Lars Schernikau
Is burning organic matter really saving the planet?
Lars Schernikau: Energy Economist, Commodity Trader, Author (recent book “The Unpopular Truth… about Electricity and the Future of Energy”)
Details inc Blog at www.unpopular-truth.com
Is biomass really the climate hero it claims to be?
We’ve been told it is clean, renewable, and part of the solution. But dig a little deeper, and the picture gets a little murkier.
Governments are pouring subsidies into biomass projects, and energy companies are branding it as a climate win. But when you zoom out and look at the full lifecycle…from harvesting through transport to emissions, biomass starts to look a lot less like a solution, and much more like a loophole.
Could it be that, burning wood and waste for energy might be more about clever accounting than actual carbon cuts? Let´s find out…
A blast from the past
Before fossil fuels became the flavour of the month, we relied on firewood, crop waste, and other forms of biomass to power our lives. Now, with the push for cleaner energy sources, biomass is back on the menu and being marketed as a “green” alternative. But the return of this “ancient” solution raises a critical question: are we actually helping the environment, or just shifting the damage?
Figure 1: Estimates for global biomass energy and sectoral breakdown, Schernikau based on various sources available in the blog
The biomass boom
Today, biomass accounts for a significant slice of the renewable energy pie. Wood pellets shipped across oceans, food waste turned into fuel, and even whole forests chopped down in the name of sustainability. Among others, Finland and Sweden are leaning hard into biomass, showcasing it as a reliable and renewable source of electricity.
On the surface, it sounds like a great idea to use organic material we otherwise would have thrown away anyway, burn it for power, and call it a win for the climate. But like most things in energy policy, the reality is messier and much more complex.
Green on paper, dirty in practice?
Biomass gets a lot of mileage out of being labelled as “carbon neutral”. The idea that any CO₂ released when it’s burned is offset by the carbon the plants absorbed while growing sounds tidy, right?
Except… it’s not that simple.
Burning wood produces more CO₂ per unit of energy than coal. And those trees? They don’t grow back overnight. It can take decades, even centuries, for regrowth to rebalance the carbon books…if it ever does. Then throw in the emissions from harvesting, processing, and transporting the biomass across continents, and the green credentials start to look a little shaky.
Figure 1: Does replacing coal with wood lower CO2 emissions? Source: IOP Science
What’s the real cost?
Beyond the whole carbon math, biomass has other consequences. Forests cleared for fuel mean lost habitats and biodiversity… and air quality near biomass plants often takes a hit as well.
There’s also the policy angle…subsidies and carbon accounting tricks can make biomass look greener than it really is. Some critics argue that the incentivizing of practices that aren’t sustainable in the long run is taking place, just because they tick the right regulatory boxes.
This isn’t about dissing biomass
To be clear…the idea of turning waste into energy isn’t inherently bad. Done effectively, on a small scale, using truly renewable inputs, biomass can play a role in the clean energy mix. But like most things, scale matters. Context matters. And honesty matters.
Curious to know more?
I put together a quick breakdown of what’s really going on with biomass, and why it might not be as sustainable as it looks. If you’ve ever felt like some parts of the climate conversation just don’t add up, this one’s for you. The full blog post digs deeper into the numbers, the policy loopholes, and the real-world impact of the biomass obsession. If you’ve ever wondered how “green” green energy really is, this one’s worth the read.
-> How “Green” Does Biomass Make the World?
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While we’re on the topic of biomass… It’s my opinion that corn should be food or feed, not fuel.
A guy I knew at NREL said we should drink the best and burn the rest. Probably we should take care of food needs first.
I’m 100% in agreement with that.
The sugars are removed and the rest is fed to the cows. Cows have unique digestion that handles the pulp.
If it takes 100 years to regrow the trees used in biomass (Drax) and one day to burn them then it takes 36525 days to carbon sink the first days burn prior to the next harvest and 36525 days worth of burning to complete the first cycle. How much CO2 is released burning trees for 36525 days? How “Green” can biomass really be?
Producing more CO2 is good for the planet, so biomass must be good as well.
In that respect it is very CO2 friendly. If your view is to limit/end CO2 emissions for energy production then it certainly isn’t the option. That would be nuclear or as “HW” said Nucular
Burning oil and coal also produces more CO2, which is good for the planet, so burning oil and coal must be good as well.
Both are equally good but the Government doesn’t think so.
Fundamentally, biomass is not attractive as a replacement for fossil fuels. It lacks energy density. It contains about half the energy content chemically because biomass molecules are already partially oxidized. A lot of energy has to been expended to gather and process biomass, and for liquid fuels, to chemically convert it to so that it has the right properties.
You left out air pollution, which is real with biomass.
And think of the amount of premature deaths caused by it in poor countries
Exactly
Yep, the wood needs to be…
Harvested
Transported
Dried in Kilns
Processed into chips (pellets)
Packaged
Transported to storage
Transported to the dock
Transported over the ocean
Transported to the facility for use
Stored at the generation site
Delivered to the burner
Then the ash needs to be dealt with.
Depends on the situation.
