Ashes, elms and epidemics

The ash grove, how graceful, how plainly ‘tis speaking/ The harp through it playing has language for me. Growing up in New Zealand, I knew fragments of this song and would sing them on car trips with my family long before I actually ever met an ash tree in real life. When I did so at last, I was underwhelmed. Ashes in full leaf are certainly graceful, but they’ve never really caught my imagination. Not surprisingly, European ash groves evoke no wistful memories of childhood.

The leafless ash, though, is a different story: it’s been my key to a new way of seeing the woods in winter. For years, they were just an indistinguishable mass of bare trunks and branches. Then one day I happened upon a reference in a book to the “jet-black buds” of ash trees. Black buds? I began to look more closely. And lo and behold, walking through my local reserve one day, I found a tree that did indeed have bold, black buds. And then another! A whole grove of them! It wasn’t just the colour that was distinctive, it was the shape, the energetic upward curve of the twigs, the symmetrical cluster of the three buds at the tip, vaguely reminiscent of the club in a pack of cards. Suddenly I was seeing them everywhere, and many of the gnarled old trees I’d taken to be oaks turned out to have been ashes all along.

Since that discovery I’ve seen the winter woodland with different eyes. It’s no longer an undifferentiated and uninspiring background, but a varied cast of characters. I can’t identify them all, but it’s an enjoyable challenge. The clues are not just in the buds, but in the bark, the trunk, the arrangement of branches and twigs, the tell-tale leftovers of previous seasons: catkins and cones, clusters of winged seeds or “keys”. Some ashes – presumably those that bear female flowers, or flowers of both sexes (the sex life of ashes is complicated, to say the least) – are draped with untidy looking keys throughout the winter. It’s not their most attractive feature. Come spring, they put on a curious display of flowers: sprays of green stalks with purplish tips. Not the kind of obvious beauty that will win prizes in flower shows, but rather fascinating.

Ash buds. Crabchick on flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

Ash flower. Dean Morley on flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/legalcode

Old ash in Admiral's Park, Chelmsford

The same tree close-up

Hollow ash on bank of the Wid

Another tree that I’ve discovered fairly late in life is the elm. I didn’t expect to find elm trees when I came to Europe; I assumed they’d all been wiped out by Dutch elm disease. News of that disaster had made it all the way to my science classroom in New Zealand in the 1980s. But then while visiting friends in Wales a few years ago I spotted a majestic tree with round, winged seeds and curious asymmetrical leaves, one side extending further down the stem than the other. I took a leaf home to compare with my tree guide, and was delighted to learn that this was an elm. Since then I’ve found more elms in hedgerows and parks around Chelmsford, though none anywhere near the size of that tree in Llanberis.[1]

These smaller trees are inconspicuous in summer, melting into the background greenery. They’re at their most striking in spring, when abundant clusters of winged seeds appear on bare branches. From a distance an elm in fruit looks as though it’s covered in pale green blossom. It’s a lovely sight, and this spring I’ve seen more and more of it on roadsides near Chelmsford. My latest elm-related discovery, though, is the preceding phase: the flowers. They’re easy to overlook, but unmistakeable once you’ve found them. It was only this spring, in early March, that I noticed a few twigs with small red flowers in my local reserve. What could this be, and why had I never seen it before? A flick through my Collins Gem tree guide quickly brought enlightenment: it was an elm! In the weeks that followed I was able to observe the flowers morphing into fruits, a remarkable transformation.

My elation at discovering elms was short-lived. On Easter Day I was cycling around the countryside excitedly pointing them out to my companions (could this have been a little annoying, I wonder?). Soon after that, I noticed that one of the elms in my local nature reserve was surrounded by dead trees of a similar height and build. Slender young trees, which had clearly not died of old age. As the spring progressed, the difference between the living and the dead became more and more obvious. I gradually realized that for every healthy-looking fruit-laden elm I spotted in a hedgerow, there seemed to be one or more gaunt skeletons nearby.

