27 June 2005
Customers in Scotland are being advised by the government to generate their energy by burning wood.
The report, from the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) in Scotland, claims that using wood instead of oil, coal and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) could cut carbon dioxide emissions by at least 80 per cent.
Rural areas especially could benefit from using wood to heat homes, the report says.
SDC spokesman Hugh Raven told Scotland's Sunday Herald: "With a reasonable level of take-up, likely to be in rural areas, almost a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions from Scotland's domestic space and water heating could be cut."
Thanks to the country's plentiful wood resources, the report says one in ten homes could use a wood burning boiler.
Scotland's conifer forests could yield as many as a million tonnes of wood for fuel a year, enough to generate between five and 11 per cent of the region's home and water heating.
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