By its own admission Forth Energy will be importing most of the wood needed for its biomass plants. This is likely to lead to deforestation in other parts of the world such as Scandinavia and the state of Florida in the U.S. In a letter addressed to the Scottish Government, Friends of the Earth US explains how this project would impact on the US environment.

Carbon dioxide

Logging forests and converting them to plantations releases large amounts of carbon dioxide. This would seriously increase the already alarming levels of greenhouse gas emissions impacting climate change. Even if a new tree was planted for each one cut down – a big 'if' – it would take many decades for them to absorb the carbon dioxide released by burning the tree it replaced. More information regarding the environmental concerns about burning biomass on a large scale can be found here. 

Displacing land and people 

Moreover, the EU Renewable Energy Directive from 2009 allows companies to calculate the carbon footprint of biomass plants without factoring in one of the most significant causes of carbon emissions, a process called ‘indirect land-use change’. When a company decides to grow thousands of acres of forest plantations for biomass that land has to come from somewhere, and that space is often created by displacing forests and agricultural land, as well as the people who rely upon them. In order to plant monoculture crops for biomass, natural lands such as rainforests and grasslands are cut down.

As well as the social and environmental damage, these carbon sinks store carbon throughout their lifetime – when they are cleared for plantations that carbon is released, causing net increases in greenhouse gas emissions. When people in the Global South are cleared off of their traditional land to plant biomass plantations, the problem is often exacerbated when they go on to chop down further forest in desperation so that they can farm.

The whole process of indirect land use change produces significant environmental and social impacts by putting pressure on biodiversity, soil, water quality, food prices, land ownership, displacement of workers and local communities, and cultural disruption. Scotland, with its bountiful renewables resources, should not be moving forward with a form of energy generation with such serious environmental and social consequences for the Global South.

Flawed understanding

While the UK Government and the European Commission acknowledge the need to fix the system for calculating greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels and biomass, a change has yet to be implemented.

Thus, Calum Wilson, director of Forth Energy, has declared that the proposed biomass plants, if approved, would provide a ‘low carbon source of renewable energy that offers significant carbon benefits over traditional fossil fuels’. This claim is based on a flawed understanding of the true carbon emissions caused by biomass production, which doesn’t count the huge environmental damage caused by indirect land use change’

Find out more

Find more info about the Forth Energy proposal
Read a joint NGO report on concerns surrounding biomass (PDF)

What you can do

Write to your local MSP urging him/her to oppose these disastrous projects
Donate to our back away from big biomass campaign