Eco-Living: Take a bough

Published on Friday 2 May 2008 13:34

It may seem controversial, but felling trees for fuel could be our greenest move yet

HERE on the eco-living pages, we're all about planting trees. But in a radical departure, this week it's time to don our lumberjack shirts, pick up a chainsaw and prepare to cut those trees to the ground. (Not the rainforest ones, obviously, or any others that don't belong to you. And please don't try this at home without proper training and safety gear.)

Before you call the eco-police, let me explain. Lots of responsible environmental groups are with me on this one, because we're going to use these felled trees as fuel.

How very retro, I hear you laugh. Burn wood for heat? Like cavemen and rural types? But let's get this straight. We're not talking about open fires (up to 90% of the heat disappears up the chimney). No, it's modern, highly efficient woodfuel stoves and boilers that are worthy of our consideration. So why choose wood? Unlike fossil fuels, wood is sustainable (as long as we keep planting trees) and is considered carbon-neutral – it gives off CO2 when burned, but no more than it has already absorbed during its lifetime.

Woodfuel already accounts for around half of renewable energy production in the EU, and Scotland has a large available resource. It's estimated that the demand will be around 1.5 million tonnes by 2010 and the fuel can be produced from forest thinnings, coppicing, pruning or whole trees, while wood pellets are made from highly compressed dry wood shavings and sawdust, the by-products of sawmills.

Woodfuel isn't just aimed at householders. Organisations as diverse as Gleneagles Hotel, Aboyne Academy and Palacerigg Country Park Visitor Centre have all installed wood-based heating systems. The demand is fuelling a market for producers, and last year Scotland's first commercial wood pellet manufacturer began production on the Arbuthnott Estate near Aberdeen (www.hotstovies.com).

Then there's the potential for electricity generation. In March, the UK's biggest wood-fired power station opened at Lockerbie. It uses 220,000 tonnes of woodfuel a year, a quarter of which comes from local willow, and produces enough power for 70,000 homes.

Although national energy targets for renewables often focus on electricity production, 80% of household energy use comes from heating. Logs or pellets are most suitable for domestic use, but you'll need somewhere to store the wood, ideally keeping it dry so it will burn more efficiently.

Modern woodfuel stoves and boilers that use pellets can be automated, making them as easy to run as gas or oil heating, but initial start-up costs can be expensive. You can get a stove for under 1,000 but you will also need to consider the cost of installation.

For larger-scale boilers that heat water and run the central heating system, you could be looking at upwards of 4,000. Grants are available from the Scottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative to cover 30% of the cost of automated stoves and boilers (www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/schri), but we're not yet as advanced as Sweden, where grants combine with a higher rate of VAT on fossil fuels, making heat from wood 50% cheaper than oil.

I can tell the savvy among you are already wondering how many trees you'd need to grow to provide your own woodfuel. According to www.logpile.co.uk, planting a hectare of poplars would produce ten tonnes per annum within three years, enough to meet domestic needs. So if you've got the land, grow for it.

BE GREENER

• Start planting trees for fuel. Reforesting Scotland (www.reforestingscotland.org) has details on techniques and equipment used for small-scale woodfuel schemes, and you'll need to contact the Forestry Commission to get a felling licence (www.forestry.gov.uk) and maybe even a grant.

• Desperate to convert to woodfuel but living in a smokeless zone? Dunsley and Clearview make appliances with exemption certificates. For a list, visit www.uksmokecontrolareas.co.uk.

GLOBAL VILLAGE

Eating meat? That's a gas

REDUCING your carbon footprint isn't all about leaving the car at home, cycling to work and not flying around the world. Greenhouse gas emissions come from all sorts of other sources, most of which you might never even think about when buying a product.

There are numerous suggestions on the web for helping to reduce these emissions – some stranger than others.

Tracy Stokes on www.ecostreet.com advocates becoming a vegan. Apparently the livestock sector is a huge producer of CO2. She also cites research by the University of Chicago that suggests becoming a vegan will reduce your carbon footprint to a greater extent than dumping the car.

And those who enjoy a glass of wine will be delighted to hear that larger bottles (thus reducing the glass-to-wine ratio) are more carbon-efficient. Tyler Coleman at www.drvino.com suggests we buy magnums, allowing more of the product to be transported for the amount of CO2 produced.

Michael d'Estries at www.groovygreen.com/groove looks at the concept of biodegradable cremation urns made from pressed paper. The urn is placed in the sea and over time will degrade to practically nothing, making sure that even after you die, your last resting place is not a permanent mark on the planet.

Better check it's recycled paper first, though.

HEALTHY PLANET

AS you splash around in the surf on your summer jollies, spare a thought for some of the world's poorest people, who don't have clean drinking water. To take a dip with a clearer conscience, snap up one of these new Hawaiian-print bikinis – 10% of the price goes to WaterAid projects in Bangladesh, Mozambique, Tanzania and Madagascar. (Tops and bottoms, 5.99 each, H&M, www.wateraid.org)