Dr Drielsma and biomass

Dr Hans Drielsma (Mercury Letters, January 22), when referring to the sourcing of wood for biomass energy, indicates that this timber would otherwise be “burnt as waste on the forest floor after harvesting”.

It would be clearer for him to state that the waste timber occurs as a result of clearfelling of a mixed, wet native forest and that there is no forest left after such an operation.

In such an operation all the trees in the coupe, typically of 50 to 100 hectares, are cut down, the immature and the habitat trees included.

Whilst it is true that reduction of smoke from regeneration burning would be a consequence of less timber being left to burn on the clearfell coupe it is also true that virtually the same amount of carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere when wood is burnt for biomass energy.

The eucalyptus regrowth after a clearfell and burn operation contains far less moisture, biodiversity and habitat.

This type of biomass energy generation business should not be allowed to prop up the timber industry at a time when native forest woodchips are no longer in demand.