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“Rewarding and enlightening!”
Make Wood Work is a national campaign aimed at securing the long-term future of wood panel manufacturing in the UK. The future competitiveness of the industry is under threat — due to distortion of an already fragile wood supply and demand balance in the UK, caused by subsidies available to the energy generators under the Government’s Renewables Obligation.
The report was concerned primarily with the net CO2 emissions arising from competing uses for the UK’s scarce and finite timber resources.
Until recently, the wood panel industry has sourced its timber domestically in the UK on a competitive basis. The competitive market began to be undermined in 2002 by the Government’s introduction of a subsidy to compensate electricity generators for burning renewable fuel in the form of the Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC).
As a result of the ROC subsidies, the projected demand for timber in the UK will outstrip supply by 2012 :
The biological availability of British sourced wood fibre is forecast to increase up to about 2019 when it reaches just over 20 million tonnes per annum and then it is forecast to start decreasing.
Demand during the same period is set to increase to 50 million tonnes as a result of
proposed increases in biomass electricity generation.
Carbon River mapped the emissions associated with one tonne of timber through the wood panel production process and the biomass energy production process. The net emissions of wood panel production and biomass were analysed over a period out to 2120 before a combined process of timber being used in wood panels and then in biomass was also mapped out.
Although the burning of timber is virtually carbon neutral over the lifecycle in comparison to fossil fuels, when compared to wood panel manufacture it is a significantly greater source of CO2 emissions:
The CO2 emissions from the wood panel industry equate to 378kg CO2 per tonne of timber processed.
In comparison, the CO2 emissions from the biomass industry consuming domestically sourced timber equates to 1905kg CO2 per tonne of timber processed.
The Wood Panel Industry’s consumption is relatively stable at between 3.5 to 4.0 million tonnes of timber per annum. If the Wood Panel Industry were displaced by the biomass industry, there would be an increase in net CO2 emissions equivalent to 1527kg CO2 per tonne of timber processed or 6 million tonnes CO2, a 1% increase in UK net CO2 emissions each year.
“Working with CarbonRiver to analyse the comparative carbon lifecycles of 2 industries competing for a finite resource proved to be both rewarding and enlightening.
The detailed analytical work undertaken by the CarbonRiver team highlighted some stark choices for the best environmental use of the UK’s scarce timber resource.“
Gavin Adkins, Director, Kronospan
