The government immediately put an end to subsidies for co-combustion of bio-based raw materials in 2022. The government now wants to enable coal-fired power stations to switch to biomass again in the future. Tomorrow there will be a debate in the House of Representatives on this politically controversial topic.

From 2030, coal will no longer be allowed to be burned to generate power, meaning the last coal-fired power stations in the Netherlands will have to close. Coal-fired power plants want to switch to biomass to generate electricity. They want to capture the released carbon dioxide and store it underground, in ancient gas bubbles under the North Sea. This would lead to negative emissions, because planting new trees and sequestering carbon dioxide would reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air.

“A myth,” as MP Christine Teunissen from the Party for the Animals calls it. “It takes fifty years for a tree to absorb carbon dioxide. Planting trees again is right in the long term, but it takes a very long time before those trees absorb anything. Then we won’t have met our climate goals.”

Teunissen introduced an amendment to prevent coal-fired power plants from converting to burning biomass. This amendment (proposed amendment) prohibits the burning of wood residues. “It’s destroying nature, damaging the climate, damaging public health. So it’s a very bad plan in every way.”

According to the PvdD member, investments in biomass are dead-end investments, but coal-fired power plants see themselves as an important link in making the energy sector more sustainable.

Andre Bosman, director of the energy company Uniper Benelux, argues that burning biomass leads to the destruction of nature. Uniper is the owner of one of the coal-fired power stations in Maasvlakte. “Biomass is actually wood waste from the timber industry. We don’t burn trees.”

“Burning biomass is an important part of making energy more sustainable,” Bosman says. He sees an important role for the coal-fired power plant if there is no sun or wind on some days for solar or wind power generation. The old coal-fired power station could burn biomass to generate enough energy for the Netherlands.

According to Theunissen, keeping biomass on hand is not necessary at all. “Less than 10% of our production capacity comes from coal. If we saved a lot and switched to solar and wind, we wouldn’t need biomass plants at all.”

However, there are also positive voices in policy about switching to biomass. For example, Christian Democratic Party leader Henri Pontenball described the Theunissen amendment as “not well thought out.” The PvdD thus eliminates one of the options for achieving climate goals, says the CDA leader. “I think it would be naive to ban it completely, because that would make it more difficult to achieve climate goals.”

In addition, banning the conversion to biomass also creates other problems because there is no alternative yet, Bontenbal says. “Amercentrale provides heat to part of Brabant. There is no solution for this. Should we first arrange this solution before leaving people in the cold?”

“Another source of heat for the heating network in Breda and Tilburg has simply not been found. You have to sort that out before you stop,” Bontepal says. As far as it is concerned, coal-fired power plants that already burn biomass can switch to biomass, provided the carbon dioxide is reduced, captured and placed underground.

Bosman stresses that this is what coal-fired power plants want, but clarity from policy is essential. Retrofitting coal-fired power plants involves high costs. Bosman estimates “between 500 million and 1 billion.” To dare to make these investments, certainty is needed. “As long as everything is said to be not permitted, there will be no investments.”