Moorlands and hills targeted to grow crops for biomass and biofuels

Countryside protection groups warn of damage to wildlife
Tim Webb
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 20 January 2010 18.44 GMT
One tenth of Britain, including moorlands and hillsides, could be used to grow crops for biomass and biofuels. Countryside protection groups warned that this would turn large swaths of the countryside into monocultural landscapes and pose a threat to wildlife.
The Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a £1bn public-private investment body, said it was launching a project to map all the "under-utilised" land in Britain to find out how much could be turned over to growing bioenergy crops.
Research funded by the Natural Environment Research Council estimates that in England alone almost five million hectares could be used. David Clarke, chief executive of the ETI, said that the body had made the conservative estimate that 2.4m hectares could be used in Britain to grow bioenergy crops, used as substitutes for fossil fuels such as petrol and coal to reduce carbon emissions.
The 12- to 18-month project will find out what this land, which also includes semi-industrial sites and is unsuitable for growing food crops, is specifically used for, who owns it and the suitability of the soil for growing the bioenergy crops that include willow trees. Pilot projects could follow.
Energy companies are planning to build at least four new biomass plants in Britain, mostly using wood pellets. The carbon released from burning the biomass can be re-absorbed by planting more crops, neutralising the emissions. The government has started to pay subsidies to growers of such bioenergy crops.
But Abi Bunker, agriculture policy officer at the RSPB, said planting hundreds of thousands of acres would damage biodiversity and also degrade water quality, particularly in upland areas. "We're fully supportive of the UK's commitment to boosting renewable energy, including bioenergy from sustainable UK sources, but we're concerned biodiversity is getting forgotten," she said. "Local environmental considerations should be integrated if you want a truly sustainable solution."
Ian Woodhurst, of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, added: "Large bioenergy crop monocultures will damage landscape character and cause problems for wildlife, for example by obstructing the movement of some species around the countryside. In the 70s hundreds of conifer forests were planted and now we are spending a lot of money getting rid of them. We don't want to go back to that."
Clarke admitted the plans could prove controversial. "The question we are trying to answer is whether you could use that number, from a cost and land point of view. We have to recognise that issues around land-use and biodiversity are critical."
The ETI also said that it was launching a project this year to study the feasibility of filling rock formations on the east coast with water to store waste heat that would otherwise be vented into the atmosphere by power stations or industrial installations such as refineries. This hot water would then be pumped through pipes to heat homes and businesses during the winter.