Summary
• The public often sees biomass as old-fashioned.
• Negative publicity surrounding liquid biofuels has impacted biomass generally.
• Lack of available land for growing short rotation coppice is a major problem.
• TV Bioenergy supplies around 20,000 tonnes of wood chips per year.

When it comes to wood fuelled biomass, renewable energy expert Keith Richards, of Newbury-based TV Energy, has some advice for the timber industry: “if you can invest, now is the time to do it”.

Having worked in the renewable energy sector for almost three decades, Mr Richards can also advise on subjects such as wind power, ground or air source heat pumps, solar panels and photovoltaics, but one senses he has a particular regard for wood biomass – and that he believes it doesn’t have the high profile it deserves.

“Biomass is very much the Cinderella of the renewables,” he said. “When I worked on government programmes through the 80s and 90s it always received the least attention and geothermals or wind or solar energy got all the notice.” It’s partly an image problem, he added, with wood fuel being seen as old-fashioned and conjuring up pictures of dirty basements with boilers being stoked. It simply isn’t sexy enough for our 21st century sensitivities.

Of course, the reality – clean chips or pellets being fed automatically into systems that are operated by the flick of a switch and that produce very little ash – is somewhat different, and if the image problem can be overcome, then biomass has a cracking story to tell.

Bespoke biomass

“Biomass is the best [renewable energy],” enthused Mr Richards. “The most wonderful thing about it is that it is so bespoke. And it can do so much. You can grow short rotation coppice for wood fuel next to where you’re going to use it, it’s an energy store itself and it sequesters carbon out of the environment – something other renewable options don’t do.

“It’s also part of the environment, so it’s a solution that improves biodiversity,” he said. “There are so many spin-off benefits: it works for flora and fauna; you can create north/south corridors so species can migrate with climate change; you can detoxify the land using phytoremediation [some plants are able to contain, degrade or eliminate contaminants such as metals, pesticides, solvents, explosives and crude oil].”

At the other end of the chain, the wood fuel can be combusted for heat, used to generate electricity and for trigeneration – cooling, heating and electricity. “You can also use wood to produce liquid fuels through pyrolysis,” said Mr Richards. “The technology is still young, but where there’s a will there’s a way and if oil prices keep going up, the way will be found.

“There is a lot of talk about second generation biofuels,” he added. “That will be based on wood or lignum cellulosic material, so we’ll move away from starches, sugars and oils, where we’re competing with food crops and will move onto marginal land for growing woody material that will be used for transport fuels. The expectation is that when these technologies mature we will have a much more sustainable and environmentally-friendly way of producing these liquid fuels – and they’ll have a much better energy value, too.”

Slow progress

Ironically, it’s the fact that biomass offers so many different opportunities that has held it back. Over the past 30 years, it has crossed so many government department borders and created so much debate as to whether it’s an energy crop or an agricultural crop, that no single purpose or direction has ever been agreed. And, because progress has been slow at government level, biomass has also been the victim of what Mr Richards terms “lack of corporate memory”.

“I evaluate proposals for the European Commission and see some shocking things coming through where the work has already been done and the results are in. Why are we doing it again?”

More recently, biomass may have taken a hit from the negative publicity surrounding cereal crop-derived biofuels. “There are a lot of problems with definitions and nomenclature,” said Mr Richards. “Biofuels used to mean all of the biomass fuels, but it doesn’t anymore. Now it’s taken to mean transport fuels, which are mainly bioethanol, biomethanol and biodiesel. The name has been hijacked.”

While it’s unfortunate that wood biomass may end up being tarred with the same brush as transport fuels, there is no doubt that, if it’s adopted at a major level, it too will compete for land. Land is a finite resource and is likely to be biomass’s “biggest impediment”, raising questions over the long-term fuel source supply.

TV Energy works closely with the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA), which has a target of 20% of all its energy from renewable sources by 2020. “To get to SEEDA’s 2010 target of 5.5% of installed capacity coming from renewables – and biomass doing its bit – we haven’t got enough wood in the region and some would have to be imported. For biomass to have a reasonable part of the action for the 20% target of 2020, we would need 55% of the agricultural land in the south-east – that’s not going to happen.”

Land use strategy

The way forward, Mr Richards suggests, is to embrace the idea of a land use strategy and decide “at a very high policy level” what percentage of land can be given over to wood crops and what that will equate to in terms of the “upper limit” of biomass production.

“Then you have to start thinking about where all the rest comes from and you’ve got to be thinking internationally,” said Mr Richards. “And, when wood fuel is traded as a commodity, just as timber is, then you’re into the concept of fair trade.”

Given the rate of progress of wood fuel projects, Mr Richards believes it will be a long time before we reach that point. “The targets that government and regional development agencies are setting are whimsical,” he said. “They are very stretched.”

The issue of infrastructure also has to be addressed. “Government is bringing a new planning regime in for large infrastructure projects, mostly to assist nuclear power projects,” said Mr Richards, who hopes that renewable energy projects could also be fast-tracked.

“We need quite a few large wood fuel [power station] projects in the order of 50MW electrical in the south-east if we’re going to get anywhere near our target,’ he said. “We’d also need a lot of energy distribution systems, with new town centre developments and eco towns having smaller 5-10MW electrical and 20MW thermal projects, plus a plethora of the little ones if we’re going to get there.”

And, as fossil fuel producers continue to hold energy users over an oil barrel, get there we must.

“Things are coming to a head,” said Mr Richards. “You hear about climate change and energy every day. If it’s gas, you worry about Russia, if it’s oil, you worry about Iraq – or about India and China taking it all.”

Industry opportunity

As a result, he said, he does “at last” see biomass, and wood fuel in particular, being taken more seriously. And, of course, the timber industry is ideally placed to capitalise on that interest.

The first step for any timber processor, he said, is to assess how much energy its own operation is using and look for ways to improve efficiency. Then look at the waste that’s generated and see if it can be converted to satisfy in-house heating and power requirements. “If you’ve got more than you can use, then think about what you can produce,” said Mr Richards.

The market for wood fuel is out there. TV Energy’s trading arm, TV Bioenergy, buys wood material from timber processors and merchants, turns it into chips and sells on around 20,000 tonnes of it a year (TV Bioenergy Coppice is another division). “Our main customer is Slough Heat and Power,” said Mr Richards, “but we also service the growing number of small and medium scale wood consumers and are helping to bring those types of projects into being. We can take more chips now and are looking for more suppliers.

“That’s why we’re here,” he went on. “I need to make sure I’ve got a secure, consistent quality product to put into the market, otherwise that market isn’t going to grow.

“And biomass is a positive area for growth,” he said. “Wind and solar power can be intermittent, so the public perception is that renewables are useless, whereas wood fuels provide base load power that is just as good as – in fact, better than – oil, gas and nuclear.”

With that kind of testimonial, it seems Cinderella stands a pretty good chance of getting to the ball.

For more information, go to www.tvenergy.org.