GROWING the energy crops, short rotation coppice (SRC) willow and miscanthus grass, could help the UK to reduce carbon emissions and benefit wildlife, according to researchers from the UK Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use Programme.
Angela Karp, at Rothamsted Research, led a team from the universities of East Anglia and Exeter, the Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in a major research project to identify the effects of increasing the amount of land used to grow these new crops. Their calculations suggest that planting biomass crops to generate electricity does lead to net savings in greenhouse gases compared with current emissions.
SRC willow and miscanthus are already grown over 17,000 hectares in the UK to provide electricity and heat. Government policies aim to encourage planting up to about one million hectares, some of which could also be used to produce transport fuels.
But concerns have been raised about the likely effects on farmland biodiversity, water resources and familiar landscapes, as well as the pressures on land used for growing food crops.
On the bright side, the researchers found that the SRC willow, in particular, actually had positive effects for butterflies, some invertebrates and most bird species.