My daughter and son-in-law use biomass for all their energy – cooking, heating, hot water, everything; but they have enough trees in their yard to last for ever – they cut down one a year, (if the wind doesn’t blow one down over the winter), plant the replacement and dry the cut timber themselves so have almost none of the above costs.
The people against energy production and pushing alternatives really only have one metric on their minds.
Does it produce ample amounts of energy efficiently, continuously and inexpensively?
If the answer is yes, then it is evil and must be replaced with something that produces small amounts of intermittent energy at exorbitant costs.
If the answer is no, then it is great and perfect and should be the energy we ‘rely’ on.
The Population Bomb is the user manual.
When studying for my BSc, many years ago, I had an assignment to look at different means of generating electricity; to compare and then write a paper on my preference. I looked at many but decided that the Swedish Cogeneration (Combined, Heat & Power) was, for the UK, a suitable method of incinerating tonnes of waste, producing hot water to businesses and housing estates and generating reasonably cheap electricity for the area.
The UK has always been against this method of generation even though it reduces (smelly and CH4 producing) waste, produces hot water on demand and electricity is so much cheaper than Wind or Solar and the footprint is so much smaller.
I wonder if the public, after the Spain saga, would find this method more acceptable than unreliable wind/solar? And, a saving of a few £billion, as far as I know no cogeneration plants receive subsidies(?)
Cogeneration would certainly be getting favorable treatment,as it would be considered “carbon-neutral”. That aside, if it makes economic sense, then sure, why not? The limitations on it would be trucking costs. The further you have to haul it, the more expensive it gets. Placement could certainly be a factor as well. Who wants truckload after truckload of smelly garbage trundling through where they live? Or, for that matter, the possible pollutants from burning it. Rather a sticky wicket.
Bruce,
Plants now use “wet” scrubber technology that involves spraying waste flue gases with a liquid reagent which removes toxins as the gas percolates through the scrubber tank. The gas goes through additional stages of scrubbing, condensers recover latent heat and the chemical components of the scrubbed gas are analysed and measured according to environmental standards before it is vented into the atmosphere. Alo adding a second stage to the HCl scrubber increases the surface area of cleaning material and enable the system to remove more pollutants from the waste gas.
Perhaps you have considered incineration / co-generation against every alternative uses of the same, limited resource? How about composting?*
Similarly, instead of industrial-scale solar-PV / battery-farms, why not industrial scale-Greenhouses (the real horticultural ones, i.e. nurseries), using the same resource — the ‘excess’ visible photon-flux?
Why not?
A fair economics analysis would never consider only the gains, i.e. competitiveness with respect to power generation, without also considering the real losses of redirecting an otherwise valued resource!
———————
I suggested, in my submission, that the hot water produced could be used to provide ‘all-year-round’ heat to Greenhouses if they were built within a reasonable distance of the plant.
How do you compost paper/plastics etc?
Composting produces CO2 and CH4, not exactly what you are trying to sell.
No market for fertile soil? “to enrich garden soil, … worms break down food scraps into worm castings, which can be used as fertilizer.”
Sure, but the issue is negotiating a path through the Eco-Nazis’ “greenhouse gas” Boogeyman. Any “process” which “emits” the “Satanic Gases” (h/t to the late Patrick Michaels) will cause the same gnashing of teeth currently going on about so-called “fossil fuels.”
Imagine for one moment that the whole carbonastrophic scam never existed. The “issue” of so-called bio-fuels vanishes. Anyone suggesting that wood waste, used cooking oil, algae, or whatever other far-fetched fantasy.the carbonistas have schemed about to produce energy on any large scale would be laughed out of the room. They simply cannot produce energy on any scale close to the energy dense fossil fuels without spending at least triple the amount of money, and at who knows what environmental cost. Case closed.
From Figure 1:
“~700TWh biomass makes up 2,3% of ~30.000 TWh global electricity”
I was confused till I realized that in American-speak this would read:
“~700TWh biomass makes up 2.3% of ~30,000 TWh global electricity”
Other parts of the world reverse the comma and period conventions.
The decimal point first appeared in the 1440s but some folks still haven’t figured out its proper use. 😉
If biomass is carbon neutral, why aren’t cow farts and belches carbon neutral? Asking for a friend.
Using CarbonLogic [TM], because we raise cows due to our planet-killing desire for dairy products. And that means more methane, which will cause the oceans to boil. How dare we. Which reminds me, I need to go get some ice cream.
The concentration of CH4 in the air is about 1.9 ppmv. The reason the concentration of CH4 is so low is due to the initiation of its combustion by discharges of lightning. There are millions of lightning discharges everyday (cf. Wikipedia).
A hydrocarbon gas, CH4 is readily oxidized by ozone. CH4 is slightly soluble cold water.
We really do not have to worry about methane.
THEY ARE, actually.
Apparently the Eco-Nazis find previous non-domesticated ruminant animals like Buffalo to be invisible in this regard.
Call it Biomess.
Or Biomadness.
But the return of this “ancient” solution raises a critical question: are
we actually helping the environment, or just shifting the damage?
___________________________________________________________________
Damage? As in emitting CO2? Emitting CO2 isn’t causing any damage!
