§ Lord Oxburghasked Her Majesty's Government:
Further to the Written Answer by the Lord Sainsbury of Turville on 22 March (WA 84), whether they have made any calculation of the transportation cost, in forms of average carbon equivalent emissions per MWh of electricity generated, of importing biomass fuel for co-firing. [HL2152]
§ Lord Sainsbury of TurvilleMy previous response stated that any attempt to estimate the level of imports of biomass or its source would be highly speculative and the data unreliable. Consequently, it would be also doubtful that we could make any such calculations on transportation costs in terms of average carbon equivalent emissions per MWh of electricity generated as they would again be based on unreliable and not readily available data.
However, a recent study carried out in support of the Renewables Innovation Review made a comparision of the CO2 emissions from imported Baltic woodchips and home-grown willow for combustion CHP. This information is the closest we have to that requested but it is related to CHP rather than co-firing. The results as compared to emissions from combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) were as follows:
—CO2 emissions for willow combustion CHP: Using domestic fuel: 48g/kWh Using imported Baltic woodchips: up to 138g/kWh (an increase of up to 90g/kWh over UK fuel because of transport) —CO2 emissions from CCGT: 387g/kWh There is a significant increase in emissions from imported fuel compared with the use of domestic resources, but emissions from imports are still just over a third of the emissions from CCGT.