Biomass is a better option for burning than fossil fuel

KATY Brown asserts that ‘‘burning wood is not renewable’’ (Letters, June 11) on the basis that it releases more carbon than coal (per unit of power), but this idea completely ignores the fundamental distinction between fossil fuel carbon and ‘‘current biosphere’’ carbon.

Any carbon released by burning fossil fuel (coal, oil or gas) is carbon that has been out of the atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years, whereas carbon released from wood pellets at Drax has been out of the atmosphere merely for a few decades.

On a geological or climatic timescale, a few decades are irrelevant to the overall natural cycles. We presently have a climate crisis because of human induced disturbance to the atmospheric balance from some hundreds of years of surging fossil fuel exploitation, but only in recent years has the evidencebased science developed sufficiently to convince a majority of politicians, and indeed commercial vested interests, that the problems are real and increasingly urgent.

Burning wood merely releases back into the atmosphere the carbon recently absorbed during its growth. Biomass fuel derived from forestry waste represents carbon that would return to the atmosphere in any case through decomposition, so gaining second-hand solar energy from it makes sense. Biomass derived from an entire fast-growth forest crop specifically grown for the purpose, and replaced by re-planting, is still far better than continuing to exploit fossil resources.

From: Kate Stott, Barnsley Road, Sheffield.

DR GM Lindsay (Letters, May 18) really does not like wind turbines does he? A few minutes on Google and I find he is quoting evidence from Nigel Lawson’s long discredited Global Warming Policy Foundation. And the evidence he quotes is well out of date.

Even if you believe that renewable energy is not the cheapest, and I don’t believe for one minute that is true, surely the point is that investing now in a low carbon renewable energy sector will avoid the much higher costs of damage caused by unmitigated climate change.

There will be no peace without food security and war is expensive, more than just financially. We have to be prepared to dig deep now to avoid leaving an unaffordable legacy for future generations.

That is why we will continue to see record increases in global renewable capacity.