Biomass Energy Never Carbon Neutral

Bio­mass Ener­gy Nev­er Car­bon Neutral

-by Karen Orr, Ener­gy Jus­tice Network

Bio­mass ener­gy is not car­bon neu­tral and nev­er will be.

For years sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have shown that bio­mass ener­gy isn’t car­bon neu­tral in any use­ful time frame. A 2012 study from Nor­way demon­strates that log­ging forests for bio-ener­gy leads to a per­ma­nent increase in atmos­pher­ic car­bon diox­ide. Expan­sion of indus­tri­al scale bio­mass ener­gy will exac­er­bate cli­mate change.

Fuel­ing bio­mass oper­a­tions adds car­bon to the atmos­phere at the smoke­stack. Increased bio­mass removals esca­lates stress to forests and soils and reduces long term growth rates, thus also adding to atmos­pher­ic car­bon lev­els by absorb­ing less.

Bio­mass incin­er­a­tion is not clean, sus­tain­able, renew­able, cost effec­tive, healthy or eco­log­i­cal­ly sound. We must stop burn­ing and let forests expand to clean up the mess we’ve made of our air and atmosphere.

Sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies on bio­mass and glob­al warm­ing are avail­able at http://www.energyjusticenetwork.org/content/biomass-library-scientific-reports