I take this as sobering evidence that Dutch elm disease is still active and the species hasn’t made a miraculous comeback. So what is this disease, and why is it “Dutch”? It turns out that it didn’t originate in the Netherlands, nor does it particularly affect the species known as the Dutch elm. Somewhat unusually, it got its name from the nationality of the scientists who first identified it in the 1910s. It is caused by two related fungi, spread by elm bark beetles. The first epidemic, from around 1910 to the 1940s, killed up to forty per cent of the elms in some European countries. The second was much more severe, killing an estimated two thirds of mature elms in the UK (some 20 million trees) in the decade following its accidental introduction in the late 1960s. Most of the rest had succumbed by the early 1980s. It must have been a heartbreaking time for European tree lovers, and I’m glad I wasn’t around to witness it. Today new elms keep growing up, mostly in hedgerows, many suckering from the roots of dead giants. But the disease is still lurking, and it seems that once these young trees reach a certain height the bark beetles can see them and come in to feed, bringing the fungus with them. All that hopeful growing for nothing.

Dutch elm disease is an old and well-known enemy, but there’s a much more recent addition to the ranks of villainous tree-killing fungi, and this one is going after the ash tree. Not surprisingly, given the fate of the elm, there’s a considerable amount of anxiety about the resulting disease, ash dieback or Chalara. The Woodland Trust gloomily predicts that it will kill around 80% of ash trees across the UK; other estimates are even higher. The disease was first identified in 2006, by which time it was already widespread in continental Europe. The UK, however, continued to import ash saplings from affected countries until 2012, when the first cases were found here. This led to a sudden panicked response, with a ban on imports, the destruction of 100,000 nursery trees and saplings, and a meeting of the UK’s emergency committee. Too little too late, some have said – does this sound at all familiar?

I only heard about ash dieback a couple of years ago and I’ve so far been fairly unconcerned, since most of the ash trees I see around me look pretty healthy. Just this spring, however, I’ve started to wonder. One striking fact about ash is that it’s one of the last trees to come into leaf in spring, and this being an extraordinarily late spring, they’re not quite there yet. Most trees are now in partial leaf, but some are still almost bare.  And looking at those bare trees, I’m having my doubts. In the young, planted ash grove in my local nature reserve, there are a few trees that are unquestionably dead, bark already peeling off, no signs of life. Others look as though they might still be dormant – yet those black buds have a slightly dry and shrivelled look. And elsewhere in the reserve I’ve noticed that some of the mature ashes have a surprising number of dead branches. Walking through the reserve recently, I started to look at the emerging leaves with a sense of anxiety – is it just a late spring, or are these trees actually unwell? It reminded me somewhat of waiting for a  teenager to come home at night: as the evening wears on you become increasingly anxious and begin to fear the worst – and then at some point the child appears, slightly tipsy but otherwise unharmed, and life goes on. Here’s hoping those ash trees that are starting to worry me will soon be covered in healthy foliage, and I can put away my fears until next spring.

It seems there’s little we can do about these diseases. Human intervention – importing elm logs from North America and ash saplings from continental Europe – has introduced these pests, but human intervention seems more or less powerless to help their victims. In the case of Dutch elm disease, felling affected trees has been the main strategy. Trimming the elms in hedgerows to keep them out of the sight of elm bark beetles also seems somewhat effective, but of course this means they will never develop their full potential as tall and stately trees. As for ash dieback, the Woodland Trust recommends that we clean our shoes or bike tyres after visiting the woods to avoid spreading spores. This will sound painfully familiar to anyone who’s lived in the northern part of New Zealand in recent years, where the efforts to stop kauri dieback have hugely restricted access to the forest. As a keen walker with an aversion to boot cleaning, I find this sensible advice rather hard to swallow, but I suppose it’s a small price to pay if it does help combat the disease. Now where is that scrubbing brush?

Elm flowers, Chelmer Valley LNR, early March 2021

Elm in fruit, Chelmer Valley LNR, mid April 2021

Elm fruit, early May 2021

Elm fruit and leaves, late May 2021

Rare mature elm found in Chelmer Valley LNR, late May 2021

Leaves of above tree

Fallen twig from above tree with fruit

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[1] Which species of elms am I seeing, and are they all the same? The Collins Gem has two main options, English and wych elm (Ulmus procera and Ulmus glabra respectively); the flowers look similar but the fruits and the leaves are slightly different, and appear in a different sequence: leaves first for English elm, fruit first for wych elm. I can’t find mention of this elsewhere. If the Gem is right then most of the elms I’m seeing are probably wych elms. There are other options, though. Many of the small elms I’ve seen have strangely ridged bark, even on quite slender twigs. It seems this “winged” or “corky” bark is particularly typical of the Dutch elm (Ulmus x hollandica) and the small-leaved elm, also known as the field elm (Ulmus minor). If any readers know more, please get in touch!

