Biomass is real threat to wood supply

For generations, the timber trade has not had to worry too much about wood supply; of course, there have been occasional disruptions in supply, but the trade has usually managed to find solutions, by sourcing elsewhere. However, today, timber industry professionals are increasingly beginning to realise that we can no longer take plentiful global wood supply for granted. The emergence of the renewable energy sector, and more particularly, the wood fired-energy sector, presents us with a very real threat.

What is the scale of wood fuel demand in the UK? If all of the wood-fuelled energy plants that have been proposed in the UK were to be built, they would require four times as much wood as UK forests produce each year. This equation can be multiplied many, many times to give a European, let alone global, perspective. That’s the scale of the problem. When challenged with wood availability data, many in the renewable energy sector respond by saying that if there isn’t enough wood in the UK, (even after they’ve purchased all of the wood that sawmillers and panelboard manufacturers would normally buy), then they will buy wood overseas, without knowing just how much, or how little, is available.

The UK government continues to give generous subsidies to the burgeoning wood energy sector, via ROCs and the newer RHI, funded by us as taxpayers, with the consequence that this boosts the buying power of the energy companies, so that they can easily outbid the domestic wood processing sector for wood.

Other sectors of the global economy are feeling the effects of renewable energy too, for example, an increasingly large proportion of the North American maize harvest is being used for biofuel production, rather than for food production. Should more importance be placed on filling the fuel tank, or feeding the nation?

Surely every right-minded person would agree that burning wood for large-scale electricity generation in inefficient power stations simply squanders our wood resource; which would serve a far more useful purpose if used for product manufacture, where it can have a long service life, thereby locking up carbon for long periods, rather than simply sending it up a chimney and into the atmosphere at the first opportunity.

Our colleagues in the Wood Panel Industries Federation are continuing their Make Wood Work campaign, (www.makewoodwork.co.uk), which we wholeheartedly endorse. This campaign aims to educate and inform politicians and their advisors of the shortcomings of current government renewable energy policy and its impact on the wood processing sector. This is no easy task and deserves everyone’s support.

This isn’t scaremongering; the threat is real and its effects are already being felt in the UK, let alone elsewhere in Europe and further afield. We urgently need to convince the UK government of the folly of its thinking and the harm that its subsidies will cause wood processing and using industries. We must not allow our valuable natural resource to be squandered, for without it, where would we be?

• TTJ Industry Updates are a forum for trade bodies to address key issues.