For decades the Australia Government has
been lobbied to allow electricity generation from burning biomass to attract
clean energy credits. Lobbyists promoted this as a way of disposing of waste vegetable
matter as a renewable energy source, a win-win situation they explain.
Electricity generation from biomass is
already occurring. Millions of tax-payers dollars have gone to businesses, such
as timber and sugar mills, to establish co-generation plants, utilising heat
they were already using in their manufacturing processes, to also generate
electricity.
Both industries create significant amounts
of waste, and are ideally placed to benefit from co-generation, a win-win
situation indeed. However, while it is undoubtedly renewable energy, it is far
from clean. Reports from the USA, which has a long history of wood-fired power
generation, show the resultant emissions are actually worse than those from
burning coal.
Conservationists in Australia have long
been concerned that any up-take in biomass burning here would ultimately lead
to the burning of native forest timber, to the detriment of those forests. The
fact that some of the most strident supporters of biomass use are from the
timber industry adds to those concerns.
The co-generation at sugar mills,
originally promoted as a way of disposing unwanted bagasse and cane tops during
the short crushing season, has turned more to burning wood because it is more
efficient.
Initially this was promoted as a way to
dispose of pest species such as Camphor Laurel. However, as feared, some sugar
mills have seized the opportunity to turn themselves into full-time wood-fired
power stations, and are burning wood chips which they claim is waste.
One Clarence Valley timber mill is
currently applying to Council to increase its wood-chip output from 1,000 to
50,000 cubic metres annually to feed the sugar mills' furnaces. Clearly this is
not waste timber, but logs that have no commercial value, hence the state government's
current move to allow clear-felling in state forests, a practice that has been
happening illegally for a decade or more.
If we value our unique wildlife, and
amazing biodiversity, this madness has to stop.
- John
Edwards
This article was originally published in the VOICES FOR THE EARTH column in The Daily Examiner on October 16th, 2017.
