Environmental Benefits
There are a number of questions that we are frequently asked in relation to the environmental benefits associated with using wood for heating.
Why is wood heating classified as renewable energy?
Wood fuel is classified as CO2 neutral as a result of the fact that the CO2 released during the combustion process has been consumed by the tree in it's lifecycle. As opposed to fossil fuels, where this process takes millions of years, with biomass the cycle will generally be a maximum of 40 years.
Are there enough trees?
Scottish Forestry, like that in the rest of the UK, is a finite resource and we need to think about how we can make best use of this resource. We have written a detailed blog piece and also a white paper which explains why we think that using wood fuel to focus on meeting demand for heating (rather than large scale electricity production) is the best way to meet our CO2 reduction targets, secure a sustainable energy future and avoid impacting adversely on the existing forestry industry sector (sawmills, paper mills, etc).
There is currently 17% forestry coverage in Scotland and the government target is to increase this to 25% by 2070. However, for a number of reasons, existing patterns of planting new forestry are not currently delivering the required increase in coverage. Creating a sustainable and viable biomass heat demand will act as a positive factor in achieving this target.
