BIOMASS HUB

Debate around bioenergy’s potential to power the world and contribute to climate change continues. A recent report argues against using biomass for energy at UN climate talks this week in Bonn.

Bioenergy — both for power and fuel — has in the past two weeks been shown to have significant potential for powering the world while also posing a threat to the environment.  While it has been touted as a carbon neutral solution, a recent letter sent from leading scientists warns that not all forms of bioenergy produce less carbon dioxide pollution than fossil fuels.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond, the debate around bionenergy has reached a head.

The Environmental News Network reports that a new report issued today by forest advocacy groups at the ongoing United Nations climate talks in Bonn finds warns that burning wood for energy is not a good substitute for burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.

Specifically, the report, “Wood-based Bioenergy: The Green Lie,” which was released by the Global Justice Ecology Project, Global Forest Coalition, and Biofuelwatch argues that bioenergy derived from wood poses many threats to forests and to forest-dependent peoples.  Greenhouse gases are produced by burning fossil fuels and wood and also by deforestation.  The advocates’ report shows that increased support for the burning of wood to produce energy is triggering increased logging and expansion of industrial tree plantations in the United States, Brazil, Ghana and the Congo Basin, as well as West Papua on the island of Borneo.

Simone Lovera, executive director of Global Forest Coalition, a worldwide network of nongovernmental and indigenous peoples’ organizations from 35 countries on six continents, warns:

As the U.S. and other nations turn to burning plants for energy, changing use of land will have global ramifications.  Agricultural lands are shifting to grow bioenergy crops instead of food.  New agricultural lands come at the expense of forests. The process ends with displacement of forest dependent indigenous peoples and massive land grabs.  Wood-based bioenergy is an absolutely false solution to climate change.

The report coincides with a decision by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to allow the planting of over a 260,000 genetically engineered eucalyptus trees across seven states in the U.S. South.  The report finds that U.S. plans for wood-based bioenergy, biochar, and genetically engineered trees will worsen an already dangerous climate situation.

Samoan leader Fiu Mata’ese Elisara-La’ulu, director of the community and environmental group O Le Siosiomaga Society, expressed his concerns about the impacts that this new demand for wood will have on indigenous peoples:

Large scale demand from the North will have serious impacts on indigenous communities, that will lose their forests to legal and illegal logging, as well as conversion to tree plantations.  The argument that these plantations will be on ‘marginal’ lands, and will not compete with peoples’ livelihoods or food production is false.  So-called marginal lands play a vital role in rural people’s livelihoods, providing medicinal plants, grazing, food and shelter.

The USDA concluded from a controlled field trial of a genetically engineered eucalyptus hybrid that field releases of these GE eucalyptus trees are “unlikely to pose a plant pest risk” or to have “a significant impact on the quality of the human environment.”  “Based on its finding of no significant impact,” the USDA agency determined that there is no need for an environmental impact statement before the GE trees are planted out in the field.  Several plantations already exist in Florida and Alabama.

Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology Project notes that:

In spite of global opposition to GE trees, the USDA has approved planting of 260,000 cold-tolerant eucalyptus trees in the southern United States.  Eucalyptus is invasive, flammable, and depletes water.  This will set a dangerous precedent that could lead to large-scale releases of GE versions of native trees like poplars, which would contaminate native forests. Trees spread pollen and seeds for hundreds of miles and once contamination occurs it is irreversible.

As noted earlier, in response to the Senate’s American Power Act, 90 US scientists urged US lawmakers to fix carbon accounting errors around biomass utilization.

In a letter to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Majority Leader Harry Reid, and key Obama administration officials dated May 24, the scientists caution that ignoring the carbon impact of bioenergy can lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions.  Not all forms of bioenergy produce less carbon dioxide pollution than fossil fuels, they warn.

Dr. William Schlesinger, president of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, one of the scientists who signed the letter explains:

There may be a public perception that all biofuels and bioenergy are equally good for the environment and are all lower in carbon emissions than fossil fuels, but that’s not true.  Many produce just as much or more carbon pollution than oil, gas, and coal.  If our laws and regulations treat high-carbon-impact bioenergy sources, like today’s corn ethanol, as if they are low-carbon, we’re fooling ourselves and undercutting the purpose of those same laws and regulations.

More on the environmental debate around bioenergy.

Image: Flickr/Ostrosky