I’m away from my desktop PC, otherwise I’d paste up that Chris Farley
image with the caption:
“For the love of God, please stop buying
into their imaginary climate problem.
A quick search by eye (I’m on an IPad away from home) doesn’t turn up “Nuclear”. One has to wonder why the omission.
Go to this site . . .
https://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
… the chart shows balancing of energy in the northwest region of the USA by the Bonneville Power Administration. Under the chart is a list of two dozen small operations listed as “fossil/biomass generation” that appears in the chart as a brown line at the bottom. [Notes: 1 – The Columbia Generating Station is off-line for refueling and maintenance. 2 – Frederickson is a 265-MW natural gas-fired combined-cycle generating facility.] The remaining 23 all seem to be small local operations such as burning actual waste to harvesting methane from landfills. Currently this is very low because – I have no idea, maybe compensating for huge flows in the rivers.
Keep people poor and using ‘biomass’
Wasting farm land and potable water to grow stuff and burn it to extract energy is idiotic when there is perfectly good coal, oil, and gas for that.
I think the idea is to get back to nature and stop using high density energy sources to get the population nrs back to sustainable levels of about 1.5 billion, kill the current economy/ capitalism (still ‘sustainable’), end consumerism and enter communism. Sure it will limit people’s freedom but it will be for a good cause. We will save the planet with a bright future ahead.
Something like that.
Are you signing up?😊
Why, on earth . . . is there any discussion?!
On an annual basis, of the world’s forests, an area twice the size of Switzerland is being destroyed . . . year upon year.
And what this means is, anybody virtue-signalling that timber coming from managed plantations to be burned to generate power is being done “sustainably” . . . is a complete idiot.
And then it becomes even more ridiculous:
The amount of CO2 generated per kWh from biomass – trees – is significantly greater than that generated by coal!!!!
Why, on earth . . . do we put up with this utter stupidity?!!
A few eclectic thoughts–
-growing trees (or any plant) is a carbon sink only temporarily (time scale 10¹ yrs), On time scales of 10²+ there’s no change in CO2 levels. It’s a CYLCE.
A tree that falls in the woods and left alone oxidixes (“slow burn”) over a decade or three. As it does so, it provides micro-habitat for a myriad of plant and animal life. It’s an integral part of the larger ecosystem…Large scale use of biomass as fuel would cause major disruptions of Nature.
Composting- a wise choice for Oliver Wendal Douglas gardening on his Manhattan condo balcony, but didn’t help pre-Bosch-Haber Process farmers much. They all ‘composted” biomass, including manure, but only got 40 bu of corn to the acre. Now we get 200.
Regarding the above article’s title, there is no debate about it: the world’s currently available total biomass ready and able to be burned is totally insufficient to supply the world’s current—let alone future—energy demands (as indicated in the above article’s color table’s first row).
Need I also mention that no aircraft in the world have biomass burning piston or turbine engines? Feel free to lecture me on bio-fuels if you dare.
Not lecturing, but pointing out that biomass can be burned under hypoxic conditions to produce CH4 & H2 which can fuel ICEs (cf- Wood burning Paris taxis during WWII…analogous to Town Gas, a byproduct of coke production in the 19th century piped for lighting houses & street lamps.)
BTW- wood ash makes an excellent source of minerals to replenish fields.
And what aircraft are in the process of converting their ICE or turbine engines to use methane or hydrogen . . . and will such be tanked on the aircraft as high-pressure gas or as cryogenic liquid?
BTW, if you are referring to the use of wood ash to “replenish” fields of trees, I think the turnaround time for cultivating the resulting new biomass is something like 10 years or more.
Not saying we should convert ICEs to gas as fuels, just that we could….
…and wood ash tea is easily made by soaking ash for two days to dissolve those soluble K & P (and other) ions for use as fertilizer. They are immediately available for root uptake….Your “ten yr” figure may be a reference to the time scale for using ash to alter soil pH.
No. Please re-read my post and understand the phrase “. . . if you are referring to the use of wood ash to ‘replenish’ fields of trees” . . . trees do not grow to harvestable size for biomass energy use overnight.
Please don’t use “clean” in a CO2 context – that’s Newspeak.
Burning biomass is not green and it is not renewable. Burning waste is one thing cutting down forests is another. I can see burning waste as a way to dispose of it and create power at the same time. That does not mean it is green or renewable. It means we are taking pressure off of landfills.
Cutting down forests to burn for power is burning wood not biomass. My hometown has been fighting burning wood for heat for nearly 50 years because they say it is dirty and unhealthy. Growing a new forest takes several decades. That forest when burned as biomass is probably used up in a year or two. It is a lose lose all the way around.
The VAST majority of our energy needs ARE supplied by ‘biomass’, only we don’t call it that now, we call it ‘fossil fuels’…all of it USED to be living things, it just took millions of years to convert those living things in to the beautiful, high density energy sources we use today….maybe we should just leave well enough alone. Keep burning past living things, dump the CO2 back in to the atmosphere, green the planet again & in another few million years future humans can recycle today’s living things…