Future of Biomass

Graham Stringer Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

I start from the assumption that biomass is a promising technology that could, if handled correctly, help to reduce our net carbon emissions in the context of Government policy. My reservations relate to the air pollution emissions from biomass and to whether we have sufficiently robust sustainability criteria.

In response to a parliamentary question that I tabled, the previous Government revealed in a written answer on 26 September 2009, at Hansard columns 695-96, that the then target of 38 TWh of biomass risked causing £557 million of annual social costs. In blunt terms, that means people dying early because of polluted air. That was supplemented by a written answer to the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) on 10 November 2009, at Hansard column 219, that made it clear that the mortality bill would be 340,000 life-years in 2020 alone. By my maths, using those figures, I reckon that a small, 20 MW, biomass plant running at 85% efficiency would kill roughly 17 people a year—and that is just the mortality impact. The Government have made no estimate of the cost of ill health consequent on polluting the air. If the Minister or his Department can find fault with my figures, or perhaps find more precise ones, let us hear them. However, I do not think that one can get away from the central, appalling fact that unabated biomass emissions will kill significant numbers of our fellow citizens, and this as a result of deliberate—or, if not deliberate, negligent—public policy.

A recent report by the Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants, “The Mortality Effects of Long-Term Exposure to Particulate Air Pollution in the United Kingdom”, published on 21 December last year, estimated that the 2008 burden of particulates cost

“an associated loss of total population life of 340,000 life-years…a greater burden than the mortality impacts of environmental tobacco smoke or road traffic accidents.”

That figure is remarkable: it is exactly the level of extra burden to be inflicted on the UK atmosphere by 2020 under originally intended biomass targets. It cannot be right that public policy risks effectively doubling existing mortality rates. In contrast, currently at least in the UK, the mortality and morbidity caused by carbon emissions is presumably nil.

Near my constituency, at Barton, we have had planning permission turned down for a biomass plant that would have contributed significant amounts of particulates—ammonia, oxides of nitrogen and arsenic—to an area already under stress as an officially designated air quality management area. To be fair, the amount of arsenic to be emitted would have been restrained, because the amount of CCA—chromated copper arsenate—wood would have been limited to small quantities contained in demolition rubble. I doubt that constituents were greatly reassured on that count, but why are we allowing such toxic material to be burned in biomass at all? The bigger point is that if we can improve automotive exhausts supposedly to the extent that they can be “cleaner than the air we breathe”, it should not be beyond the wit of man to design a biomass burner that screens out the majority of particulates and therefore does not bring early death and disease to the population at large.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

The proposed biomass plant to which my hon. Friend refers would have been in my constituency. Does he agree that it is of great concern that there seems to be no drive to use the best available technology, which is what really ought to underline any decisions about such plants?

[Graham Stringer]

That is the point that I am making.

There is another trap to avoid. It is important to make the distinction between biomass that is good and biomass that is bad for the carbon balance in our atmosphere; otherwise, the danger is that biomass will be tarnished in the same way that first-generation biofuels were, creating a wall of cynicism about biofuels in general. Installing bad biomass plants around the UK rather than good ones would not only be a prodigious waste of taxpayers’ money, but embed into our electricity generation system for years to come a significant proportion of unsustainable electricity production.

I was drawn to the opinion of the European Environment Agency scientific committee on greenhouse gas accounting that was published on 15 September 2011, a copy of which I have submitted to the Minister’s officials. It knocks on the head the assumption that biomass combustion is always inherently carbon neutral, and points to the “double counting” that causes that error. The report explains that the assumption

“ignores the fact that using land to produce plants for energy typically means that this land is not producing plants for other purposes, including carbon otherwise sequestered.”

