I was reading an excellent article by Paul Homewood on Biomass (Biomass Emits Double The CO2 Of Gas), when I noticed something very odd in a reply he had from DECC:
We do not routinely estimate the emissions of biogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) from combustion of wood pellets when calculating the national emissions total. In reporting emissions the UK follows the requirements of IPCC guidelines on International Greenhouse Gas reporting. In order to avoid double counting of emissions and removals, the reporting convention is that the CO2 contained within biological materials, such as wood pellets, which are to be burnt for energy purposes, such as electricity generation, is accounted for by the harvesting country. This emission is reported by countries included under the forest management sector.
Did you spot it? They don’t emissions from Biofuels – instead they only count the amount of CO2 “saved” in the harvesting country.
So, let’s use a simple example to illustrate. We have two forests. One story CO2 last century the other story CO2 millions of years before. In each 1tonne of CO2 equivalent is stored in the wood. In one it is known as “coal”, in the other “wood”. They both contain the same amount of CO2.
But when Carbon in the form of “wood” is burnt, it’s emissions are not counted, whereas when is “coal” they are. However apparently the CO2 locked up temporarily in the wood is counted.
So here are the equations:
Net CO2 from Coal = CO2 released – CO2 stored
Net CO2 from Coal = 0
Net CO2 from wood = CO2 released – CO2 stored
Net CO2 from wood = 0
So (ignoring processing costs), neither coal nor wood actually cause more CO2 than they consume. But what about how much CO2 is released today? Now we are told we cannot include the CO2 stored in the past in the equation so:-
Net present CO2 from Coal = CO2 released – CO2 stored
Net present CO2 from Coal = CO2 released
Net present CO2 from wood = CO2 released – CO2 stored
Net present CO2 from wood = 0
So, the difference between coal and wood is that all the 1tonne of CO2 from coal is counted and none of that from wood. But this is not how the IPCC and DECC appear to count it. Instead this is what they do:
Net present CO2 from Coal = CO2 released
Net present CO2 from wood = CO2 released – CO2 stored
Net present CO2 from wood = – CO2 stored
Now the difference between coal and wood is twice the total CO2 in the fuel. If e.g. we take a typical example of wood being shipped from America. In the UK (ignoring all the additional CO2 as described in Paul Homeward’s expose) we release the same amount of CO2 from coal and wood. BUT WE ONLY SEEM TO COUNT CO2 IF IT COMES FROM COAL.
That is the height of corruption. Even if CO2 had been important (and it is not) then ignoring CO2 from one fuel is bound to lead to stupid policies which artificially favour one type of fuel purely because it is “politically correct” and not because burning it is of any use to humanity.
The IPCC and DECC really are a bunch of ignorant gullible clowns.
International Panel of Climate Clowns present their latest report.
What are you complaining about Mike Haseler? Everyone’s always having a go at government over job creation and here they’ve gone and made extremely lucrative jobs for hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats and scientists worldwide and that’s not enough for you?
You had me going for a second. Civil servants are like the brakes on a car. They can’t make any car go faster/economy grow, they are totally redundant in “normal” driving, but there are some places where we do need them.
But we certainly don’t need a whole class of public employees whose whole job seems to be convincing everyone we need to be anti-industry, anti-commerce more state control and more public sector employees.
I sympathise with what you’re trying to say, but I don’t read that paragraph the way you do. It says the harvesting country accounts for the CO2. It doesn’t say that the harvesting country ignores emissions. What should happen is what you say: total CO2 emission from burning trees = 0 because it’s just been temporarily sequestered, and the harvesting country takes that into account.
The neat thing about the IPCC guidance of course is that UK can burn as much imported pellet as it wishes without needing to account for its CO2 emissions. If we generated all our electricity at Drax then electricity generation would be carbon-neutral! We can just ignore the emissions of the logging/pellet-creating activities, the ships bringing the pellets here, and the trains carrying them halfway across the country. Drax was built near to coal and water to minimise transport and cooling costs; how sad it’s been reduced to burning low-grade low-energy wood — not even peat! — to meet some pointless arbitrary target. Perhaps the plan is for us all to return to cooking over open wood fires instead of gas to reduce CO2 emissions :(.
“The IPCC and DECC really are a bunch of ignorant gullible clowns.”
They are not ignorant, they DO however hope you are gullible. In the states we call it getting “GRUBERED”