power source.

'Sadly, it does nothing to stop billions of pounds going to existing coal-to-biomass conversions.

Read the full story here. 

 

Some of us have, of course, been arguing these points for a long time. It is not clear, however, how Michael Gove can put an end to CfD subsidies, as they are legally enforceable contracts which last for 15 years. Government cannot simply renege on them.

from Climate Change Skeptic Blogs via hj on Inoreader http://bit.ly/2VRJuEo