- The Authorities’s Division for Enterprise, Power & Industrial Technique (BEIS) is presently consulting on the subsidies it must put in place to assist Bioenergy with Carbon Seize and Storage (BECCS) from 2027-2050
- Rising sufficient power crops to make this work would require round 1.3 million hectares of UK land yearly that’s wanted for meals manufacturing.
- If that land had been as a substitute used to develop wheat, it might produce 15 billion loaves of bread or sufficient energy to feed 4 million individuals for a 12 months.
- Some have estimated the price of such expertise at £31 billion and the Authorities has not dominated out paying for these subsidies via new levies on power payments.
- BECCS energy vegetation produce much less electrical energy as a result of the precise expertise requires quite a lot of power. At Drax energy station in Yorkshire, putting in BECCS expertise and burning wooden might cut back electrical energy output by the quantity wanted for 41,000 properties, risking blackouts. As such, by Drax’s personal figures, BECCS would due to this fact cut back the quantity of energy produced on the plant by a minimum of 28%.
LONDON – SEPTEMBER 22, 2022 – A new report from Cut Carbon Not Forests (CCNF) reveals that the UK Authorities’s plans for Bioenergy with Carbon Seize and Storage (BECCS) – on which it’s presently consulting – might undermine the nation’s meals safety. The Authorities’s official local weather change advisors consider BECCS will likely be wanted to offset 35.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2050 from different components of the economic system – like aviation and business.
At present, most bioenergy makes use of imported wooden from forests abroad. This has important adverse impacts on nature and the local weather. However the Local weather Change Committee and the Authorities have signalled that they could change these imports with power crops grown on UK farms. Whereas current biomass vegetation can solely burn wooden, new ones may very well be constructed to burn power crops.
Deforestation
Rising sufficient power crops to make this concept work would require round 1.3 million hectares of UK land yearly that’s wanted for meals manufacturing. If that land had been as a substitute used to develop wheat, it might make 15 billion loaves of bread, or sufficient energy to feed 4 million individuals for a 12 months.
Along with placing the UK’s meals manufacturing in danger, it could additionally threaten nature, worsen our local weather, and undermine power safety. For these causes, the CCNF coalition urges the Authorities to not assist any Bioenergy with Carbon Seize and Storage.
“Whereas the Authorities and business desperately wish to depend on BECCS to fulfill web zero objectives, it doesn’t make sense from any angle,” stated Elly Pepper, campaigner on the Pure Assets Protection Council (NRDC) and the Reduce Carbon Not Forests coalition. “The truth that the Authorities’s BECCS plan might imply the lack of enormous swathes of land wanted to develop meals for UK households is unconscionable.”
“The one and solely purpose the UK authorities continues to pursue this ill-advised path is its cosy relationship with Drax – the UK’s prime polluter and largest bioenergy generator. Certainly, the Authorities’s present plans for BECCS reads like Drax’s want record and would hand the corporate billions in subsidies, whether or not it efficiently captures carbon or not. Within the midst of a local weather and biodiversity disaster and file meals worth inflation, the federal government should discover actual options to forestall international warming – not perpetuate the company seize that received us into this mess within the first place.”
“Promising power firms extra invoice payers’ or public cash in the event that they set up BECCS is not sensible for the local weather, for power safety, nor for meals safety,” stated Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch. “This proposal is initially about handing Drax more cash to proceed burning hundreds of thousands of tonnes of imported wooden pellets even much less effectively than they’re doing now, with devastating impacts on forests and the wildlife and communities that rely upon them, in addition to on the local weather. Probably, the BEIS proposal might additionally trigger power firms to burn crops on the expense of UK meals safety and UK biodiversity.”
“We’d like pressing actions to deal with the local weather emergency in tandem with gas poverty and the worsening value of dwelling disaster. These should embody large-scale assist for dwelling insulation and different power effectivity and conservation measures in addition to for low-carbon renewable power and warmth pumps – not handing ever extra funds to firms for burning wooden in addition to fossil fuels.”
To obtain the report, titled ‘Burning Bread: How bioenergy with carbon seize and storage (BECCS) would undermine UK meals safety’, please go to: https://www.cutcarbonnotforests.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Burning-Bread-Fact-Sheet.pdf
Media contact
Richard Scarlett
FINN Companions for Reduce Carbon Not Forests
CCNF@finnpartners.com
