WPAC Report Sustainable Biomass Production European utilities move toward a common verification system. By Gordon Murray P eople hate coal. It’s dirty and releases nitrogen oxides that form smog and sulphur dioxides that cause acid rain. Metals don’t fare much better, as even the tiniest amount of mercury can have a devastating impact on the human nervous system, especially in children, as well as cause multi-organ damage and death. The same goes for lead, which can cause brain damage, impair growth, damage kidneys and trigger learning and behavioural problems. Heavy metals, like cadmium and chromium, cause cancer. Activists take every opportunity to remind the European power utilities of these facts, employing a host of imagi-native ways to embarrass and inconve-nience them – such as chaining them-selves to gates, climbing cranes, hijacking rail cars and blowing things up. The utili-ties are being especially vigilant to ensure that they don’t open biomass up to the same threats. To do this, they must dem-onstrate that biomass’ sustainability is of vital importance. To that end, RWE-Essent, Electrabel and Drax have each implemented their own biomass sustainability verification schemes. Although they have each worked well, there have been drawbacks: • Opponents don’t see the schemes as being independent and trans-parent. • Producers selling to all three utili-ties must manage three separate certification systems. • Lack of uniformity makes it dif-ficult for utilities to trade among one another and still maintain confidence in sustainability. • The schemes are difficult for smaller producers to implement. Consequently, seven European utilities with the Industrial Wood Pellet Buyers group (IWPB) are working toward replac-ing the independent schemes with a single standard verification system. aCtion oF tHe european Commission The Renewable Energy Directive (RED) of the European Union (EU) came into force in 2009 and set an overall EU target of 20% of total energy consumption to come from renewable sources by 2020, as well as setting individual binding national tar-gets for each of the 27 member states. The RED stated that the European Commission (EC) should report by December 2009 on what is required for a sustainability scheme for the use of biomass. Surprisingly, the EC did not propose binding criteria at EU level, but instead recommended that each member state pursue its own sustainability cri-teria. This led to protests not only from the environmental sector, but also from the World Bioenergy Association, the European Biomass Association, and the utilities as represented by the Union of the Electricity Industry, more commonly known as Eurelectric. Eurelectric feared that the develop-ment of many different national sustain-ability schemes would create inefficiencies and increase costs, leading to biomass trade barriers and investment deterrence from uncertainty over long-term fuel sup-ply in a changing regulatory environment. Eurelectric said EU-wide harmonized sus-tainability criteria is needed to provide re-liable evidence to the general public that biomass is a sustainable fuel. Now, the EC is taking a second look at its recommendations. It will report by December 31, 2011, on “whether national schemes have sufficiently and appropri-ately addressed the sustainability related to the use of biomass from inside and out-side the EU, whether these schemes have led to barriers to trade and barriers to the development of the bioenergy sector, and it will consider if additional measures such as common sustainability criteria at EU level would be appropriate.” rationale For universal sustainaBility Criteria In the EU, around 5% of energy con-sumption is from bioenergy. EC pro-jections suggest that biomass use will double, supplying half of the total con-tribution for reaching the 20% renew-able energy target in 2020. But not all biomass is wholly sustainable. Pressure on arable land, peat lands and forested regions for production of biomass is in full force. For instance, large-scale plant-ing of oil palm has accompanied defor-estation in a number of tropical coun-tries, and this appears likely to continue and greatly expand. Acquisition of large land areas in developing countries for growing other crops to extract vegetable oils for export has resulted in displace-ment of subsistence farmers and loss of domestic food production. Verification is required to ensure that biomass trade does not harm the envi-ronment or the people living in regions where biomass is produced. Another ma-jor issue is that sustainable production of biomass must be shown to not reduce the production or availability of food, fibre and water, or of living space and living standards for rural and indigenous popu-lations. Responsible companies need to be protected from those who cut out the socially and environmentally beneficial aspects of the bioenergy business. Un-sustainable biomass production would erode the climate-related environmental Canadian BIOMASS 25
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