Burning biomass. Part 2: The forests

 

Britain destroyed most of its forests hundreds of years ago. Alongside a myriad of other uses, countless trees were felled to fuel iron smelters and build battleships. At present only about 13 % of the UK’s land area is wooded, compared to a world average of 31 %.[1] Needless to say, when the UK began to convert coal-burning power plants to biomass, we were never going to be burning British trees. Even if the entire output of the UK’s forestry industry were to be poured into Drax’s maw, this would not be enough to cover its consumption.

In countries blessed with greater forest coverage, canny entrepreneurs have seized the opportunity created by European energy policies and have rapidly built up a massive pellet-producing industry. This is most striking in the south-eastern US, the source of 65 % of Drax’s pellets in 2019. Twenty-three wood pellet mills now operate here, three of them owned by Drax itself. Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets and Drax’s biggest supplier, has acquired or built nine pellet mills in this area, all of them since the passing of the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive in 2009. Several more mills, with even greater capacity, are at various stages of the planning process.[2]

What exactly goes into these pellet mills? As mentioned in my previous post, Drax claims that its pellets are “largely made up of low-grade wood produced as a by-product of the production and processing of higher value wood products, like lumber and furniture”. Biomass UK, the trade association for the industry, similarly talks about “residues”. This is in fact nonsense: residues from the timber industry such as bark and twigs may be used as fuel in pellet processing, but they do not produce high-quality pellets, and there is ample documentary evidence that wood pellets are mostly or entirely made from whole trees.[3] Impressive aerial photographs of pellet plants show thousands of tree trunks stacked outside, waiting to be processed.[4]

The other major claim made by Drax is that its pellets come from “sustainably managed working forests”. What does this mean? I can imagine two scenarios for sustainably managed forests: one is established, natural forests, from which a small number of trees are selectively felled without any major disturbance to the overall forest environment; the other is pine plantations so vast that the quantity felled is constantly replenished by new trees. In fact neither scenario represents the real situation. The demand for wood pellets, driven by the fashion for “low-carbon” biomass (see my previous post for the truth behind this), is so great and has arisen so suddenly that a careful, one-tree-at-a-time type of forestry has no hope of keeping up, and the output of established plantations has also been outpaced. Instead what has happened, and is still happening, is the clear-felling (or in some countries the increasingly rapacious “selective” felling) of natural, diverse old-growth forests. If these are replaced at all, it is with quick-growing monocultures of pine.

This is a tragedy on a huge scale, which is being played out in numerous locations around the world. In the south-eastern US, substantial tracts of mature hardwood forest, known as “bottomland” forest, have been destroyed to feed the pellet mills. These are deciduous forests in low-lying, frequently flooded land near rivers – imagine tall trees with buttressed trunks, rising out of the still, dark water of wetlands. These forests are complex and immensely valuable ecosystems, home to an enormous variety of plants and animals. Indeed this area, the North American Coastal Plain, has been declared a World Biodiversity Hotspot. Bottomland forest also provides essential “ecosystem services” to humans, reducing the risk of flooding, and improving water quality.[5] It is estimated that 80 % of these forests have disappeared in the last two hundred years. Most of what remains belongs to private landowners, and only 10 % of it is protected. [6]

It is this fragmentation and lack of protection that has allowed Enviva and other pellet manufacturers to prosper. Enviva, like Drax, makes a very persuasive attempt to greenwash its activities. Its stated purpose is to “displace coal, grow more trees, and fight climate change”. “Climate change,” it announces, “is the greatest challenge of our time. Enviva was founded to be part of the solution.” Its website shows an idyllic image of forest-clad hills bathed in sunlight, and its argument is essentially that if Enviva were not there to buy wood, nobody would have any incentive to grow trees. By providing a market for “low-value wood”, and insisting that the landowners “commit to return their land to forest after harvest”, Enviva says it is preventing this land from being converted to other uses. “Keeping forests as forests” is one of its mantras.

