Welcome to the Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate library. It has been brought together by the Forest, Climate and Biomass Working Group of the Environmental Paper Network. We want activists, communities, scholars – anyone who’s interested in forest biomass issues – to be able to find all the key resources in one place. So we’ve gathered together key resources that present case studies and explain the science behind biomass energy and its impacts on forests and climate.
If you have any suggestions for resources we should have in this library or any comments about it, please contact us. You may also find our Frequently Asked Questions helpful.
A list of letters, reports and news articles which debunk false claims that biomass is a carbon neutral source of energy.
Read More (PDF)Organization: EPN's Forest, Climate and Biomass Working Group
Author: Various
Date: 2023
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Dossier
Topics:
The role of forests in climate mitigation is generally judged too optimistically without due regard to the threat of
tipping points and short-term contributions to global warming from using woody biomass for energy purposes.
Research article on biomass deception with the Danish example of massive scale conversions from fossil to biomass sources for combustion-derived energy as a case in point.
Organization: US-China Law Review
Author: Rolf Czeskleba-Dupont
Date: 2021
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
This paper provides background information on the use of woody biomass for power and heat within the EU – the main global source of demand for non-traditional uses of biomass – and examines patterns of demand and supply in nine EU member states, together with the policy frameworks that support the use of biomass for energy. In 2016 (the latest year for which figures are available), the countries analysed in this paper, which have been selected to include a range of different patterns of use and sourcing of woody biomass, were nine of the 11 largest consumers of energy from solid biomass for power and heat in the EU.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Chatham House
Author: Duncan Brack et al
Date: 2018
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
Short animation explaining why burning biomass produces more carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated than almost all fossil fuels.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Chatham House
Date: 2022
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Video
Topics:
In January 2018, the European Parliament voted its support for the Renewable Energy Directive that would double the amount of renewable energy to be added between 2020 and 2030. While the directive contains many excellent provisions, it will unfortunately double the amount of energy coming from forest bioenergy.
Read More (PDF)Organization: Global Development And Environment Institute at Tufst University
Author: William R. Moomaw
Date: 2018
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
As a part of its climate policy, Finnish government facilitated the creation of low-carbon roadmaps by sectors of industry. The roadmap process and the roadmaps were promoted as an international benchmark in COP26. They also form a part of the policy process towards the government's goal of carbon neutrality by 2035. We analyse the need and role of biomass use contained in the roadmaps of the key sectors and compare it to data on available forest biomass.
Read More (PDF)Organization: Energy Strategy Rewievs
Author: Antti Majava et al.
Date: 2022
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
The net impacts of a wood-dependent pellet industry of global importance on contemporaneous local forest carbon component pools (live trees, standing-dead trees, soils) and total stocks.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Nature
Author: Francisco X. Aguilar et al.
Date: 2022
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
Increasing demand for woody biomass-derived electricity in the UK and elsewhere has resulted in a rapidly expanding wood pellet manufacturing industry in the southern US. Since this demand is driven by climate concerns and an objective to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the electricity sector, it is crucial to understand the full carbon consequences of wood pellet sourcing, processing, and utilization. We performed a comparative carbon life cycle assessment (LCA) for pellets sourced from three mills in the southern US destined for electricity generation in the UK.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
Author: Thomas Buchholz et al.
Date: 2021
Location: Array
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
An update of previous work on bioenergy subsidies for the NRDC. It has updated inventories of subsidies for electricity generation from solid biomass in 12 key European countries. The work identified an increasing trend in total subsidies across these countries, although trends vary per country. The study also (1) updated statistics on the uses of solid biomass for energy purposes; (2) analysed the potential impacts if subsidies were instead spent on either home insulation or heat pumps – case studies were prepared for the UK and the Netherlands; (3) analysed the potential cost of Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) to highlight its high cost, the case of Drax power in the UK was used to illustrate this case.
Read More (PDF)Organization: Trinomics for the Natural Resource Defence Council (NRDC)
Author: Matthew Smith et al.
Date: 2022
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
