Biomass plants threaten UK wood panel industry, campaign says
Greenwise Staff
28th June 2010
The growing biomass energy industry risks thousands of UK jobs and could increase UK carbon emissions by one per cent, the wood panel industry said today.
The
Wood Panel Industries Federation (WPIF), which today launched a campaign to highlight what it sees as the risks being posed to the sector by
biomass energy, has released research which suggests that the development of large-scale wood fired energy plants in the UK not only risks 8,700 UK jobs but could increase UK CO2 emissions by six million tonnes – or one per cent of the UK’s total net CO2 emissions each year.
The WPIF said at fault is the
Renewable Obligation (RO), a Government subsidy that incentivises biomass energy plants to burn the same wood as is used in wood panels, which are used extensively in the construction industry and in furniture manufacture.
One independent report conducted by Europe Economics, on behalf of the WPIF,
concluded that the entire wood panel manufacturing industry – 8,700 full time equivalent jobs – was at risk if demand from large-scale wood-fired power generators for UK-sourced wood is encouraged to develop unchecked. It said employment effects could extend to the 12,000 or so people estimated by the Forestry Commission to work in sawmilling and related activities should the sawmilling sector experience structural change as a result of the subsidy.
Further research from CarbonRiver found that subsidisng the purchase of wood for incineration encouraged the most carbon-intensive use of that
resource.
It found that should the biomass industry displace the wood panel industry – as trends suggest it might – there would be an increase in net
CO2 emissions equivalent to 1.5 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of wood processed.
Damaging competitition
The WPIF argues that the RO subsidy means biomass energy plants can afford to pay more than double the price currently paid by the UK wood panel industry for its primary raw material. It claims this distortion of the marketplace means WPIF members have experienced an average wood price increase over the last four years of more than 30 per cent.
"Our research proves categorically that the Government’s renewable energy policies – specifically support for biomass – are directly damaging the competitiveness of the wood panel industry in the UK, which is wholly reliant on domestically-sourced wood," said Alastair Kerr, director general of the WPIF.
Kerr said the WPIF was not against the biomass industry, but if the Government did not amend its policy "wood prices could potentially rise to a point where they meet that paid by generators for imported material. This will put thousands of jobs in the UK wood panel and associated industries at risk and has the potential to escalate costs for the construction and furniture industries."
The WPIF launched the 'Make Wood Work' campaign at Westminster today. Among other things, it calls on Government to focus the RO on the expansion of non-wood fuels and fast rotation crops, as these have a greater potential to reduce CO2 emissions in the short term. In the long term, the amount of UK
forest cover should be increased, it said.
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