Clarence Valley Independent, 13 April 2021:
VOICES FRO THE EARTH
In our quest to combat climate change, it seems that political philosophy and denial, spurred on by vested interests, are our greatest impediment to successfully avoiding an unmanageable outcome.
Recently the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, warned that the planet is on track to be 3 to 5 degrees warmer within 80 years. That’s more than double the warming that scientists believe we can safely endure.
In fact, it is now predicted that the manageable 1.5 degree maximum warming could be reached as early as 2024, after which, continued inaction will likely have catastrophic consequences.
With this dire warning front and foremost, one would think there would be some degree of urgency to address the situation, but no, instead, some Australia politicians are advocating for Clean Energy Finance Corporation money to be used to fund new coal-fired power stations, arguably the greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions.
On the other side of the equation, forests across the globe, one of nature’s most efficient carbon depositories, are being cleared at increasing rates for agriculture, and more recently to be burned to generate electricity. Apparently, the term “renewable” is being manipulated to imply it is somehow “clean” and acceptable, and that’s given denialists the opportunity to promote the use of ‘biomass’ here in Australia.
The escalation of biomass use is so great, that a group of over 500 international scientists have written to the Presidents of the US, the European Council, the European Commission, and South Korea, as well as the Prime Minister of Japan, asking them to intervene to end the practice of industrial scale wood-burning for energy production. They rightly argue that the practice is seriously undermining efforts, not only to address climate change, but to protect biodiversity as well.
Native forest timbers are already being burned to produce electricity here in Australia, although not yet at the industrial scale occurring overseas. However, Australian forest timber is already being exported as biomass, referred to as ‘biopellets’, to Japan and elsewhere, for burning to generate electricity.
The insanity continues!
John Edwards
According to the Australian Government Dept. of Agriculture, Water and the Environment “there is potential to expand Australia’s bioenergy sector to increase the use of wood residues from forest operations for electricity and heat generation and transport biofuel production”.
So called “forest waste” is seen as a 23 million tonne per year biomass resource.
The now idle Redbank coal-fired power station at Warkworth, NSW, near Singleton, announced it expects to covert to biomass sometime this year and, in April 2021 is marketing this move as clean, green energy.
Since 2020 Hunter Energy has been seeking expressions of interest for timber from across north-east NSW to fuel this recommissioned power station.
In March 2021 SA port operator T-Ports has announced it had reached an agreement with Mitsui Bussan Woodchip Oceania, Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers (KIPT) and HarvestCo to export timber biomass.
Biomass Magazine, 20 January 2021:
Australia-based Kangaroo Island Plantation Timbers has been awarded a $5.5 million bushfire recovery grant from the Australian government to support the development of a biomass pellet plant and small-scale biomass power plant.
The facilities will be located on at KIPT’s timber processing hub at Timber Creek on Kangaroo Island, a region that experienced a devastating bushfire in December 2019. The island is located off Australia’s southern coast approximately 550 miles northwest of Melbourne.
Once operational, the pellet plant will be capable of accepting fire-damaged logs and any other logs that cannot be sold into export markets. Pellets produced at the plant are expected to be exported using the chip-handling facility at the proposed Kangaroo Island Seaport at Smith Bay.
The project will also include a small-scale power plant to support the pellet mill. That facility will be capable of dispatching base-load power to the electricity grid.
KIPT said due diligence work is underway on the pellet proposal with project partners. The company said it expects to achieve internal approval for the project during the first half of this year, subject to regulatory consent.
In Albany Western Australia, the Plantation Energy Australia (PEA) is running a wood pellet production plant which exports up to 125,000 tonnes of wood pellets every year, mainly to Belgium for use as energy.
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