It’s usually claimed that the UK must burn American and Canadian forests in its energy stations to cease the lights going out. However evaluation by NRDC exhibits that actual renewables like wind and photo voltaic are already assuaging the necessity to burn tens of millions of tonnes of wooden in UK energy stations.

Within the first six months of 2023 (January–June), the usage of real renewables averted the burning of 32 million tonnes of wooden in bioenergy energy stations — primarily Drax.

Wind, photo voltaic, and hydro generated 44TWh of electrical energy, in response to the Nationwide Grid. To supply the identical quantity of electrical energy from bioenergy would have required 32 million tonnes of wooden pellets. That’s 3.5 instances the UK’s present annual use of wooden pellets, which stands at round 9 million tonnes. This may have required 501 shipments throughout the Atlantic (from Canada and the U.S. Southeast, the place the UK obtains most of its wooden pellets) — the most important single cargo to Drax energy station was 63,907 tonnes.

Renewables like wind and photo voltaic are so low cost they assist scale back vitality payments, whereas biomass is so costly that it usually will increase individuals’s electrical energy prices. These levies on vitality payments are used to pay for billions of subsidies the federal government points yearly to allow the trade keep afloat financially. With out this, burning bushes in energy stations could be too costly to maintain itself via promoting electrical energy alone. Contrastingly, wind and photo voltaic at the moment are so low cost that they now not want subsidies more often than not.

Low-cost, clear renewables are serving to to keep away from the burning of tens of millions of additional tonnes of bushes. Bioenergy is extremely costly and pushes up vitality payments, destroys forests, and poisons individuals’s air. It additionally depends on enormous imports of wooden — weakening Britain’s vitality safety.

A clear, inexpensive, safe vitality system is in attain, with out burning bushes, if we had extra wind, photo voltaic, hydro, and battery storage. The federal government wants to finish all subsidies for burning forests in energy stations and deal with unblocking a backlog of actual renewable tasks ready to hook up with the grid.

Nonetheless, the UK authorities is doubling down on burning much more wooden in energy stations, via its latest Biomass Technique. Nevertheless, it brazenly admits that by 2050 we might have nowhere close to sufficient imported biomass to fulfill UK demand. Wind and photo voltaic then again are free and available within the UK. Burning imported bushes isn’t any option to improve the UK’s vitality safety or reduce its carbon, however there’s loads of untapped potential in actual renewables that would assist scale back the UK’s dependence on burning North American forests.

Background Info

1. Inspiration for methodology drawn from ECIU Energy Tracker methodology, though any variations/errors are these of the creator. Calculations: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Iz_fLM5_KQ5Zq3gYU5G0JSSwqxa5IEH…
2. Month-to-month electrical energy technology from renewables (wind, photo voltaic, hydro) from Nationwide Grid ESO month-to-month statistics: https://www.nationalgrideso.com/electricity-explained/electricity-and-me/great-britains-monthly-electricity-stats.
3. Biomass energy plant effectivity of 29% from Drax Electrical Insights: https://stories.electricinsights.co.uk/methodology/.
4. Wooden pellet vitality internet calorific worth of 4.8kWh/kg from Forest Analysis: https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/fthr/biomass-energy-resources/reference-biomass/facts-figures/typical-calorific-values-of-fuels/.
5. Largest service cargo of wooden pellets to Drax 63,907 tonnes: https://www.drax.com/press_release/draxs-largest-biomass-shipment-arrives-at-the-uks-biggest-biomass-handling-facility/.

By Matt Williams, NRDC.

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