Thursday, April 11, 2013

Wood not so great as sustainable energy source

But it’s still listed, and with grants/tax deductions, there is gold in those trees.

“At current prices, calculates Roland Vetter, the chief analyst at CF Partners, Europe’s largest carbon-trading firm, Drax could be getting £550m a year in subsidies for biomass after 2016—more than its 2012 pretax profit of £190m.

“With incentives like these, European firms are scouring the Earth for wood. Europe consumed 13m tonnes of wood pellets in 2012, according to International Wood Markets Group, a Canadian company. On current trends, European demand will rise to 25m-30m a year by 2020.

“Europe does not produce enough timber to meet that extra demand. So a hefty chunk of it will come from imports. Imports of wood pellets into the EU rose by 50% in 2010 alone and global trade in them (influenced by Chinese as well as EU demand) could rise five- or sixfold from 10m-12m tonnes a year to 60m tonnes by 2020, reckons the European Pellet Council. Much of that will come from a new wood-exporting business that is booming in western Canada and the American south. Gordon Murray, executive director of the Wood Pellet Association of Canada, calls it “an industry invented from nothing”.


“So is it efficient? No.”

http://www.economist.com/news/business/21575771-environmental-lunacy-europe-fuel-future#prclt-akaKL1N4

Link at www.maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com


(Too much is predicated on this modern question: "What is its value?" You might ask, "What is its worth?" and be on a more logical line of thought.)


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