This is an unbelievably cynical claim. Much of the hardwood forest now being clear-felled to feed Enviva’s mills consists of pockets of woodland that have been left standing by generations of farmers, on the low-lying edges of their farms, because the land is not viable for agricultural use. So in many cases there is little danger of it being cleared to grow crops. Nor are these remote tracts of swampland desirable real estate for shopping malls and golf courses. In other words, if it weren’t for the pellet industry there is every chance that these trees would remain standing, as they have for many decades.

Furthermore, Enviva’s claims about “keeping forests as forests” are based on the assumption that any kind of forest cover is equally valuable. This is simply not the case. A mixed-species, self-regenerating natural forest that has been growing for many decades or centuries cannot be “replaced” in any meaningful way by a single-species plantation which will be felled as soon as it is viable, after as little as fifteen years.[7] The range of plant life that thrives in a natural forest – the moss, ferns, flowers and creepers – need many years of undisturbed existence to develop. Fungi, insects, birds and mammals need a range of shelter types and food sources that only an established forest can provide – including dead and decaying trees. A tree farm is not a forest – or at best it’s a “fake forest”.[8]  

Quite apart from the loss of irreplaceable forest habitats, the wood pellet industry causes severe local pollution. This is hardly surprising given the processes involved. The tree trunks are delivered to the plant by heavy logging trucks, then debarked and shredded in hammermills, a noisy process that goes on around the clock. The next step is to dry the wood, using heat produced by burning wood and bark. This combustion generates greenhouse gases, while the wood chips emit harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) as they dry, as well as at other stages in the process. A report in 2018 found that “The 21 wood pellet mills exporting to Europe emit a total of 16,000 tons of health-threatening air pollutants per year, including more than 2,500 tons of particulate matter (soot), 3,200 tons of nitrogen oxides, 2,100 tons of carbon monoxide, and 7,000 tons of volatile organic compounds. These plants also emit 3.1 million tons of greenhouse gases annually”.[9]

People living near the mills are affected by noise and dust pollution, are unable to sit on their own front porches without wearing face masks,[10] and suffer from an increase in respiratory diseases.[11] The presence of the mills exacerbates existing social inequalities: most are located in poor communities with a high proportion of minority ethnic groups, and their operations – while purporting to bring jobs and prosperity – in fact diminish the quality of life of these communities.[12] A number of grassroots organizations have sprung up to combat this polluting industry, and in partnership with larger NGOs they have won some victories. In 2019, for example, Enviva was forced to install equipment to reduce air pollution in its wood pellet plant in Richmond County, North Carolina. In February 2021 Drax was fined 2.5 million US dollars for major environmental violations at its pellet plant in Mississippi. This is an encouraging result, but the fine has been aptly described as “a drop in the bucket compared to the 2 million [GBP] per day the UK government hands the company in the form of biomass subsidies”.[13]

Campaigners on both sides of the Atlantic are working tirelessly to try to stop this madness. Key players in the US are Dogwood Alliance, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. In the UK, the campaign group most strongly focused on this issue is Biofuelwatch. These UK and US organizations have joined forces in the campaign Cut Carbon Not Forests, which urges the public to “stop the UK from harming our planet’s forests” by calling for a end to biomass electricity subsidies. Such efforts to raise public awareness can bear fruit: in 2020 an opinion poll in the Netherlands showed that 98 % of citizens favoured ending subsidies for biomass, and in February 2021, the Dutch government agreed to reject future subsidies.[14] Could this happen in the UK too?

Existing natural forests and wetlands are not renewable; they are irreplaceable. Not only are they vital for the protection of biodiversity, they are also our first line of defence against climate change. Burning them in the name of sustainability makes no sense at all. We should certainly be planting new trees – both to supply our other timber needs (more on this another time!) and to increase permanent forest cover – but we shouldn’t kid ourselves that this will make up for destroying mature trees and all the life that depends on them. A fundamentally good intention – that of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and nuclear power – has led to horrifying consequences. The mass production and consumption of wood pellets is bad for local communities and environments, bad for biodiversity, and disastrous from a climate change perspective. It has to stop.

 

Neil Wellons on Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode

Wndy on Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode

Special thanks to Jack Spruill, who first drew my attention to this issue and has given me an insight into the situation in North Carolina, as well as making helpful suggestions on this and my previous post.

