Cumbrian Energy Revolution

Towards a Sustainable Cumbria

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Wood Fuel

Less than half of Cumbria’s woodlands are managed, the rest are fallow.(1) But if more were managed they could be providing timber and logs for burning. Using wood for heating helps to create a much larger market for woodland owners to sell their trees and timber and in turn manage more woodlands.  Modern wood burning stoves and boilers can offer an affordable and attractive way to provide heat for domestic and commercial properties particularly in rural areas like Cumbria where fewer properties are connected to the gas grid. Burning wood grown and harvested in Cumbria has huge benefits. Harvesting wood for burning helps to create thriving woodlands, encourages better woodland management, allows younger trees to be planted and existing trees and habitats to be looked after. The latest research into climate change suggests that the best way to protect the forests we have is to manage them, so that there is a diverse range of species and ages.(2)

A report of a recent visit to Germany by a team from Cumbria Action for Sustainability (CAfS) costs a Short Rotation Coppice system to heat an average farm house. This might need around 6 hectares of land to provide wood from 2 hectares each year on a three year rotation .

Wood Store

Wood Store

Biomass

There is a danger that the UK Government‘s extremely ambitious plans for large scale biomass plants will divert wood fibre away from more efficient uses such as the provision of heat or combined heat and power to less efficient uses such as electricity generation.

The use of locally sourced sustainable timber and wood waste for energy production via small-scale use of biomass for heat and in combined heat and power stations has an important role to play. But the use of large quantities of biomass in large power stations which burn the material at around 30% efficiency to generate electricity looks unlikely to be sustainable.

The Scottish Government’s Wood Fuel Taskforce concluded that there is no spare capacity to support large scale electricity generation biomass plants from the domestic wood fibre resource. It would be far better to keep domestic wood supplies to help deliver renewable heat.(3)

According to Carbon Commentary, the ambition of meeting the 12% renewable heating by 2020 solely with wood would require about 24 million tonnes of dry wood or about 40 million tonnes when first cut down before drying. The UK currently produces about 9 million tonnes of forest products a year – somewhat less than 25% of what we will need for wood for energy.(4) There is clearly considerable scope for greater use of wood for fuel in Cumbria.

  • In 2010, Blencathra Field Studies Council was awarded a grant from the Rural Carbon Challenge Fund and match funding from FSC & Lake District National Park Authority to install a 35kW hydro scheme, a 300kW biomass heating scheme and improvements to the building infrastructure. The project commenced in early 2012 and has now been completed.
  1. Warmth from Wood: A Guide to using Wood for Fuel, Cumbria Woodlands
  2. For more information see Cumbria Woodlands website
  3. Wood Fuel Task Force 2: The supply of wood for renewable energy production in Scotland. March 2011.
  4.  Carbon Commentary 10th March 2011
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Farm & Forest Information

National Farmers Union (NFU) Farm Energy Service helps farmers decide what options are best for their business and provides a comprehensive advice and guidance from conception to completion.

Post 2013: A Sustainable Future for Cumbria. Solutions for Farmers and Land Managers.  University of Cumbria 2013. The Post 2013 Project aims to raise awareness of the issues facing land management from 2013 for producers and consumers. Working with Natural England and the Federation of Cumbria Commoners, the project provides a range of mechanisms to consider climate change, food security, peak oil, agri-environment grants, EU expansion, changes in upland EU legislation, biodiversity, common land management, green energy, micro-generation and carbon footprints.

Oxfordshire Community Woodfuel Programme aims to help communities connect with their local environment and local energy supply, and understand the productive nature of woodlands; increase their supply and demand for woodfuel and in doing so, reduce their carbon footprints, improve their biodiversity, and reduce their ‘fuel miles’.

Cumbria Woodlands promotes the benefits of proper woodland management which can help boost production of timber and wood fuel as well as benefit wildlife. Its Woodland Advisory Service was re-launched in May 2014 with government funding sufficient to offer 40 visits over the summer and autumn.

Warmth from Wood: A Guide to using wood for fuel, Cumbria Woodlands.

The Anaerobic Digestion and Biogas Association (ADBA) was was established in 2009 as a not-for-profit trade body representing businesses in the anaerobic digestion sector and to support those interested in using the technology, to help remove the barriers to growth currently faced by the industry and to promote the benefits of AD to the UK. We want to realise the potential of the AD industry, and allow this sector to deliver energy security and economic growth – in waste management, farming, transport and food processing, among others – while also combating climate change, supporting food security and improving air quality.

Government information portal on Anaerobic Digestion.

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