Denmark is heavily dependent on importing wood pellets and wood chips from abroad. Almost all of our combined heat and power plants, which used to fire with coal, now fire with wood. We mainly source it from the Baltic countries, the USA and Russia, but also with detours to South America and Africa.

In light of the climate crisis, it is not sustainable at all. Forest, wood and wood residues are enormously valuable. Forests absorb and store CO2, and wood can replace climate-harming products such as concrete and bricks in construction and, in the future, perhaps also aviation fuel and plastic. Residues from timber production can be used for insulation material or building boards.

At the same time, TV2 recently showed that Copenhagen's new biomass plant has bought wood chips in the Amazon, and the case has cast doubt on whether sustainability is under control in the places we get the wood from.

Nordjyllandsværket and its owner, Aalborg Municipality, have made it clear that they would like to avoid biomass. When the plant is to phase out its use of coal in 2028, the district heating must first and foremost be based on heat pumps with heat sources such as geothermal heat, excess heat and waste water, combined with solar heating and large heat stores. But how it should all be designed and distributed is not in place. It is really good that Aalborg bypasses biomass, even if it is cheap, i.a. because there are no taxes on it. But it should be possible to do it sooner than 2028.

In addition to Nordjyllandsværket, there are only two coal-fired plants left in Denmark, which will soon be phased out. In Esbjerg, they are planning to say no thanks to biomass, while in Odense they are still considering it.

The consumption of biomass should not be increased but scaled down dramatically and completely phased out towards 2040, while heat pumps, geothermal energy and the use of excess heat must be at the forefront. The heat supply must be based on real sustainable renewable energy, not wood and shavings.