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New Regulations Create Fresh Row Over Biomass Power
Government guidelines could allow destructive forms of biomass and fail to satisfy industry of future financial support Fiona Harvey , environment correspondent theguardian.com , Thursday 22 August 2013 15.34 BST The travails of the industry were highlighted in July with the shelving of plans to turn the Tilbury power station into a biomass-burning plant. Photograph: Alamy[/color] New regulations to ensure energy generated from forests, crops and waste is sustainable provoked a fresh row on Thursday over biomass power, with the government plans failing to reassure the industry of future financial support. Green campaigners said the new rules would allow the use of destructive forms of biomass, which have been linked to deforestation in other countries. The biomass industry denied this, but will still face a major task to attract investment into the sector, because the government has put strict limits on how biomass plants will be supported under its new regime for the electricity market. Under the current proposals, biomass will be at a disadvantage relative to other forms of generation, because some forms of new biomass power plants will be effectively excluded from the new long-term “contracts for difference” that are the basis of the new system. That may rattle investors. The travails of the industry were highlighted in July with the shelving of plans to turn the Tilbury power station, in Essex, into a biomass-burning plant. Greg Barker, minister for energy and climate change, said biomass – now an industry worth £1bn in the UK and supporting 3,000 jobs – had “an important role” in UK energy generation. “The new criteria will provide the necessary investor certainty and ensure that the biomass is delivered in a transparent and sustainable way.” The new sustainability rules cover issues such as harvesting rates, to ensure trees can regrow, as well as ensuring wood comes from forests where the biodiversity is not harmed by the harvesting, and where the rights of indigenous people are respected. The government promised there would be no changes to the criteria before 2027, and that the operators of plants who complied with the guidelines would continue to receive subsidies under the Renewable Obligation. Dr Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, which represents the industry, said: “These sustainability criteria ensure that the UK can reap the benefits of biomass, safe in the knowledge that it is making a real dent in our carbon emissions and that ecologically sensitive land is being protected.” Tensions between green groups and the biomass industry have been running high for months, as environmental groups have published studies and claims that some forms of biomass, such as imported wood, do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions because they encourage the chopping down of large swaths of forest. Biomass proponents have responded that some of the scientific research has been misinterpreted , and unrealistic worst case scenarios wrongly presented as the norm. At least one academic involved with the research has contested the green groups’ claims. However, the government’s new guidelines, far from defusing the row, have inflamed it further. Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: “The loopholes in these sustainability standards are big enough to drive a logging truck through. The government has ignored the latest scientific research and produced standards that will take a potentially sustainable industry and transform it into one more way to greenwash environmental destruction. The climate isn’t going to fall for creative accounting and neither should the public.” The government also failed to satisfy the biomass industry with Thursday’s announcement. Under electricity market reform, new biomass-burning power stations will only qualify for the new contracts if the heat they produce is captured and reused, a process known as combined heat and power (CHP). But some biomass companies are worried because CHP technology is an extra cost at the outset, and because it is only suitable where there are buildings – either dwellings, industrial estates or large public buildings – near enough for the heat to be piped from the plant. Given the UK’s planning laws, it may be hard to get permission for a site, which could put some potential projects in a “catch-22” situation. CHP will also only be economically viable if nearby property owners are prepared to pay for the heat. Skorupska said biomass was a good option because it could reduce carbon, but is not intermittent like other renewables such as wind. But she warned that the CHP stipulation risked harming investment. “CHP is an excellent use of the resource, but it is not feasible in sites where there is no user for the heatload. The government will have serious regrets down the line if it excludes the construction of dedicated biomass power plants from the new regime.”[/font][/color] Continue reading
Biofuel Crops: Food Security Must Come First
Even so-called ‘good’ biofuels need safeguards to ensure that they don’t damage biodiversity or displace other crops Ben Phalan theguardian.com , Thursday 29 August 2013 18.06 BST Biofuel crops increase emissions through land clearance, fertiliser use, and by displacing other crops. Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features Since 2003, the UK and other EU countries have effectively poured billions of euros into biofuels , on the premise that they reduce emissions from transport. But it has been an expensive case of the Emperor’s new clothes: we now know that many biofuel crops actually increase overall emissions . At the same time, they damage biodiversity, hurt some of the world’s poorest people by pushing up food prices , and cost us an estimated £460m each year. Early in September, the European Parliament will have its first opportunity to put the brakes on. MEPs will vote on whether to amend biofuels policy to take account of the critical issue of indirect land use change (iLUC) and at what level to cap biofuels made from food crops. Biofuel crops increase emissions through land clearance, fertiliser use, and by displacing other crops. When millions of hectares of land are switched from food to biofuel crops, food prices rise and food production is displaced , triggering a domino-like chain of events ending in cropland expansion elsewhere, including into the tropical forests of Southeast Asia and the savannas of South America and Africa. This is iLUC. We can’t point to the precise hectare of rainforest that’s felled because a particular farmer now grows fuel rather than food. But the evidence is clear that burning millions of tonnes of food as biofuel on top of what we eat leads to more land clearance and more fertiliser use (even accounting for useful biofuel co-products fed to animals). UK biofuel use in the first year of monitoring required around 1.4 million hectares of farmland, most of it overseas. That’s an area the size of Northern Ireland, just to provide 3% of our transport fuel. By ignoring iLUC, the EU overlooks a large share of the emissions triggered by its biofuel targets. ILUC is not just about carbon. Agricultural expansion and intensification are among the greatest of all threats to wild nature. Each