Wood to Energy

Wood Energy as a Climate Change Solution

Bob Percyasepe was the representative of C2ES and former deputy director of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2009 to 2014, serving as U.S.DA's vice minister of natural resources and environment from 2013-2017. In response, he expresses his views on biomass energy as follows.

According to the U.S. EPA, it will soon be regulated by the Clean Air Act as the harmful effects of carbon dioxide from burning wood fuel increase.

Biomass produced by burning wood fuel is more harmful than fossil fuels or can destroy forests. Eco-friendly, it is a climate-friendly alternative to fossil energy. Both views, of course, cannot be true. It should consider what would be the forest biomass policy approach that is desirable for forests and helps fight climate change.  

According to research, deforestation accounts for 23 percent of the greenhouse gases emitted by the land sector worldwide. In the United States, forests actually absorb about 15 percent of the annual fossil fuel greenhouse gas emissions. Everyone knows that growing trees can cope with climate change. However, opinions are divided on whether some forest products should be used to produce energy.  

Most forests in the United States are privately owned. Harvesting timber is essential because it provides incentives for landowners to reforest and preserve existing forests at a time when housing development is gradually increasing. The lumber market is also essential to dealing with deadly forest fires. That's because it can fund selective harvests that clean up overgrown forests and restore ecological health.  

In general, the forest product market consists mainly of paper pulpwood and hardwood used for construction and other purposes. Forest owners also sell low-value trees that can be processed into wood grains for energy production. Forest bioenergy can have great advantages to the environment if it agrees with some basic principles.   

First of all, the harvest of wood products, including bioenergy, should be sustainable and protect forest health in the long run.

In addition, all policy approaches to biomass should closely study the effects of GHG from replacing renewable biomass with fossil fuels. We have the technology and know-how to monitor the forest's carbon inventory to ensure that more carbon is stored than the loss from the forest harvest. In addition, biomass energy has a much lower net emissions than fossil fuels and, in many cases, carbon neutral because carbon is reabsorbed in growing forests.

In terms of energy, there will have to be extensive consultations for de-carbonation by the middle of this century to avoid a serious climate crisis. Coal is on the decline as the use of natural gas, as well as solar and wind power increases, but we must not stop the move. Biomass provides sustainable energy sources, unlike such eco-friendly energy sources.  

According to EU regulations, forest biomass can be considered climate-friendly if the carbon inventory of forests where it is harvested is maintained or increased. Thus, such an approach can ensure that our forests eliminate more carbon than emissions and move our energy systems to greenhouse gas emissions on a net basis by 2050.

[Environmental Media = Reporter Hwang Won-hee]