 

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[1] https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/forestry-statistics/forestry-statistics-2018/international-forestry/forest-cover-international-comparisons/

[2] https://www.southernenvironment.org/uploads/images/SELC_WoodPelletExportMap_2020_1208_map+table.pdf

[3] https://www.ecowatch.com/chatham-house-biomass-study-2288764699.html

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/climate/wood-pellet-industry-climate.html

[5] https://www.epa.gov/wetlands/bottomland-hardwoods

[6] https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/our-work/wetland-forests-initiative/treasures-of-the-south/

[7] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/03/26/biomass-carbon-climate-politics-477620

[8] https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2019/02/real-vs-fake-forests/

[9] https://environmentalintegrity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Biomass-Report.pdf

[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/climate/wood-pellet-industry-climate.html

[11] https://www.greenbiz.com/article/europes-wood-pellet-market-worsening-environmental-racism-american-south

[12] https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2020/06/a-pandemic-of-injustice-in-the-rural-south/

[13] https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2021/02/release-drax-facility-fined-2-5m-for-major-pollution-violations/#:~:text=Release%3A%20Drax%20facility%20fined%20%242.5M%20for%20major%20pollution%20violations,-Written%20by%20Rita

[14] https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2021/02/big-victory-for-southern-forests/

Burning biomass. Part 1: Unintended consequences

If you were to travel by train from London to Manchester, as I did early last year, you might notice an intriguing sight as you approached your destination: a large freight train painted smartly in blue and silver, displaying the slogans “Powering tomorrow”, “Powering the northern powerhouse”, and “Carrying sustainable biomass for cost effective renewable power”.

If you were curious you might perhaps look up the name of the company displayed on the train, Drax. And you might be pleased to discover what seems to be an all-round good-news story: at the UK’s largest power station, located in Yorkshire, four out of six generation units have been converted from coal to biomass. They burn “compressed wood pellets sourced from sustainably managed working forests […] largely made up of low-grade wood produced as a by-product of the production and processing of higher value wood products, like lumber and furniture.”[1]

Those sleek trains with their specially constructed wagons are transporting 20,000 tonnes of pellets per day from Liverpool and ports on the east coast to the power station near Selby. The pellets, Drax tells us, lead to 80 % less carbon dioxide than coal, produce 12 % of the UK’s renewable energy, and support more than 20,000 jobs.[2] What’s not to like? Waste material is being put to good use, jobs are being created, and the UK is massively reducing its carbon footprint. A dirty fossil fuel – or so it seems ­– has been replaced by a clean, green fuel for the future.

But is this really the win-win solution it appears to be? If we were to follow one of those shiny blue and silver trains to its destination in Yorkshire, and study what actually came out of Drax’s smokestacks, the picture would be less rosy. And if we were to trace the journey of those wood pellets back to their source, an even more sinister story would emerge.

I’ll return to that story, the source of the pellets, in my next post. For now, let’s take a look at those smokestacks. The first crucial fact is that the emissions from burning wood pellets are no less harmful than those generated by burning coal. Biomass produces less of some pollutants, but more of others, most notably small particulates and volatile organic compounds.[3] Drax’s emissions of PM₁₀ particulates, which have extremely negative effects on human health, have risen substantially as it has converted to biomass.[4]

But even if it worsens local air pollution, surely the change from coal to biomass must have a positive impact on the global atmosphere? After all, decarbonization is the main rationale for the switch. Here, once again, the facts contradict the industry’s claims. Biomass-burning power plants emit at least as much CO₂ as coal, if not more. According to one study, biomass emits 150 % of the CO₂ of coal, and is less efficient in terms of CO₂ per megawatt of energy generated.[5] Another study states that “Because combustion and processing efficiencies for wood are less than coal, the immediate impact of substituting wood for coal is an increase in atmospheric CO₂ relative to coal.”[6] The carbon emitted in the production, transport and storage of the wood pellets exacerbates this impact.

These facts are not even especially controversial. So how can Drax justify its claims? Why is woody biomass being promoted as a “low-carbon” source of energy? Part of the answer is that, theoretically, the trees that are felled and turned into wood pellets are replaced by newly planted trees. These growing trees take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, supposedly balancing out the carbon released during combustion ­– a highly questionable assumption, given the time that it takes for trees to grow.[7] The other part of the answer is a loophole in the complex carbon accounting system established by the UN. According to these rules, emissions from biomass are only reported in the land-use sector (i.e. the carbon emitted when trees are felled), not in the energy sector (where they are burned). Since the UK gets 82 % of its wood pellets from the US, which is outside this accounting framework, the emissions related to this industry are simply not counted at all.

