Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the forecast of a 190 year carbon payback time for the switch from burning coal to burning wood in the Climatic Change journal article entitled Harvesting in boreal forests and the biofuel carbon debt.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Government only supports biomass that complies with strict sustainability criteria. In a sustainably managed forest, there will be stands of trees each of different ages, which will be harvested in gradual sequence, and replaced, as they reach maturity. There is evidence to suggest that the overall age profile of the forest therefore remains constant, and carbon sequestration can be maintained decade after decade.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what estimate he has made of the amount of CO2 that is produced per Megawatt-hour by the Drax power station through the burning of (a) coal and (b) wood pellets in terms of (i) supply chain and (ii) chimney emissions.
Answered by Greg Hands
Data regarding the electricity generation in megawatt-hours derived from burning wood pellets and coal at the Drax Power Station is not available.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, with reference to page 43 of his Department's Statistical Release of 29 July 2021 entitled Digest of UK Energy Statistics Annual data for UK, 2020, for what reason domestic wood consumption was revised down from 2,241 kilotonnes to 733 kilotonnes in the 2018 reference year.
Answered by Greg Hands
Domestic wood consumption was revised in July 2021 to incorporate the results of research undertaken by The Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of the Climate Change Committee’s UK Health Expert Advisory Group’s report, Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK, published 6 November 2020; and when that assessment was made.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Government is grateful to the Climate Change Committee for the wide range of advice it provides government, which is considered on an ongoing basis. In June 2021, the published impact assessment for the sixth carbon budget considered a range of relevant evidence to provide a solid basis for the government’s decision on the budget level, including the Climate Change Committee’s UK Health Expert Advisory Group’s report, ‘Sustainable Health Equity: Achieving a Net Zero UK’. The Net Zero Strategy, published in October 2021, then set out the Government’s vision for making the transition to net zero, which can bring significant benefits for physical and mental health.
Asked by: Geraint Davies (Independent - Swansea West)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, how many journalists or media organisations contacted his Department in December 2021 to enquire about the implementation of the new Ecodesign Regulations relating to wood or solid burning appliances in domestic premises from 1 January 2022.
Answered by Greg Hands
The Department has no record of any media queries related to EcoDesign regulations in December 2021.