Biomass project wins British top award

Earlier we reported about France's renewed taste for wood energy (making it Europe's leaders), and Norway's massive €2.5 billion investment in woody biomass projects. We also focused on the huge biomass power plant in Les Awirs, Belgium, which used to be a coal-fired plant, but now runs entirely on solid biofuels imported from all over the world.
Wood energy is definitely becoming a major part of our bioenergy future (and we want the EU to import woody biomass from Central-Africa.)

In Britain too, attention is going to applications of wood biofuels. A pioneering environmental scheme in Yorkshire that has slashed carbon monoxide emissions by 40 per cent from council-run buildings has been recognised with a national British award. The local authority has the largest programme of biomass-fired community heating in the country, using waste wood for heating boilers in buildings used by its own workers and tenants in communal homes. Councillors introduced a policy two years ago that, where it was financially viable, biomass would be the preferred option for heating where new buildings were constructed or existing premises refurbished.
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To date carbon dioxide emissions from heating have dropped by 40 per cent and it is expected the decline will continue, with a target reduction of 60 per cent by 2010.
That record was enough to secure Barnsley Council first prize in the national Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy, announced at a ceremony attended by Tory leader David Cameron, who has helped to push global warming up the political agenda and who has environmentally friendly energy-generating equipment in his own home.
The awards are recognised as the most important in the country in that field and the prize of £30,000 will be used to help establish a public centre to demonstrate and promote the use of renewable technology.
Historically, Barnsley's public buildings have been heated with coal but those boilers are being gradually replaced with others that burn wood instead.
Because wood creates oxygen as it grows, it is regarded as carbon dioxide neutral when it is burned.
A second advantage to using wood is that waste is burned in boilers that would otherwise end up dumped in landfill sites.
The decision by councillors to favour biomass fuel was made jointly because of fears that fossil fuels will eventually become ex-hausted and concerns for the environment.
A wood chip store, capable of holding 700 tonnes of the fuel, has been created as a central point to supply the increasing numbers of boilers throughout the town.
Those already working are operating at the authority's Smithies Lane depot, a community housing site in Sheffield Road and some schools, where boilers have been converted to run on wood rather than coal.
Biomass provides cheaper heating, so tenants who pay for communal services have seen their bills reduced.
A new business, called Silvapower, has been established to supply wood chips and uses waste from the forestry industry and sawmills.
A spokesman for the South Yorkshire Forest Partnership, Robin Ridley, said: "What the council has done will bring more woodland in South Yorkshire into active management. We're closing the loop, reaching a critical mass of boilers so the likes of Silvapower becomes a self-financing business."
The next development will be to use biomass at the council's new flagship office development in Westgate.
The boilers there will be used at night to generate power for the Town Hall and Central Library, which are both currently heated by electricity.
Judges praised Barnsley's "pioneering work in demonstrating that wood is a practical and cost-effective fuel for 21st century towns and cities".

Yorkshire Today.