Actually, per tonne of wood, the land transport at either end of the journey is most likely to result in significantly greater CO2 emission than is the entire shipboard journey on a bulk carrier.
It would indeed, and a lot of Canadian timber plantations are a very long way from the coast.
As an aside there is still debate about carbon sequestration and trees; the study in Nature (Stephenson et al, 2014) suggests in forests old trees sequest more CO2 than younger trees, whereas another study (Pugh et al, 2019) suggests that trees planted on agricultural land absorb CO2 faster than established trees. Yet another study of English hedgerows argues that trees should be left to grow rather than be kept neat and short (Crossland, 2015).
In short more research required! However it would be good for the English countryside if more hedges were planted.
Its actually the reverse. The system needs a capitalist friendly scene. Then investors and the public (same thing?) will pile in. We are still locked in the EU VAT rules at the moments so we have no choice. After leaving we should have zero VAT on renewables for 20 years or something IMO.
VAT exempt or zero rated (theyâre quite different)?
In either case, how is the billing company to know how much VAT to charge on the electricity supplied to my house? The meter canât distinguish emf from renewable sources for any other emf, and the extent of renewable contribution to the grid generation that they have commissioned from the generators will vary from moment to moment. So to work on a supply (rather than a consumption) principle theyâd have to keep a permanent record of my electrical consumption on a moment to moment basis to calculate the amount of electricity from renewable sources they actually supplied to me in any given billing period.
Superficially, using VAT for this seems to be a good idea; itâs just that wonât work in practice!
And because VAT is designed as an end-user tax, any intermediary businesses are not affected by the rate of VAT (except temporarily in the form of cash flow). So, it is only at the last delivery to a (non business) consumer that it matters. And VAT is probably already quite complicated enough already. You could only do it via the supplying companyâs mix of renewables / other - and if that varies dynamically it would be a nightmare
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Unfortunately although VAT is finally paid as an end user tax, it has to be accounted for at all stages of the production / delivery chain that occur within the EU single market zone, this complicates the reality even further.
Youâre quite correct. I was thinking of impacting behaviour rather than admin hassle on the way
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