European consumers and businesses are increasingly turning to biomass energy sources, including wood-derived fuels for heating and cooling, as the energy crisis continues to wreak havoc across the continent.
The shift to biomass energy, which already accounts for the majority of renewable energy generated in the European Union (EU), has come as the Ukraine crisis disrupts energy supplies and alternate forms of energy production fall short, according to Bioenergy Europe, a leading industry group based in Belgium. [bold, links added]
The group said Europe’s biomass energy is largely sourced domestically while fossil fuels and green energy technologies are mainly imported.
Amid the crisis, Europeans have been forced to take drastic measures to conserve energy and keep bills low while governments have imposed rationing rules and introduced relief programs.
“During this period of increasing uncertainty due to the war in Ukraine and the ongoing crisis which highlights the EU’s reliance on foreign fossil fuels, bioenergy stands as a clear counterpoint,” Maija Lepistö, a spokesperson for Bioenergy Europe, told FOX Business.
“Over 96% of the biomass used for bioenergy is being produced domestically within the EU and the rest coming from trusted streams.”
Prior to the current crisis, biomass energy accounted for 57.4% of total renewable energy production and nearly 12% of total energy consumed in the EU.
Forestry products — such as logging residues, wood-processing residues, fuel wood, and wood pellets — are the bloc’s main source of biomass for energy, according to the EU’s Joint Research Center.
Lepistö said more consumers are turning to biomass energy thanks to it being a “local and affordable” alternative to traditional sources of energy.
“The current energy crisis in Europe has not placed the supply of biomass raw material at risk,” she told FOX Business.
“Unlike fossil fuels with their high import rates and other renewables supplying their technology from outside the EU, biomass has the benefit of being locally sourced, produced and dispatched as well as supply of the necessary equipment.”
“Just as with other markets, the ongoing war is affecting the bioenergy sector,” she added. “However, the EU’s internal market can continue supplying bioenergy to the end users, and more businesses and citizens are turning to this renewable, local, and affordable solution, which has more potential to grow and (reinforce) the EU’s green goals.”
In 2021, the EU consumed a whopping 23.1 million metric tons (MMT) of wood pellets, a year-over-year increase that can be attributed to increased German residential use and an uptick in co-firing of wood with coal in power plants in the Netherlands, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) report.
The report said demand in 2022 is projected to increase by another 1.2 MMT in 2022 due to even greater expansion in residential markets and increasing prices of fossil fuels.
Overall, the vast majority of biomass energy power generation in the EU is generated by the industrial sector at combined heat and power plants, Lepistö added. The remainder produces electricity and transportation fuels.
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People cutting down more trees to keep warm and the Eco-Freaks worry about a non problem that means no more trees for the Birds and Squrrels
Europeans who have been so dependent on Russian gas and oil have allowed Nato to push them into an untenable energy shortage through the war in the Ukraine. Expansionist Nato stuck their interfering nose into the affairs of the Ukraine by planting a Nato friendly government in the coup of 2014, knowing full well that Russia was going to object and potentially do something about it. When the Ukranian government began to militarily attack the south eastern provinces whose populations were in large percentage ethnic Russian, the Russians then annexed Crimea, and began fight to protect the rights of other ethnic Russians in the Ukraine. The Ukraine through Nato began to plead for assistance from Europeans and other Nato countries including USA, Britain, and Canada, who were more than happy to contribute billions of dollars in arms and logistical support. Russia then cut off the gas supply into Ukraine, and from there to other European countries. Did the Europeans attempt to negotiate a peace agreement with Russia? No! Did the USA attempt to negotiate a settlement to end the war? No. Why not? Because the criminal controllers want the war to continue for their own nefarious reasons. What could these reasons be? Create strife and suffering on the European populations? Reduce the populations of all European countries involved? Take down the Russian government? Start WWIII? Use the war as a catalyst issue in the Great Globalist Reset? What do you think?
Trump told Europe not to depend on Russia for energy at a UN conference. They laughed at him.