Greenpeace backs biomass electricity expansion
Proposals to increase biomass electricity generation in Energy [R]evolution, Greenpeace’s new scenario to wean the world off fossil fuels, are totally out of step with common ecological sense, writes Jim Thomas.
Hi folks fighting biomass electricity expansion,
I just received the following advert from Greenpeace international for their Energy [R]evolution plan to get the world off of fossil fuels and guess what?? It’s stuffed with biomass! I can't believe they are so so so short-sighted.
According to their Energy [R]evolution plan they intend to increase Biomass electricity generation for non OECD and OECD countries significantly. For example, the plan states that in North America Greenpeace supports the option of increasing biomass electricity generation from 14 GW in 2007 to 48 GW in 2020 to 79 GW in 2030 and ultimately contemplates as much as 136 GW in 2050. In Latin America, they propose increasing from 4 GW to 82 GW, in Europe 21 GW to 113 GW. Transition economies from 0GW to 90 GW, India 73 GW, China 96 GW of biomass and so on and so on. That’s a lot of woodchips and agricultural products being poked into burners
For an organisation who lists global forest protection as one of their key campaigns, has consistently opposed incineration and is pursuing 'sustainable agriculture' the Energy [R]evolution plan is a bizarre document totally out of step with common ecological sense – like really bizarre: For example, a photo on page 39 proudly shows a truck dropping ‘another load of woodchips at the biomass power plant in Lelystad, the Netherlands’, as if this was progress manifest, while elsewhere cows graze in front of biomass reactors producing mythical ‘CO2 neutral electricity’.
It seems their scenarios on Biomass were developed by a German Biomass Institute.
Okay… this is really bad news… and a slap in the face to all the forest, anti incinerator and other groups painstakingly working to remove biomass and especially bio-electricity from the carbon trade and government so-called renewable policies...
As we all are becoming tired of repeating, there is nothing carbon neutral about biomass – indeed biomass burning is generally higher in CO2 emissions than coal and that’s before you factor in land use change, transport, infrastucture – nor are forest ecologies logged for woodchips particularly renewable...
Anyway, I'll let others pick through the document (you can find it [utrl=http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/ene…">here)but I think Greenpeace Climate campaign have some serious explaining to do the rest of us...
Jim Thomas
ETC Group (Montreal)
+1 514 2739994
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From Greenpeace:
It's time for us to get out from under the thumb of 'big oil'. It's time for a revolution:
We've worked with 30 scientists and engineers from universities, institutes and the renewable energy industry to create an Energy [R]evolution scenario.
Using only existing technologies, it charts a course by which we can get from where we are now, to where we need to be: decreasing CO2 emissions after 2015; 95% renewable electricity by 2050; a phase out of nuclear power; 12 million jobs by 2030, with a third more jobs in the global power supply sector than in a business as usual scenario.
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