Tag Archives: forests
Bioenergy A Burning Question For Tasmania’s Forests
24 July 2013 Bioenergy a burning question for Tasmania’s forests AUTHORS Stewart Williams Russell Warman DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Stewart Williams teaches and researches at the University of Tasmania. He receives funding from AHURI and NCCARF. Russell Warman has previously worked as a policy analyst with ENGOs involved in Tasmania’s forest negotiations. Provides funding as a Member of The Conversation. utas.edu.au Harnessing the energy in wood may help wean Australia off fossil fuels. Flickr/chriscardinal With Australia trying to meet renewable energy targets and reduce emissions wherever possible, we should be considering bioenergy. Bioenergy can be made by burning biomass in a variety of forms, including agricultural by-products such as rice husks, poppy seeds, sugarcane waste and manure. It can also be made from forestry by-products such as sawmill and wood wastes. Tasmania is a prime candidate for such developments. Visiting international researcher Professor Andreas Rothe of the University of Applied Sciences, Weihenstephan , has recently released findings of a six-month study he conducted for Forestry Tasmania. He suggests that energy produced from wood “could lift Tasmania’s bioenergy contribution beyond 30%”. There seem to good reasons for Australia to transition towards greater use of bioenergy. It is a renewable and relatively secure energy source that can reduce CO 2 emissions by replacing fossil fuels. It seems a relatively straightforward proposal, especially given Prof Rothe’s experience in Europe. People of forested parts of Europe – such as Prof Rothe’s home state of Bavaria in Germany, and Scandinavia – have longstanding cultural practises and economies based on forest resources, with considerable uptake of bioenergy produced from wood. But people in Australia have a different relationship with forests. Unlike much of Europe, Australia has forests with little or no history of industrial resource extraction. Australian people have different values and perceptions about how those resources should be used. These differences are reflected in bitter conflicts over native forests in most of the states, not least in Tasmania. Recent efforts to forge peace in the Tasmanian forests signal progress. Professor Rothe takes some of these issues into consideration, and excludes the use of old-growth forest from his research. Tasmania’s bioenergy aspirations aren’t new. In 2002 Forestry Tasmania planned for a 30 megawatt bioenergy plant at a site south of Hobart, meant to burn wood residue and provide electricity to run the site and a surplus to the grid. It now includes a modern regrowth sawmill, log yard and rotary peel veneer mill. But the power plant has never been built. The proposal was submitted to the State’s planning authority but it failed to attract investment. This financial hesitation reflects uncertainties around the benefits of bioenergy. Can bioenergy substitute fossil fuels? Should we put new pressure on resources such as forests, clean air and water, which are already critically scarce (and key to other services including biodiversity conservation and food production)? Early on environmentalists and some industry sectors supported bioenergy in North America and Europe – backed by significant subsidies. But recently this support has started to unravel as mainstream economists question the logic of the subsidies, investors move away , courts intervene , and environmental organisations question the cost of the growth in biomass demand. Even before these doubts were raised in the Northern Hemisphere, there was a wariness in Australia about claims to make use of “waste” or “residue” wood in biomass. The experience of the rise of the wood-chip industry, initially slated as an industry sideline for waste logs, into a driver of native forest logging, is still fresh in the memories of many Australians. Tasmania is a prime candidate for any developments in bioenergy. Local and rural communities across the state are undergoing major changes. Bioenergy could be part of innovations as the forestry industry is restructured. But a lot more work will be required if the use of bioenergy from wood is to have any chance of going ahead with widespread community support, especially if native forests are involved. This issue, towards which the Tasmanian Forest Agreement is perhaps making some fragile first steps, concerns the need to forge a broader social consensus on how native forests are used and valued. It might be some time before Australia is ready for bioenergy. By then, ironically enough, Europe and North America might be winding back from their initial enthusiasm. Continue reading
Industrial Wood Pellets Help Keep US Forests Working
Taylor Scott International Continue reading
Profits From Forests? Leave The Trees Standing
Financially, using the NSW Southern Forestry Region for carbon credits is a better option than continued harvesting. Flickr/Tony Rodd In debates about climate change and the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, there is a widely-held belief that market mechanisms, like the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme, will reduce emissions in the cheapest possible way. As a matter of pure theory, this is correct but, in practice, it depends on what is included and excluded from the scheme and how it is designed. One of the most commonly overlooked sources of carbon abatement is public native forestry, which is currently excluded from the carbon pricing scheme and the government’s offset scheme, the Carbon Farming Initiative . This is despite the fact that stopping the harvesting of public native forests is one of the cheapest ways to reduce Australia’s emissions. A struggling industry For the past two decades, the Australian native forest sector has been in decline, primarily because of increased competition in domestic and international wood product markets. Starting in 2008, an already bad situation took a turn for the worse as the global financial crisis choked-off demand for native woodchips and solid wood product consumption slumped. Since then, the native woodchip sector has struggled to stay afloat, a fact reflected in the financial performance of state forest agencies. For example, over the period 2009 to 2012, the Forests Corporation of NSW (formerly known as Forests NSW) made a total net loss before tax (excluding net fair value adjustment, asset revaluation and impairment of assets) of $85 million, or $21 million per year . In total, the native forest sector, which takes in growing, harvesting, processing and manufacturing wood products, now accounts for a mere 0.1% of Australian Gross Domestic Product — roughly $1.5 billion per year. The emergence of carbon markets offers an alternative use for native forests. Rather than chopping them down for little financial return, the forests could be left standing in order to generate carbon credits. Opportunity for carbon credits The Australia Institute recently conducted a financial analysis on the Southern Forestry Region of New South Wales , which compared the net financial benefits from harvesting and processing native logs to the net financial benefits that could be derived by using the forests to generate carbon credits. For the period 2014-2033, the Forestry Corporation of NSW and relevant hardwood processors were estimated to suffer losses of between A$40 million and A$77 million. In contrast, stopping harvesting could generate 1.7 million carbon credits per year for the NSW Government over the period 2014-2033, and the sale of these credits (accounting for transaction and management costs) is likely to provide net benefits of approximately A$222 million. The simple message is, if the public native forests of this region continue to be used to produce woodchips and sawnwood, the industry and taxpayers will lose money. If the forests are used for carbon credits, they are likely to return a profit for the community. Some uncertainties Leaving our trees standing is a cheap way to reduce carbon emissions. Flickr/Poytr Of course, any analysis of this nature comes with caveats. For starters, conditions in domestic and international wood product markets could improve, or new markets might emerge, reviving the fortunes of native forest operators. This is possible but unlikely. There is also the challenge of accessing carbon credits. After recent changes to international accounting rules, stopping or reducing harvesting in native forests will now provide credits that can be used by the Australian government to meet its international mitigation commitments. However, as noted, projects involving stopping harvesting in public native forests are not currently eligible to generate carbon credits under the Carbon Farming Initiative. The federal government is expected to change this rule in the near future and thereby ensure that state governments are able to benefit from improvements in forest management practices. Finally, even if the Carbon Farming Initiative is expanded to include these projects, there are uncertainties surrounding the calculation of carbon credits and the price they will attract in relevant markets. Despite these uncertainties, the analysis shows that even under adverse circumstances, using the forests for carbon credits is likely to bring greater financial returns than continued harvesting. While debate about cutting greenhouse gas emissions usually focuses on the energy sector, the reality is that some of cheapest ways we can cut emissions is through changes in the way we use our forests and landscapes. Preserving native forests is no longer just for tree huggers. The time has come when leaving forests standing makes sense for purely financial reasons. Continue reading
