Sir, - Kevin Myers (An Irishman's Diary, September 4th) refers to the use of biomass fuel as CO2 generating. What he doesn't point out is that biomass, unlike fossil fuels, can be renewed in the course of plant growth.
Where wood, the oldest fuel known to man, is used to generate heat or power (or both), there will be little or no net increase in atmospheric concentrations of CO2, provided the trees that are cut down are replaced with young trees. As the forest grows back it will re-absorb CO2 from the atmosphere, completing an essentially closed cycle of carbon, from growth to combustion, back to growth.
Of course, where forests are not replaced, as is happening in many parts of the world where they are being felled and cleared for fuel and grazing, CO2 levels will rise as a result of combustion and wood decay. However, the use of wood biomass that derives from sustainably managed forests is sustainable in the long run, unlike the use of fossil fuels, of which there is a finite amount.
Ireland has a rapidly growing forest area and resource, much of which has been planted by farmers over the past decade-and-a-half. Quite a lot of the early production from these, and the State forests, is eminently suitable for energy generation. This new resource, using the tremendous advances that have been made in combustion technology in recent years, can make a small, though significant, contribution to reducing Ireland's 98 per cent dependence on fossil fuels.
It is also worth pointing out the use of wood for energy generation does not count towards our greenhouse gas emissions as reported annually to the UN Convention on Climate Change. This is an implicit recognition that energy generation from wood is CO2-neutral.
Many countries in the EU have recognised this important distinction and actively promote the use of wood energy through taxation and incentive measures. - Yours, etc.,
Dr EUGENE HENDRICK,
Director,
Council for Forest
Research and Development),
UCD,
Belfield,
Dublin 4.