This has huge implications. As we all know, governments worldwide are under enormous pressure to reduce the carbon footprint of their countries without causing economic damage. The UK has recently committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions “by the fastest rate of any major economy”, reducing them by at least 68 % (compared to 1990 levels) by 2030. The government boasts that “Over the past decade, the UK has cut carbon emissions by more than any similar developed country and was the first major economy to legislate for net zero emissions by 2050”, thus demonstrating our “leadership in tackling climate change”.[8]

It is no coincidence that the past decade – in which the UK has supposedly cut its emissions so dramatically – is also the decade in which biomass has become a major part of the country’s energy sector. In other words, the fact that emissions from biomass combustion are not counted is enabling us to meet our international climate obligations.

As well as trying to reduce its carbon output as part of the Paris Agreement, the UK is eager to demonstrate its commitment to renewable energy (which is not synonymous with low-carbon energy, though they often coincide). In 2009, the EU adopted a directive stipulating that 20 % of European energy needs had to be met with renewable energy sources by 2020. Since then, massive subsidies have been paid out all over Europe to support this development. In the UK in particular, a substantial proportion of this has gone to biomass. In 2018-19, for example, the UK government spent £1.5 billion to support biomass electricity, nearly three times the subsidy paid out for solar power.[9]

Are these subsidies justified? Is biomass (regardless of its carbon output) a truly renewable source of energy? That depends on how you define “renewable”. The EU directive contains a list rather than an explanation: renewable energy comes from “non-fossil sources”, i.e. “wind, solar, aerothermal, geothermal, hydrothermal and ocean energy, hydropower, biomass, landfill gas, sewage treatment plant gas and biogases”.[10] A report by the UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change gives greater clarity, stating that “Energy is renewable if it is derived from natural processes and replenished more rapidly than expended.”[11] Drax offers its own definition: “Renewable energy is produced from a resource that is infinite or can be replenished on a human timescale, such as the sun, wind, water or sustainably managed forests.”[12]

There is a critical difference between the time frames envisaged in these two definitions. A “human timescale” can surely mean whatever one wants it to mean: anything from half an hour to a millennium. If time were not an issue, and if an enormous amount of land were devoted to plantation forest, than perhaps it might eventually be possible to grow enough trees to replace those burned – considering volume alone, not forest quality. There is, however, no way that woody biomass can be replenished more rapidly than it is expended. A tree takes decades to grow, but only seconds to burn.

In short, wood pellets are neither a low-carbon nor a truly renewable energy source. In attempting to reach its internationally agreed targets and demonstrate climate leadership, the UK has invested heavily in a polluting and unsustainable form of power generation. Those smart new trains are taking us to a far less promising future than their optimistic slogans suggest. The question is whether, having set this juggernaut in motion, we have the power to stop it.

Kitmasterbloke on Flickr, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

Shirokazan on Flickr,https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode

Click here for the next thrilling instalment ...

 

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[1] https://www.drax.com/sustainability/what-is-biomass/

[2] https://forestscope.info/

[3] https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/2018/biomass-basics-2/

[4] https://www.biofuelwatch.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/Drax-and-air-quality-briefing-2.pdf

[5] https://www.pfpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/PFPI-biomass-carbon-accounting-overview_April.pdf

[6] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa512

[7] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2017/02/woody-biomass-power-and-heat

[8] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-sets-ambitious-new-climate-target-ahead-of-un-summit#:~:text=A%20new%20plan%20aims%20for,decade%2C%20compared%20to%201990%20levels.&text=The%20Prime%20Minister%20has%20today,2030%2C%20compared%20to%201990%20levels

[9] https://www.nrdc.org/experts/sasha-stashwick/uk-must-end-biomass-electricity-subsidies-now#:~:text=In%202018%2D19%2C%20the%20UK,clean%20power%20to%20Britons%20today

[10] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A32009L0028

[11] https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmenergy/173/17305.htm

