A renewed campaign sponsored by the UK timber industry is calling for people to sign its petition.

‘Stop Burning Our Trees’ (SBOT) calls on the UK Government to stop subsidising the burning of wood to produce electricity. A key concern of SBOT is the impact on timber prices, rising prices means wood is diverted from traditional uses such as construction and joinery where it acts as a carbon store and displaces the use of more energy intensive materials.

Anyone who does the sums knows that biomass is not a large scale solution. With growth rates at about 1kg/m2/pa it does not take long to work out that our energy intensive lifestyles can in no way be supported by forests – there is simply not enough land.

Our suggestion would be divert subsidies to other forms of renewable energy investment at the same times as reducing demand…so perhaps we will sign the SBOT petition.