|
|
 |
 |
|
| |
NewsWood waste the key to biomass energy targetsMeeting Australia’s ambitious targets for renewable energy generation will rely on a big role for forest industriesMeeting Australia’s ambitious national targets for renewable energy generation will rely on a big role for forest industries, said NAFI Executive Director Kate Carnell today. “Only biomass energy can produce the quantity of renewable energy being proposed, and only wood waste biomass can do it commercially,” she said. A new report from WWF and the European Biomass Industry Association, released in Europe in the past few days, said that biomass energy could – and should - provide 15% of the industrialised world’s energy by the year 2020. “The big advantage that biomass offers over other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar is that it can be stored and used when needed,” a WWF spokesman said last week. “It can provide a constant, non-fluctuating supply of electricity.” The report said that the substitution of fossil fuels for biomass as an energy source would reduce world emissions of carbon dioxide by about one billion tonnes a year. (Australia emits around 600 million tonnes annually.) Biomass energy can be generated from all organic matter, including the forest thinning, harvesting and sawmill waste. “7 million tonnes is the existing supply from sustainable forest management, harvesting operations at fixed sustainable rates, and sawmill wastes.” “Renewable energy projects will not lead to additional harvesting, because the sustainable harvesting rates are already fixed.” But Mrs Carnell warned that indecision and ideological positions among conservationists, some of whom are stridently opposed to using any by-products from native forests, was causing Australian governments to hesitate on vital support for biomass energy. “Studies by the independent research agency ABARE has concluded that without using the current wood waste, Australia cannot develop commercially viable options to meet even the official target of 2% of our energy needs – let alone the WWF target of 15%.” “This is an issue where sensible conservationists will need to give up their rhetoric and work with governments and industry if these ambitious renewable energy targets are to have any hope of being met,” she said. * The WWF/European Biomass Association report, released on 27 May 2004, is available at www.panda.org. ** For more information, visit www.nafi.com.au/bioenergy. Return to the News Archive |
|
 |
|
|
Site development by Internet Solutions Australia, Canberra Graphic design by Swell Design Group, Canberra |
|