Steven’s Croft Biomass Power Station, Lockerbie. The German-owned plant requires 220,000 tonnes of trees a year
Biomadness: Biomass power station produced four times emissions of UK coal plant – Drax received £22bn in subsidies despite being UK’s largest emitter in 2023, though company rejects ‘flawed’ research – Drax: UK power station still burning rare forest wood
Drax burns the equivalent of 27 million trees annually – twice the number of trees in the New Forest. The cutting and shipping of trees to Yorkshire across the Atlantic in ships running on diesel will never be sustainable, but the story goes further than this. Multiple investigations have found that Drax uses pellets from whole logs sourced from globally important forests, including taking more than 40,000 tonnes of wood from old growth forests in British Columbia in 2023.
‘Eco-hypocrisy’ over Scotland’s biomass boiler ban, while subsidies are available to install them!
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24252775.confusion-biomass-boiler-ban-subsidies-install/
Ministers have been accused of implementing “disjointed legislation” after it emerged that new regulations effectively ban biomass boilers in new homes while subsidies worth thousands are still available to install them in existing properties, it is being reported.
Restrictions on wood-burning stoves in new build houses are part of the Scottish Government’s attempts to curb emissions of fossil fuels as part of its net-zero strategy.
The legislation also covers biomass boilers, which use sustainably sourced pellets made from woodchips, saw-dust, straw and other plant material.
However, an investigation has found that grant funding of up to £9,000 is available for biomass boilers for existing properties, when an applicant can provide evidence that a heat pump, the Scottish Government’s preferred option, is not suitable.
That means some families will be prohibited from installing the systems in their new homes, while others in existing houses are given thousands of pounds in grants and interest-free loans.
Douglas Lumsden, the Scottish Conservative energy spokesman, said ministers were preventing rural communities, where wood-burning and biomass stoves were more important, from heating their homes “while subsidising others elsewhere”.
“This latest shoddy legislation again demonstrates their contempt for rural Scotland and there’s still no Scottish Government guidance on how exemptions will work,” he said. “You can’t have one family barred from using responsibly sourced wood while offering to subsidise others.”
The Government has been heavily criticised by rural communities after the regulations came into force at the beginning of this month, stating that all new homes must be fitted with “clean” heating such as air or ground-sourced heat pump technology rather than gas or wood-burning boilers.
It later clarified that wood-burners could be built in homes but only for emergency purposes if special exemption rules were satisfied. The regulations have no effect on homes that already have wood-burning systems installed.
Anna Gardiner, policy adviser for Scottish Land & Estates, told the Sunday Post that wood-burners were the cheapest, most efficient way to warm homes in rural areas because of a ready supply of local timber.
“The gas grid present in cities such as Edinburgh and Glasgow does not exist in many rural settings,” she said. “We do not believe a ban on installing wood-burning stoves in new rural homes is suitable at present.”
A spokesman for Patrick Harvie, the net zero minister, said: “The new building standard will mean new homes are built with modern and green heating systems while allowing wood-burning systems for emergency back-up where required. This move, which follows two consultations, has been widely welcomed as a positive step forward in our fight against climate change, and was approved unanimously by the Scottish parliament, including Mr Lumsden’s party, when they considered the regulations last year.”
Scotland: Biomass plant plans under attack
By Scott Hussey | Times Online | April 25, 2010
Plans to build a network of biomass power plants in Scotland as part of Alex Salmond’s green revolution could damage the environment and cost thousands of jobs, according to a new report.
A shortage of domestic wood means that millions of tonnes of timber will have to be imported to fuel the plants, which are a key element of the SNP’s renewable energy strategy.
In addition to the carbon footprint of importing wood, the independent study warns that the surge in demand from government-subsidised biomass plants is likely to squeeze Scottish timber-processing firms out of the market.
According to the report, commissioned by the Confederation of Forest Industries (ConFor), demand for wood could exceed supply as early as next year — before the biggest biomass plants are built.
There are only a handful of the plants in Scotland, but more than a dozen are in the pipeline.
The biggest is a 225-megawatt plant in Hunterston, North Ayrshire. Others include four 100-megawatt plants at the ports of Leith, Rosyth, Grangemouth and Dundee. These four plants alone would burn four million tonnes of wood every year, almost half of Scottish timber production.
A subsidy of £8.1m was given to a 44-megawatt plant in Markinch, Fife, and £10m to a plant in Irvine, Ayrshire. The largest biomass plant in Scotland — and one of the UK’s largest — is in Lockerbie, Dumfries and Galloway. The £114m plant delivers 44 megawatts of energy and burns 475,000 tonnes of sustainable wood a year.
The report, by the Edinburgh-based firm John Clegg Consulting, concludes: “If new large users of British-grown wood and other wood fibre enter the marketplace, supported by subsidy, then it can only be at the expense of existing users, impacting negatively and disproportionately on sustainability, employment, carbon sequestration and mitigation of climate change.”
Stuart Goodall, chief executive of ConFor, which represents about 2,000 woodland owners and forest businesses across the UK, urged the Scottish government to reconsider its policy of subsidising biomass plants.
“Diverting wood from existing users to large-scale biomass plants will be bad for the environment and bad for jobs.
“By subsidising the dash to large-scale biomass, the Scottish government threatens to damage its own aim of a low-carbon economy — creating an artificial market that undermines its environmental and economic objectives. The policy will create a huge demand for wood that just isn’t there.”
Only 12% of Britain is covered by forest, the lowest proportion of any European country. About 20,000 workers are employed in Scotland in industries that use wood, such as saw-milling and wood-panel, paper and pulp manufacturing…