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No, this does not work. A forest is a carbon store. Burning trees puts carbon from this store to the atmosphere. To count it as carbon neutral is an accountin

No, this does not work. A forest is a carbon store. Burning trees puts carbon from this store to the atmosphere. To count it as carbon neutral is an accounting mistake, that could be very costly... