Greens hail blow to “ludicrous” practice of burning native forests for energy

The generation of electricity by burning native forest wood waste will no longer be counted as renewable in Australia, as the Albanese government makes good on a deal made during negotiations on the passage of its Climate Bill.

In a statement issued on Friday, after being leaked to the Guardian on Thursday night, federal energy minister Chris Bowen said the government had acted to restore the exclusion of native forest wood waste as an eligible generation source under the Renewable Energy Target.

The changes mean that electricity generated by burning pulverised native forest wood cannot be used to create tradeable Large-scale Generation Certificates – a practice the Australian Greens describe as “ludicrous.”

As RenewEconomy reported in August, using native forest biomass as a source of energy in a carbon constrained world with access to abundant solar and wind power resources is highly controversial – and not just in Australia.

In the UK, climate think tank Ember has named the massive former coal powered Drax wood pellet fuelled power station as the UK’s single largest source of carbon dioxide.

In Australia, energy generation from native forest biomass was ruled out of the Renewable Energy Act 2000 under the Labor Gillard government, until an amendment to legislation by the Abbott government in 2015 ruled it back in.

Bowen said on Friday that the decision to amend the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Regulations 2001 followed federal Labor’s “consultation process,” including the findings of a Senate Committee during which over 2900 submissions were received.

But in its own statement on Friday, the Australian Greens said the party had secured a commitment from the Albanese government to reassess the practice of native forest biomass as part of negotiations on its 43% emissions reduction target.

“We have pushed the government to act on this dirty practice in a major win for the climate, for native forests, and for clean energy,” said Greens senator Janet Rice.

“Burning wood from native forests for energy is a disaster for the environment. Pretending it was renewable was ludicrous.

“The Greens fought hard to end this farce, and we’re glad that the government has worked with us and listened to the community who campaigned hard to end this absurdity.”

Environmental groups and the Greens have campaigned for years to reverse the Abbott-era decision, which – among other things – paved the way for Australian coal power companies to keep their plants running on trees instead of coal.

In a submission on the Climate Bill from Wilderness Australia, the group noted that since 2015 there had been an increase in the number of proposals to use native forest biomass as a replacement for coal or use it to co-fire with coal in the name of clean and renewable energy.

As recently as June, the CEO of Alinta Energy – the operator of what will be one of the last coal generators operating in the grid – set off for Europe to meet with generation companies with experience converting from coal to biomass.

How the Albanese government’s change to Renewable Energy Regulations – and notably not to legislation – will affect any plans for woody biomass plants going forward remains to be seen.

In his statement on Friday, Bowen said “transitional arrangements” had been put in place for one Western Australian facility that had registered to use the energy source.