The European Biomass Association (AEBIOM) presented a workshop in the European Parliament recently entitled “Bioenergy from sustainable forests – a carbon neutral source of energy”.
The workshop aimed to provide the facts that the carbon stock in the European forests is increasing and that biomass from forests is a part of the neutral carbon cycle of bioenergy.
AEBIOM used the workshop to draw attention to the fact that carbon dioxide savings related to bioenergy depend very much on the parameters used in the counting methodologies and do not always represent the reality. However, it went on to say that “bioenergy can be produced while at the same time carbon stock in the forest is increasing, ensuring a carbon neutral source of renewable energy”. It also emphasised that using bioenergy instead of fossil fuels “decreases carbon dioxide emissions, for an unlimited period as biomass is growing continuously”.
The association also highlights that forests play important social and economic roles in Europe, securing a large number of jobs along the whole value chain; providing raw materials; acting as areas for recreation, leisure activities, wildlife and the preservation of the natural habitat; as well as protecting natural water cycles and stabilising regional climates.
Over-exploitation must be avoided
However, AEBIOM argues that biomass use can only be increased while keeping carbon neutrality if forests are managed in a sustainable manner.
It reports that forests are continuously storing carbon and should not be over exploited to ensure they remain carbon neutral. In other words, “a stable wood stock should be permanently ensured”. Thankfully, several inventories of European forests prove that this objective is being over achieved. “The forest area and wood stock are significantly increasing year after year with a sequestration of roughly 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually”, says the association. Thus the European forest is not only producing wood for different purposes but is also an important pool for storing carbon.
AEBIOM underlines, however, that increasing carbon stock in the forest without exploiting it is “a big mistake” because forest will become older, with lower annual production and consequently lower substitution of fossil fuels, while at the same time storing less and less carbon per annum.
Carbon neutrality
“In a sustainably managed forest, biomass is a carbon asset and its use does not create a carbon debt,” says AEBIOM. “This is the case only when deforestation or over-exploitation takes place, which is not the case in Europe.”
The association suggests that Europe is providing a good example of sustainable forest management, but warns that mechanisms have to be implemented to ensure that imports of wood for industry and energy from outside Europe are coming from countries and areas with sustainable forestry.
It concludes that renewable energy policy will increase the demand for solid biomass in the coming years, which will come from forest, agriculture (ligno-cellulosic energy crops) and waste streams, but points out that “dedicated measures for additional biomass production and supply are needed”.
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