>Biomass, of which wood from forests is the main source, now makes up almost 60% of the EU’s renewable energy supply, more than solar and wind combined, and a v

>Biomass, of which wood from forests is the main source, now makes up almost 60% of the EU’s renewable energy supply, more than solar and wind combined, and a vast cross-border industry has emerged to meet this demand. In the early industrial revolution, European forests were being progressively logged out - the wood was used for construction and to heat buildings, but largely the new demand was from blast furnaces, smelting iron. More or less, England ran out of forests first, and turned to peat, and then coal, and then along came Thomas Newcomen (he did build on the work of others) with a heat engine to extract water from coal mines... and now, it seems, we have come full circle. Biomass is a reasonable carbon-neutral energy source, but managed forests are a long-term (centuries) play. Croplands (including pasturing fields as carbon sinks) is better in the near term (a few decades). NB: The omission of 'fairy' before 'tale' in the headline summary (the original is "'Carbon-neutrality is a fairy tale': how the race for renewables is burning Europe's forests") really changes the meaning here.