Thanks to a decade of subsidies and investment, Austria has more than 1,000 biomass district heating plants. About 700,000 Austrian homes use wood as their main heat source. "In a turbulent world, many countries are realising the value of being able to use domestically grown biomass as a source of heat and power," Nemestothy says. "Without it, a lot of Austrians would have been very cold during the gas crisis."