20041015_R4
Source: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
URL: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/ram/today1_biomass_20041015.ram
Date: 15/10/2004
Event: Burning wood in power stations: replant the trees and "the overall cycle is carbon-neutral"
Credit: BBC Radio 4: Today Programme
People:
- Professor Roland Clift: Emeritus Professor of Environmental Technology, Surrey University
- John Humphrys: Presenter, BBC Radio 4 Today programme
John Humphrys: The government wants farmers to grow more trees, so that they can be burnt! It's called "biomass" - Professor Roland Clift of Surrey University helped draw up a report on biomass for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. I simplify there, obviously, Professor - can you give us a definition of biomass, that we can all understand?
Roland Clift: Oh yes, it's anything which you grow as a fuel. It's a renewable carbon source, because when you grow more trees, the carbon comes out of the atmosphere again.
John Humphrys: So I wasn't simplifying too much, then?
Roland Clift: No. No - it's as simple as that.
John Humphrys: Right. Why do we not do more of it, then?
Roland Clift: Um, that's a very good question, and there are plenty of other European countries where biomass already makes a big contribution to the energy supply. One of the principle reasons we don't do better in this country is that the market for using the biomass hasn't really developed - there's plenty of biomass around, from forest areas in the country, for example. What hasn't developed is the supply chain and the end use.
John Humphrys: But don't we use - don't we need the trees for all sorts of other things? I mean, if we grow pine, for instance, we use it to make paper or whatever it happens to be - there are all sorts of other reasons, other uses to which those trees can be put.
Roland Clift: Well that's a very good question. Large areas of the country are covered in sitka spruce, which was planted to provide input for the paper industry but it now looks pretty clear that the paper industry is not going to need anything like that input of wood, because of the increase of recycling and so on.
John Humphrys: So you're saying that that spruce could be used - could be burnt in furnaces.
Roland Clift: Exactly so, and if you look at the projections - and there's some rather good work being done by the Forestry Commission, for example - if you look at the projections on the availability of wood, there is a lot of it there already. Now, we will still need to grow some more, but stimulating the growth of biomass crops is really not the point.
John Humphrys: But - let me come to that in a second, but when you burn it - wood, that is, whether you burn wood or coal or whatever - you are creating carbon dioxide.
Roland Clift: You are, but then provided you replant the trees or grow something in their place, the carbon comes out of the atmosphere into the next generation of the crop. So the overall cycle is carbon-neutral.
John Humphrys: So why don't we have - I mean, is it the case that we don't have the kind of power stations to burn the stuff in? Is that the problem?
Roland Clift: That's part of the problem. There are ways in which you could use biomass in the existing power stations, but they have been really very severely inhibited by the particular way that the credits for renewable energy have been applied to - it's called "co-firing", basically you mix the wood with coal and then burn it in a power station.
John Humphrys: Right, it gets very complicated when we talk about credits and all that, but in a layman's terms and in about 10 seconds, is this going to change? Are we going to start using more biomass?
Roland Clift: We'll only start using more biomass if we do something to stimulate the demand - encouraging farmers to grow more won't solve the problem. They're not going to plant the crop unless they've got a market for it.
John Humphrys: Professor Clift, many thanks.