On Sweden’s coast, directly across from the Danish capital of Copenhagen, the Barsebäck nuclear plant sits decommissioned and cooling off in the southern province of Skåne. Outside the locked gates, a fading billboard details environmental and economic benefits of the plant, which produced 60 per cent of Skåne’s electricity. The billboard contrasts smoke belching from the smokestacks of the coal-fired Amager plant in Copenhagen harbour with the smoke-free nuclear Barsebäck plant in the background.

The irony is that the nuclear plant is now closed and awaiting an immensely expensive demolition, whereas across the strait, the three furnaces of the Amager plant are now fuelled by carbon neutral straw and wood pellets. The energy needs produced by the nuclear plant now come from a number of smaller more efficient plants fuelled by municipal waste and timber industry waste.

Bioenergy is currently the main form of renewable energy in most European Union countries. It is sustainable, carbon neutral, base load, and creates permanent regional jobs. In Denmark, Sweden and Finland particularly, bioenergy is one of the most cost effective sources of renewable energy.

To make it such a cost competitive energy source these countries have long been developing policies and funding support for renewables. Each country began to develop renewable energy in the late 1970s after the two world oil crises, concentrating on making better use of under utilised energy sources. All three instituted some form of carbon tax as early as 1991. The tax revenue, raised on fossil fuels, funds research and development, and the conversion of small and large power plants to the use of biomass and municipal waste.

Denmark developed the use of straw for energy and now has numerous district heating and combined heat and power plants fuelled either partly or entirely by straw and straw pellets. It also developed anaerobic fermentation of sewage and animal manure for production of biogas. Renowned for its early adoption of wind energy and with only about 10 per cent forest cover, of the 17 per cent of energy provided by renewable energy in 2007, woody biomass delivered over 40 per cent. Flammable and putrescibles waste accounted for over 30 per cent, while wind turbines produced approximately 20 per cent.

But it is in Sweden and Finland that energy from the forestry and timber industry’s waste is demonstrating the real potential of this resource.

Sweden has similarly developed the production of industrial volumes of biogas from sewage, food processing waste, green plant waste and slaughterhouse waste. It has subsidised the production and purchase of cars that can be run on biogas, 85 per cent ethanol or biodiesel Central heating in Sweden is now effectively carbon neutral due to the use of biomass-fuelled district heating. In 2008, about 27 per cent of Sweden’s energy came from – mainly woody – biomass. At present the target is to increase this figure to 39 per cent by 2020. Sweden aims to eliminate imports of fossil fuels by 2025.

In Finland, approximately 20 per cent of electricity is produced from biomass, derived almost entirely from forestry waste or from timber processing. Around 23 per cent of the country’s overall energy supply is now derived from this. By 2020, Finland aims to produce 39 per cent of its national energy needs from renewable energy sources.

To develop Australia’s great bioenergy potential, coherent policies and long term strategies will be required. To date they have been lacking, but they could now be fast tracked.

We have the available land, climate and infrastructure. We have expertise and initial plantings through the farming community. We have the national need for carbon sequestration, and farmers who need to quickly develop a massive total of plantings for emissions offsets. We also have vast amounts of municipal waste and forestry waste, begging to be used.