If biomass production replaces forests or reduces forest stocks or forest growth that would otherwise sequester more carbon, it can increase net carbon concentrations. If biomass displaces food crops, as biofuels did, it can lead to hunger if crops are not replaced, and to emissions from land use change if they are. The committee concluded that to reduce carbon in the air, bioenergy production must increase the net total of plant growth, or must be derived from biomass wastes that would otherwise decompose.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent contribution. Another unintended consequence could involve the cost of crops. Biofuels have already been mentioned, but my farmers are also concerned about straw and about raising costs when they could be subsidising a biomass plant.

[Graham Stringer]

The hon. Lady makes an important point.

The committee warns that the danger of that error is “immense”, stating that

“current harvests…have already caused enormous loss of habitat by affecting perhaps 75% of the world’s ice- and desert-free land, depleting water supplies, and releasing large quantities of carbon into the air.”

On that basis, it urges that European Union regulations and policy targets should be revised to allow bioenergy use only from additional biomass that reduces net greenhouse gas emissions without displacing other necessities such as the production of food and fibre. It advises that accounting standards should fully reflect all changes in the amount of carbon stored by ecosystem, and that energy production from biomass should be based on by-products, wastes and residues rather than on stem wood that would otherwise continue happily to grow as forest biomass.

The implications of that analysis were explored by Atlantic Consulting in “Biomass’ Forgotten Carbon Cost”, published on 8 November 2011. I have sent a copy of that paper to the Minister’s Department, as well. Atlantic Consulting looked at the pattern of typical biomass plants in the UK and found that 58% of their fuel tonnage derived from wood. Some of that is waste, such as end-of-life furniture and arboreal cuttings, and some is residue, such as that from sawmills. Unfortunately, however, the largest fuel component of biomass power is stem wood—that is, tree trunks harvested with the intent of using them for boiler fuel.

Atlantic Consulting proceeded to estimate the carbon footprint of a typical UK biomass plant. Interestingly, its footprint is 690 grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kWh, which is well above the current UK average footprint of 520 grams per kWh and the lowest-carbon conventional gas-fired combined cycle at 401 grams per kWh. It also far exceeds the eligibility hurdle of 285.12 grams per kWh set for renewable obligation certificates from 2013. In that light, more than half of biomass-powered capacity would not qualify for credits under the renewables obligation. That could be a shock to the owners if they found that they did not benefit, and it would certainly be a shock to taxpayers if they found that they were subsidising higher-carbon power generation than the existing average.

Will the Minister provide the owners and the taxpayers with a measure of reassurance, because it appears that the current sustainability criteria for biomass are not stringent enough? If the European Environment Agency scientific committee or Atlantic Consulting are wrong in their thinking, will he please explain the situation, so that we can get this right for all concerned? The interests of the economy and of the environment demand clarity.

In October last year, the Scottish Government published a consultation that proposed removing all subsidy from large-scale woody biomass electricity plants. Large-scale electricity-only biomass was, in their view, inefficient and required more wood than the UK could produce. Although current plans are to import wood, there is no guarantee that biomass plant operators will look exclusively abroad for their wood, and the overseas supply might not be stable or secure. The current subsidy means biomass providers will be able to afford more than the current market rate for wood, which might push prices up and price out traditional wood industries such as sawmills, wood panel mills, furniture manufacturers and construction, which in turn, the Scottish Government said, puts hundreds of skilled rural jobs at risk. What is the Minister’s view of the Scottish policy stance? Are the Scottish Government wrong, or are they ahead of the game?

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

In the past five years we have seen wood prices rise by 55% because of biomass subsidies. An employer in my constituency, the furniture manufacturer Senator, which employs about 1,000 people has to compete against rising wood prices simply because of the biomass subsidy. Should not the Government consider the impact of biomass subsidies on employment in furniture manufacturers and other wood-using companies, as well as the impact on the environment?

[Graham Stringer]

My hon. Friend makes exactly the same point as I did in a different way.

I think that biomass deserves a place in the renewable energy mix of the future, but we need to get the rules of the game straight in advance, so that society is not left picking up the pieces of an impetuous policy.