(11 years, 5 months ago)
Commons Chamber6. What recent assessment he has made of the long-term environmental effects of Government support for large-scale biomass conversion.
We agree that effective sustainability controls must be in place for bioenergy. We already have biomass sustainability criteria for the renewables obligation, and we now propose to improve them by adding new sustainable forest management criteria for wood fuel and a requirement for an independent audit, and by setting a trajectory so that greenhouse gas life-cycle savings targets become tougher over time.
I welcome the commitment to reforestry targets, but how do Ministers stand up the rather curious proposition that wood burning is carbon neutral? They support the conversion of coal-fired stations to wood burning, but that is only carbon neutral if emission at the point of burn is ignored, and it takes up to 98 years for tree growth to neutralise that. Will the Minister confirm that this dubious practice is simply an interim measure? I understand the need to protect the investment at Drax and elsewhere.
Biomass certainly needs to be sustainable as well as affordable, but it is not carbon neutral. However, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that greenhouse gas savings from biomass are at least 68% less than those for coal. Although it may not be carbon neutral, it is certainly much cleaner so far as carbon is concerned.