Agenda and draft minutes

(1)         RESOLVED that Members received briefing material to aid their discussions with the witnesses for the meeting.

(1)         The Chairman and Members welcomed Mr Tubby and Mr Woodcock to the meeting and asked them to give their presentation (a copy of the presentation is attached to these notes).

(2)         Mr Tubby said that he wanted to reassure Members on the technologies used in the wood fuel systems and highlight some of the areas, which could cause projects to fail, which he suggested were easy to address and some of the non wood fuel related biomass that the Forestry Commission dealt with from time to time.

(3)         He began by referring to a graph, on slide1, on the issue of carbon stocks.  He advised that the carbon content in all trees had approximately 50% of carbon and 50% of water.  He then offered 3 scenarios as follows:

(4)         For high forest, if you planted up a hectare of field with small trees and did nothing to it there would be a slow take up amount of carbon, once the canopy closed and the trees were photosynthesising at a rapid rate and putting on growth very quickly there would be a rapid increase of carbon on the hectare of field.  After 80 years depending on the trees and the planting density that would plateau, as some of the trees would die, branches would fall off; the carbon would oxidize and be returned to the atmosphere.  In this scenario the carbon stock would remain constant and in the hectare of land you would remove 150 tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.  The growth rate would be just less than 4 oven dried tonnes per hectare per year, which was a reasonably fast rate of growth and would be achievable in Kent.

(5)         The other extreme in woodland management would be clear fell assuming the same yield but when you harvest the trees your carbon stocks in the land fell back to zero and increased again when you replanted.  Mr Tubby referred to a slide that showed 3 harvests.  The carbon stock on the hectare of land would average at 100 tonnes per hectare, a lower level than the scenario above but each of those harvests meant that you were removing the carbon from the woodland and could be included in construction or remain resident in the lifetime of the building or it could be used to displace coal, oil or gas and keep fossil carbon locked up into the ground.

(6)         In Kent he suggested that you would find this scenario, which was the establishing of woodland and once the woodland was mature you would take some thinnings every 10, 15 or 20 years that would result in the carbon stock on the hectare of land falling but the carbon could go into the fuel supply chain or the construction industry where it would remain locked up again for the lifespan of the building. 

(7)         This was simplistically how carbon stocks build up in woodlands under different management systems.

(8)         Mr Tubby provided information packs for Members on the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 7.

(1)          Farmers in the font line of the cc as organisation  country land and business organisation etc are convinced by scientific evidence have to adapt to adaptations driven by government policy.

(1)         Mr White and Mr Scurlock were welcomed by the Chairman and Members to the meeting.

(2)        Mr White gave a brief introduction advising that there were 5000 commercial farmers and growers paying a voluntary subscribing to the NFU an apolitical organisation.

(3)        How much production is coming of the farms for renewable energy, from which crops,  what sort of potential is there to enhance that production and what sort of incentives were there to ensure that happens?

(4)        Mr Scurlock advised that the current position in the EU directives says that by 2020 across the Union renewable energy in all its forms, electricity generation, supply of heat and transport fuels too had to become 20% across the whole of the EU.  The UK had a target of 15% set which would be a big stretch over the next ten years as the UK was close to the bottom of the league table with 2-2½%, mostly in electricity very little renewable heat and a growth in transport renewable fuels.   The NFU farmers were aware of the business opportunities of renewable energies but most farmers were still heavily dependent on fossil fuels.

(5)        The level of awareness was growing.  There were a number of initiatives taking place. The NFU and the CLA were involved with Farming Futures website farmingfutures.org.uk; which was a DEFRA funded information service designed to raise awareness about climate change, problems and solutions across many sectors, targeted at farmers.  It was successful.  It highlights that there was a growing problem which was reflected in farmer’s ordinary experience in eg input costs, concerns with energy bills.

(6)        To make this happen, some of the government policies were falling into place partly driven to the need to respond to the EU renewable directive.  The Renewable Electricity Obligation was one of the earliest measures in 2001 that took over from the non fossil fuel obligation.  There was then the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation that required a rising proportion of bio fuels or other renewable transport services in the general public transport services mix mostly delivered by low blends of bio fuels.  That was providing a useful new business opportunity for farmers and growers.  Farmers had always grown grains whether wheat or oilseed rape for multiple purposes the best quality would go into making bread and biscuits, the middle quality would go for animal feed and the lower end of product quality would be used for producing industrial starch.  The transport fuels needed and investment was being put in now into the market was large wheat to ethanol plants, 3 large plants, one already commissioned and one to come on line in North Humberside and a third one also in the North East region. 

(7)        Mr White put this in the Kent context.  He had asked 10 NFU offices across Kent if there were any anaerobic digestion projects on the farms; there was not a single response.  In contrast in Chichester there were 2 large vegetable growers supplying the multiples, the driver  ...  view the full minutes text for item 8.

(Please note – a PowerPoint presentation prepared by Dr Lee will be appended to these notes)

1.      Dr Lee explained that as an educator he had no agenda in the field of renewable energy other than his aims towards achieving sustainability and quality of life for the citizens of Kent.

2.      Hadlow College offers a Sustainable Land Management Degree which, so far, is the only such degree in the country and takes account of social as well as geographical issues.

3.      Dr Lee explained to the select committee that he was highly conscious of resource efficiencies and that we are moving into a position of considerable change. With ‘wobbly economics, resource depletion including oil depletion, climate change and other factors, ‘business as usual’ will not continue and we must think about what we put in its place to avert crisis by looking at possible scenarios. There are strong links between energy and food security.

4.      Mr Ferrin indicated the committee was interested to hear Dr Lee’s views and to learn of the issues on which KCC should make representation to the government, and those upon which we could act ourselves. Dr Lee had posed these questions to his students and it was evident that there were no easy answers.

5.      To begin with, it is necessary to understand the requirement across the county and what could be done about changes using a spatial geographical approach and GIS to clarify what, for the county, is an appropriate mix of technologies.

6.      Dr Lee believed that the offshore wind developments around the coast were potentially very successful. Regarding onshore wind in the county, having visited the testing site and seen demonstrations, he believed that medi turbines which are 15-20m tall (Quiet Revolution - QR) could be successful in Kent if correctly sited.

7.      Solar technology should be incorporated anywhere there was a new development and PV-T (combining photovoltaic and solar thermal panels for both electricity generation and heat production) were far more efficient than the single technologies. Crossways house featured on Grand Designs in Staplehurst had used this technology. The architect, Mr Richard Hawkes had stated to Dr Lee at a conference that 12 square metres of PV-T panels on an average house would provide most of the heating and electricity required.

8.      Anaerobic digestion provides around a 50:50 ratio of Carbon Dioxide and Methane (a greenhouse gas which if burned, is not a problem), and end products rich in nitrogen and phosphorus which are both used as fertilisers. The gas can be burned in gas engines to provide electricity and heat. Methane can also be used to drive petrol engines having first been scrubbed and stored in cylinders as for liquid propane gas (LPG). Dr Lee believes that all these are interesting developments which are in danger of passing us by in Kent.

9.      The amount of petrol and diesel now used (for transport) could in no way be replaced by the methane but some of it could.

10.  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.