Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what estimate he has made of the tonnage of carbon dioxide emitted by (a) the production processes, including drying, of biomass destined for UK power generation, (b) the transportation of biomass from all origins to power generation plants in the UK and (c) the transportation and disposal of fly ash arising from biomass combustion in the UK in the most recent year for which figures are available.

DECC’s Biomass Emissions And Counterfactual1 model has been developed to estimate overall greenhouse gas emissions associated with the delivered bioenergy to the UK from a number of regions for power generation, based on a scenario based life-cycle assessment technique. The overall estimates include carbon dioxide emitted by the production processes including drying and the transportation of biomass; details for selected scenarios are available in the report titled “Life Cycle Impacts of Biomass Electricity"2 published in July 2014.

The UK is introducing new sustainability standards for biomass. From April 2015, biomass heat and power generators must achieve a minimum of 68% greenhouse gas saving compared to coal, which includes emissions from processing and transportation. In addition, power stations over 50MWth must monitor and report against maximum monthly average emission limits for particulates (including ash) they emit to air.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/332948/beac_1.xlsm

2 https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/349024/BEAC_Report_290814.pdf