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Wood "waste" from clear-felled native forests is classed as renewable] green energy under federal laws to reduce Australia's emissions, but the analysis by consultant Peter Barnes suggests burning woodchips is worse than burning coal.
Mr Barnes, who worked for 30; years for a multinational oil company assessing fossil fuels burnt for power, based his analysis on a 30-megawatt, wood-fired power station proposed in New South Wales. The station is one of several proposed by the Clean Green Energy company, a subsidiary of the timber industry's NSW Forest Products' Association.
Mr Barnes said he undertook the analysis out of professional curiosity given the large timber volumes required - between 280,000 and 300,000 tonnes a year - to generate a small amount of electricity. A 30-megawatt station could about 55,000 homes.
He said clear-felling released the enormous amount of carbon stored in old-growth forests and the soil, and it would take centuries for a regrowth forest to break even. Coupled with low generation efficiency, it meant a wood-fired station would cause five times more carbon to be emitted than a coal station of equivalent size.
Mr Barnes said an 800-square kilometre plantation would be required with trees clear-felled on rotation every 25 years to supply the station over its 80-year life. In that time, the station would leave a permanent 23 million tonnes of carbon built up in the atmosphere; three times the build-up of a coal fired station for the same amount of power.
Mr Barnes said the superficial logic of timber as a renewable energy' source was appealing, "but when you look at the detailed numbers, it doesn't work out that way. It is very hard to get wood to look even as good as coal".
Clean Green Energy's chief executive officer, Allan Stewart, said the stations would use timber reclaimed from landfill, sawmill waste and low-value wood left after logging. "No additional trees will be cut for fuel for the power stations," he said. Mr Stewart said Mr Barnes' analysis misrepresented some facts, arid would be challenged in a critique. He said the stations would only be built if the timber was available.
Graeme Gooding, of the Victorian Association of Forest Industries, said it had no commercial proposals for wood-fired power stations in this state, but some members might have an interest in their development. Virginia Young, of the Wilderness Society, said the federal law requiring that an extra 2 per cent of power come from renewables by 2010, had created a market for burning forests instead of encouraging genuine green power such as wind and solar.
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