Trees are considered “renewable energy” so greenies are destroying the environment, in order to save it.
Many millions of tonnes of wood pellets will soon be shipped annually to help keep the lights on in the UK. Other EU nations may follow.
Critics say subsidising wood burning wastes money, does nothing to tackle climate change in the short term, and is wrecking some of the finest forests in the US.
I have tracked the controversial trade from the swamp forests of North Carolina to the towering chimneys of the UK’s biggest power station, Drax in Yorkshire, which is converting half its boilers from coal to wood.
The implications are complicated and disputed, but it is clear that EU leaders did not have burning American wood in mind when they mandated that 20% of Europe’s energy should come from “renewable” sources.
BBC News – Renewable energy: Burning US trees in UK power stations
What is clear is that EU leaders are a bunch of imbeciles.
That’s progressives for ya, always leaning forward. Hey, maybe we can invent smaller engines that burn wood, to power trains and cars too!
How ironic. Trees replacing coal as the new CO2 death-train villain.
And in the UK biomas and wood burners have NO restriction on sulfur or particulates that they release!
… or mercury.
… this is good mercury, as opposed to the bad mercury that’s in coal.
yes it’s so green đŸ˜‰
What is clear is that EU leaders are a bunch of imbeciles, as shown by recient events and police action/inaction in London and Sweden.
I think it’s time that coal was re-classified as dark, very old, compressed wood pellets.
If you are cutting a forest for lumber, why not burn the low quality wood for energy? Better than burning it in slash fires.
Economically that part would make sense. But converting coal fired power plants to wood pellets is like converting your fossil fuelled car to a wood burning steam engine. The exact opposite of environmental conservation. Destroying the forests to replace coal is quite ironic.
Yes lets remove all the trees that supply us with oxygen DAH!!!!
I’ll wager now that when in future they show water vapour issuing from the cooling towers at Drax it’ll be in puffy white clouds, not the nasty black stuff that used to be shown when they burned coal.
It all depends on the quality of the forest management. Using cull trees for fuel is no different from allowing them to rot in place. CO2 is created by both processes. Removing culls permits their replacement with fast growing young trees which do the lion’s share of sequestering CO2 in land environments.