Environmental and Economic Sustainability of Biomass Heat in the UK

Heat from biomass is being promoted in an effort to reduce GHG emission. However, the full life cycle environmental and economic implications of biomass heat are currently unknown and are therefore explored in this paper. The results indicate that heat from solid biomass can reduce global warming potential as well as depletion of fossil resources and the ozone layer by >90% compared to fossil fuels. However, acidification, eutrophication and human and eco‐toxicities are much higher than for heat from natural gas. Biomass heat is also 23% more expensive than heat from gas boilers. However, with the subsidies available in the UK, it is 52% cheaper. Using the waste wood and energy crops available in the UK could meet 5% of the national heat demand and save 7.3 Mt CO2 eq./yr, or 1.5% of UK emissions. Increasing cultivation of energy crops could provide 20% of heat demand by 2030 and save 25 Mt CO2 eq./yr, or 5.1% of national emissions. Therefore, government should continue to incentivise biomass heat while tightening regulations to prevent an increase in other impacts. However, increasing biomass heat provision will be challenging owing to a large number of installations needed (27,000–85,000) and lack of district heating networks in the UK.