[12] https://www.drax.com/sustainability/what-is-renewable-energy/

Urban nature reserves

It wasn’t love at first sight. In fact my first encounter with my local nature reserve, soon after moving to Chelmsford, was quite unpromising. I set off one afternoon in September 2015 on a borrowed bike, planning to follow the riverside path up the Chelmer and see how far I got. I’d been cycling for about five minutes when the path turned away from the river and spat me out into a suburban cul-de-sac. So much for that idea. My impression of the nature reserve on either side of the path was an uninspiring mixture of willows and poplars, all in the flat, dull green of late summer. The effect of the expedition was to make me – a life-long non-runner – take up running. My reasoning was: a) since the scope for cycling was so limited, I had to exercise on foot, but b) since the surroundings were so drab, I needed to pick up the pace to make them go by more quickly.

Five years later I’m still running, without great enthusiasm, but my attitude to the Chelmer Valley Local Nature Reserve has changed. Despite some residual moments of indifference, I’ve gradually developed an appreciation verging on affection for it. True, it couldn’t be described as an exciting landscape. It’s a long, narrow strip of land on the east side of the slow-moving, often weed-clogged Chelmer River; its best-known feature is the “Bunny Walks”, a wide, paved path linking the residential areas of The Avenues and Broomfield in northern Chelmsford with the city centre and railway station. It isn’t an especially peaceful environment either: the busy A1016, with its open-road speed limit, runs parallel to river and path for a while, crosses over both, and then runs directly alongside the northernmost and most isolated section of the reserve. If you get far enough away from the A1016 to escape the noise of traffic, you’re likely to hear the machinery of Marriage’s Mill instead.

And yet what the reserve offers is no more and no less than a bit of nature in the middle of town. Not untouched, untamed nature, but a co-production between nature and humans. The river has been slowed, its course altered, and then in recent years changed again to restore a more natural environment. Trees and wildflowers have been planted; others have been cut down or pulled out in an attempt to recreate treeless meadow habitats, or to encourage the growth of more desirable plants. In normal times when no pandemics are raging, volunteers come out once a month, under the friendly supervision of the council, to clear and improve paths, pick up litter, plant trees, rake grass and construct hibernacula as habitats for slow-worms and other creatures. These interventions aside, though, nature has ample scope to do its own thing. Wildflowers that might be classed as weeds elsewhere can flourish here; self-seeded trees spring up and thrive. Birds sing their hearts out.

I live in an unattractive street with few trees; I’m lucky enough to have a garden, but the only sizeable tree it contains is an aged and nearly leafless elder. Having a nature reserve nearby is a blessing: if I want to take a break from my work and stretch my legs I’m not restricted to urban streets. Instead I can cross New Street, walk down Hoffman’s Way past Marriage’s Mill, go over the humpback bridge above the weir, and suddenly, five minutes from home, I’m plunged into a world of greenery and birdsong. Don’t ask me what birds – I don’t know! The ones I can see and identify are those that move slowly or stand still in full sight: crows, magpies, and wood pigeons. Swans, ducks, and moorhens on the river. The occasional little egret. Gulls. But it’s the ones I can’t see that are the real delight. Unable to identify any individual voices, I hear nothing but a lovely soundscape. If ever I hear a sweet tweeting nearby and manage to spot the creature responsible, it’s inevitably a robin. The others remain invisible, or flit by too fast to be recognized.

At dusk, in the section of the Bunny Walks where the trees are tallest, the cheery twittering is drowned out by the cawing of crows. They settle in the tops of the willows and poplars, rise and circle around, then settle again. On a gloomy winter’s evening the effect of the dark birds on the high, bare trees under a darkening sky – to the soundtrack of their harsh, haunting voices – is hugely atmospheric.

And the trees! While the poplars and willows dominating the Bunny Walks are still not my all-time favourites, I do appreciate their majestic size and the habitat they offer to birds and other creatures. And I’ve learnt that there are many, many other tree species in the reserve, each with its own moment of glory. First, in the depths of winter, the hazelnut’s long, slim yellow catkins; then from late February the gorgeous white blossom of the cherry plum, followed in late March and April by the smaller, but equally fragrant blossoms of blackthorn, tightly clustered along the twigs. At the same time a superabundance of catkins appears as the willows and poplars awaken. The poplars are a challenge to identify, and I’m not there yet, but the one with the most striking catkins is probably a hybrid black poplar. The male catkins, faded from deep red to purple, now litter the ground, having presumably carried out their reproductive task – or given it their best shot. The long, slender green female catkins still have their work ahead of them: producing masses of fluffy white seeds which will cover the ground like snow in June.

