BIOENERGY: ECONOMIC MADNESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL VANDALISM

The Tasmanian Greens today sounded alarm bells over Forestry Tasmania’s continued pursuit of biomass electricity generation, a move that would threaten its chances of ever achieving Forest Stewardship Council accreditation.

Greens Forestry spokesperson Kim Booth MP said bioenergy production would also drive up power prices in Tasmania by creating yet more unnecessary generation capacity.

“Burning native forests for electricity will destroy any hope that Forestry Tasmania might have of achieving the tick of approval it needs from the Forest Stewardship Council,” Mr Booth said.

“Forest industry players have already made it clear that their future depends on being able to achieve FSC accreditation, so this biomass adventure is just economic madness and environmental vandalism.”

“Nobody should be naive enough to believe that only sawmilling residue and so called forest waste will be used to fuel these furnaces.”

“The Liberal Party are only promoting biomass because they see it as another way to continue propping up the economic and environmental disaster that is native forest woodchipping.”

“Biomass for power generation will be yet another mirage that the Liberals will use as a political wedge and a distraction to deflect attention from their lack of any long term economic vision for Tasmania.”

“It is also totally unnecessary to build yet another white elephant power station when the Electricity Expert Panel has found that Tasmania will not need any additional generation capacity until 2026.”

“We cannot allow a repeat of the economically disastrous Tamar Valley Power Station, which every single Tasmanian electricity user is currently paying to be kept in mothballs through their power bill.”

“It’s time to forget about this ridiculous native forest biomass fantasy, and get on with creating a sustainable, profitable timber industry built on the concept of more jobs and less logs.”

Mr Booth was speaking after of yesterday’s “Bioenergy – A future forest industry for Tasmania?” forum organised by Forestry Tasmania.
Kim Booth MP Greens Forestry Spokesperson Thursday, 20 June 2013