This is a transcript from The World Today. The program is broadcast around Australia at 12:10pm on ABC Local Radio.
You can also listen to the story in REAL AUDIO and WINDOWS MEDIA formats.
ELEANOR HALL: You might think that renewable energy proponents could count on the backing of environmentalists, and in most cases they can.
But not when it comes to biomass energy, or energy derived from organic matter, including landfill and forestry wood waste.
Some environmentalists are opposed the use of wood in biomass production.
And that’s led to the somewhat unusual situation of the forestry industry accusing environmentalists of thwarting efforts to introduce a commercially viable source of renewable power.
Karen Barlow has been looking into biomass energy for The World Today.
KAREN BARLOW: A glance at any rubbish tip, landfill or stormwater drain shows that humans are very wasteful creatures.
The Earth’s ecosystem can no longer cope on its own with what people and businesses throw away.
Plastics take hundreds of years to break down, while rotting food emits greenhouse-polluting gases.
The recycling of plastics and metals has taken off over the past few decades. Now organic matter is getting another chance at life, as energy.
(sound of earthmover reversing)
The Australian energy company, EarthPower, has a green power plant called an anaerobic digester at Camellia in Western Sydney,
Earthpower’s Managing Director, Gary Levin, says it’s essentially a giant cow stomach –digesting food, liquid and paper waste and turning it into electricity.
(to Gary Levin) Where does all this waste come from?
GARY LEVIN: It’s coming from various food runs, restaurants, supermarkets, shopping centres, food producers and manufacturers.
KAREN BARLOW: I can see bits of salad and plastic and chocolate biscuit wrappings.
GARY LEVIN: Yeah, it comes from a variety of sources. That’s probably coming out of a shopping centre waste bin.
KAREN BARLOW: Would this be normally put in landfill?
GARY LEVIN: That’s right, this is all being converted from landfill.
KAREN BARLOW: Is that the biggest pile of manure I’m every likely to see in my life?
GARY LEVIN: It’s not manure.
KAREN BARLOW: What is it?
GARY LEVIN: It’s sludge coming from the Toohey’s brewery.
KAREN BARLOW: Oh, right.
GARY LEVIN: So, that’s the bit you don’t get to drink.
KAREN BARLOW: It smells a little bit.
GARY LEVIN: Yes… I can’t argue with you.
KAREN BARLOW: Solid organic waste is turned into a rich fertiliser and sold to agriculture and horticulture businesses, while an organic liquid mix goes into the plant’s digesters.
There, bacteria feeds on the liquid, breaking it down into a bio-gas which is fed into engines to generate electricity and heat energy.
That power is then fed into the region’s electricity grid.
(sound of generator)
Environmentalists are thrilled to back bio-energy projects which have duel environmental outcomes. They solve waste disposal problems, they improve air and water quality and the planting of crops for bio-energy may also help land salinity problems.
But Erwin Jackson from the Australian Conservation Foundation has problems with the use of wood waste and other forestry by-products.
ERWIN JACKSON: We have very significant concerns about bio-energy that comes from the cutting down of old growth forests, that’s clearly unsustainable. There may be a role in terms of plantations, but again there you’ve got environmental impacts with the plantations as well. So you need actually consider all of these things when you’re assessing whether it should be classed as a clean energy source or not.
KAREN BARLOW: But the forestry industry believes it’s onto a good thing.
The National Association of Forest Industries says wood waste bio-energy is far less greenhouse gas polluting than coal-fired power.
The Association’s Deputy Executive Director, Phil Townsend, says he’s disappointed that state governments aren’t supporting bio-energy from forestry, saying environmentalists are confusing the public on renewable energy.
PHIL TOWNSEND: We wouldn’t be looking to cut down new trees to produce renewable energy. It’s material that’s already present from existing harvesting operations. We have a number of mills in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and West Australia who have to burn their wood waste from saw milling activities in open pits to get rid of the material.
Now, the governments are saying that this is sustainable forest operations, where the wood comes from, but they won’t let us use the wood waste from those same operations to put into renewable energy. It just doesn’t make sense.
KAREN BARLOW: What are they telling you?
PHIL TOWNSEND: That it’s just not environmentally feasible. That they won’t be acceptable to the community on environmental grounds. But if you have a look at the whole picture of what’s happening with forestry, these logs are, for example, taken from the forests, on a… supposedly on a sustainable basis, meeting the codes of practice that the governments set in place for the industry, we harvest on that basis, meet all the requirements, mill it, and even the waste from that milling process can’t be used for renewable energy generation.
KAREN BARLOW: That doesn’t convince Gavan McFadzean from the Wilderness Society, who says the forestry industry is looking for a new domestic market for native forest woodchips.
GAVAN MCFADZEAN: Well, wood waste is what everyone else in Australia knows to be native forest woodchips, and woodchips are the driving force behind forest destruction of old growth forests, water catchments and endangered species habitats across the eastern seaboard and in the old growth forests of Tasmania.
So, it’s really semantic to say that it’s wood waste.
People’s understanding of renewable energy is genuine biomass, genuine waste, wind power, solar power and the like, it’s not the burning of native forests and old growth forests in particular for power, because they know it’s bad for biodiversity, because the public understands that logging of water catchments is unsustainable, and they know that it has a negative greenhouse outcome, because both the logging of native forests and the burning of native forests has a very poor greenhouse result, in many cases as bad as burning coal generation for electricity.
KAREN BARLOW: Is this controversy over this form of bio-energy muddying the waters for the entire bio-energy sector?
GAVAN MCFADZEAN: Oh, absolutely. It’s a very unfortunate result for an industry which should be a flagship industry representing new technological growth in Australia.
KAREN BARLOW: Biomass energy raises the question of what energy is truly renewable. Those who back biomass energy say the harvesting of biomass fuels should not exceed the rate in which they’re grown.
The International Energy Agency estimates that bio-energy, if properly developed, could meet more than a third of the world’s current energy consumption. And yet, the World Energy Council says the use of bio-energy as a serious source of energy is nowhere close to being realised.
ELEANOR HALL: Karen Barlow with our report.