Of the maples, Norway maple is the showstopper right now, with masses of yellow flowers on leafless branches. Field maple is less showy in spring, but becomes one of the loveliest trees in the woods in autumn, clinging to its yellow leaves when other trees are already bare. Sycamore is at its most graceful now, its large, smooth, green buds opening to release large leaves and hanging clusters of flowers. This is also the season when elm is most distinctive, covered in what looks like pale green blossom, but is actually winged seeds. Hawthorn, well ahead of the rest, is already fully clothed in vibrant green, gearing up for its starring turn when it blossoms in May. Hazelnut, hornbeam and alder are just coming into leaf, along with white willow and horse chestnut. Others are slower to join the party. The peculiar-looking flowers of the ash are only now beginning to sprout from its black buds, and leaves are still some way off. Aspen and grey poplar bear inconspicuous catkins but no leaves. Limes and oaks are still tight-budded and bare, biding their time.

At their feet there are wildflowers to be discovered. Since early spring the fringes of the Bunny Walks have been brightened by the brilliant yellow and glossy green of lesser celandine, interspersed with patches of violets in various shades of purple and white. Two small ponds are adorned with clumps of bright yellow marsh marigold. Right now, in mid April, the first patch of white comfrey is blooming in the woods; later, by the river, there’ll be larger patches in shades of blue and pink, humming with bees. In recent weeks the small purple flowers of ground ivy have appeared in the woods and on the edges of the meadow under the blackthorn, even colonizing the crook of a multi-trunked ash. The spotted lily leaves of lords-and-ladies are visible in abundance, and I’m looking out for the strange rod-like flowers. Green alkanet, an unwelcome weed in gardens, comes into its own in the woods, its lush leaves and gorgeous blue flowers a joyous sight. Red dead-nettles start blooming early and keep on going for months, alongside the taller white dead-nettles. Cow parsley and jack-by-the-hedge are just beginning to bloom. Yesterday I saw the first cowslips of the year, and the first red campion, still low to the ground. I even found, in the aspen grove, a flower I’d never seen here before, pale pink, not fully open, with demurely bowed heads – a cuckooflower, I think. In parts of the reserve the ground will disappear under a sea of stinging nettles as the weather gets warmer, but in others a wide variety of flowers will appear throughout the spring and summer.

Of course not all the people who walk and cycle along the Bunny Walks have the time or the inclination to see all this. Strangely, I seldom see anyone else engrossed in nature study. For many it’s just a quick route from A to B, for others it’s a pleasant spot to walk their dogs or teach their children to ride a bike. But whether or not they seek out and notice the nature offered to them here, all of these dog-walkers, dogless walkers, cyclists, commuters, shoppers, school pupils and young families benefit from the existence of the reserve. They benefit because they’re walking or cycling instead of driving or sitting on a bus; they benefit because they’re escaping the noise and traffic fumes of Broomfield Road; and they benefit because seeing trees and hearing birds is good for the soul. As Chelmsford’s housing intensifies and increasing numbers of people live in apartment blocks, nature reserves like this are becoming more and more essential.

As for me, the nature nerd who actually leaves the path to examine trees and flowers, I’ve learnt a lot from the Chelmer Valley Local Nature Reserve over the last five years. I haven’t finished learning, either. Every walk throws up new questions. What are the dark, moss-like clumps high up in the willows? Are the dead trees surrounding one of the few elms along the Bunny Walks also elms, and have they succumbed to the dreaded Dutch Elm Disease? Will that family of ducklings survive the predatory crows watching over them?

In short, I’ve learnt that running faster isn’t always the solution, and that this small urban nature reserve is most rewarding when taken slowly.

Cherry plum

Cherry plum

Blackthorn

Blackthorn

Sycamore

Elm (in fruit)

Elm (in fruit)

Lesser celandine

Violets

Comfrey

Marsh marigold

Lords-and-ladies

Ground ivy

Ground ivy on ash tree

Green alkanet

Cowslip

Cuckooflower?