This piece is an extract from our Latest from the Woods newsletter (previously Forestry Latest News), which is emailed out at 4PM every Friday with a round-up of the week's top stories.
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BIOMASS has been in the news a lot lately - and rarely for reasons to be cheerful. Still, it was a bit of a shock to be browsing the national press recently only to be confronted with headlines telling of the UK's plan to ship its woodchip in from ... North Korea. Yes, that North Korea.
A government document - which also listed Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives as potential biomass sources - was suitably described as "bonkers", with critics, including Nigel Farage, lining up to stick the boot in. Others have been more understanding, with the chief executive of the REA at pains to point out it was not "official government policy or reflective of industry sourcing intention".
The fury all stemmed from a bioenergy resource model, published in late summer, which calculated that only a big expansion in the import of energy crops and wood from a surprising list of nations would satisfy the UK’s plan to meet net zero.
About a third of the biomass used in the UK is imported. In 2021, 9.1m tonnes of wood pellets for use in energy production came from abroad – about 76 per cent from North America and 18 per cent from the EU. Much of this goes to feed Drax, itself in the news a lot lately for reasons that will hardly have pleased many forestry professionals.
The accusations - long running - that biomass isn't actually a sustainable resource could also be found throughout the national press' reporting on this murky business; something else which will be to the dismay of many in the industry.
"The role of sustainable biomass is recognised within all credible scenarios for getting to net zero," the REA's Trevor Hutchings wrote in a letter to the Guardian, making the case for biomass. "This includes being combined with bioenergy carbon capture and storage to deliver critical carbon removals and help tackle dangerous climate change."
Wouldn't it be so much better if we could make the case for biomass based on timber that's grown on these shores?
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