year, millions of hectares of new cropland threaten tropical forests, wetlands and other biodiversity-rich habitats. Fertiliser run-off from the US corn belt, which supplies us with bioethanol, helps create an oxygen-depleted ‘dead zone’ in the Gulf of Mexico. The EU’s Renewable Energy Directive has laudable ‘sustainability criteria’, but unsustainable biofuels can still be imported; they just don’t count towards the targets. Furthermore, the criteria don’t address iLUC, so biofuel demand continues to cause deforestation and biodiversity loss . If a domino falls in the forest, apparently no-one can hear it. Some in the biofuels industry don’t want iLUC factors introduced next month, because some crops would no longer be counted as ‘green fuels’. But fuels that trigger deforestation, increase emissions and destroy biodiversity are not ‘green’. Supporters of the industry argue that iLUC factors are too uncertain for policy. But they seem happy for policy to support an industry whose promise to deliver lower emissions is even more doubtful. The irony is that any carbon benefit of biofuels is based on their indirect effect in replacing and reducing fossil fuel use. It’s nonsensical to argue that food-based biofuels should be supported for this indirect carbon benefit without also counting their indirect carbon cost. MEPs will also vote on whether to cap use of food as biofuel at 5.5% or 6.5% of transport fuel . The lower cap would protect existing jobs while sending a clear message to investors that food-based biofuels are a poor prospect. In the longer term, we should ask whether it is rational to burn any food at all in our cars. The right biofuels have a role to play in our energy mix, in the right quantities. Governments should continue to support the development of advanced biofuels, such as those made from waste and those grown in places unsuitable for food crops. But even these ‘good biofuels’ need safeguards to ensure that they don’t damage biodiversity or displace other crops. In the meantime, it’s clear that the Emperor has no clothes. Will the European Parliament listen to the science, and curb the unseemly rush for food-based biofuels? I’ll be writing to ask my MEPs to vote for a more modest approach, and I urge you to do the same . • Dr. Ben Phalan is a research associate in conservation science at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, and is the Zukerman junior research fellow in global food security at King’s College.[/font][/color] Continue reading
Land Value Blast
FIGURES proclaiming a boom in Scottish farmland values have been slammed as the work of industry professionals ‘talking up’ a market that rewards them on a percentage commission basis. There are some who say land values should be based on what the land can produce Outspoken land reformist Andy Wightman this week took a swipe at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors after the positive results of its Rural Land Market Survey were widely reprinted in the national press and media. Mr Wightman branded reports that repeated the headline ‘farmland hits a record high’ as misleading, and challenged the factual basis of RICS’ claim that farmland prices had more than trebled in less than a decade. The land campaigner highlighted that these figures actually stemmed from the surveyed ‘opinion’ of members of RICS – not their actual sale statistics. Mr Wightman said on his blog: “Looking at the Rural Market Survey report itself (which is only available if you register as a RICS site user), things become clearer. “The claim that ‘prices had trebled in less than a decade’ is based upon an ‘opinions based’ measure, which is a hypothetical estimate by surveyors of the value of pure bare land. “As the small print makes clear: ‘Net balance data is opinion based; it does not quantify actual changes in an underlying variable’,” he noted.”It is also a UK wide figure and thus says nothing about the farmland market in Scotland.” RICS spokeswoman Sue Steer declared at the time of release of the figures that: “The growth in farmland prices in recent times has been nothing short of staggering. In less than 10 years we’ve seen the cost of an acre of farmland grow to such an extent that investors – not just farmers – are entering the market. “If the relatively tight supply and high demand continues, we could experience the cost per acre going through the £10,000 barrier in the next two to three years,” she ventured. In his withering put-down, Mr Wightman countered: “What she really means is that’s the cost of an acre of land according to the opinion of her members. And when she speculates that the cost per acre could go through the £10,000 barrier in the next two or three years – that too is simply the opinion of those with a vested interest in precisely that outcome,” said Mr Wightman. That ‘vested interest’ is something the Scottish Tenant Farmers Association is also concerned with, particularly as it fears these buoyant prices will heighten landlords’ expectations in the next round of rent reviews in November. Chairman Christopher Nicholson said: “The capital cost of land rarely reflects its agricultural productivity and this is as true in the rental market as scarcity causes rents to overtake profitability. It is high time that common sense was brought to bear and sitting tenant rents become based on the real worth of the land, that is, what the farm can produce rather than what it could fetch in an over-heated market stoked by profit driven land agents.” STFA would, he said, be using the forthcoming review of agricultural holdings to press for radical change to the way in which farm rents are set to ensure tenants’ businesses are not ‘crippled by unreasonable rent demands’. Responding to this furore, RICS Scotland director Sarah Spiers said: “Over the last decade, the bi-annual RICS Rural Land Market Survey, undertaken by our members in Scotland, has proven to be a leading indicator for the rural sector. “It provides local-level knowledge and insight from chartered surveyors working in the rural and land sectors in Scotland, rather than official views of company research departments. “It is not in the interest or benefit of RICS members in Scotland to ‘talk up the market’; it is their responsibility to report the market accurately, not steer it,” she insisted. Commenting on the RICS survey – and the STFA’s warning – landowners’ body Scottish Land and Estates insisted that recent increases in land values were not the reason for rises in agricultural rents. SLaE director, Andrew Howard, said: “The fundamental point is that farm rents are good value and this has been reflected by official statistics published by the Scottish Government this year. “The main driver for any increases in rent is productivity of the farm, not the capital value of the land. More often than not when agriculture is not doing so well then rents remain fairly static. There have been rises in recent years because farming has been having a good period of productivity. “The other important factor in rent reviews is that it is only in recent years that reviews have been conducted on farms where the rent had been unchanged for a very long time,” he added. “Land capital values generally do not influence rent calculations and if there are rent increases later this year this will not be the reason,” he maintained. Continue reading
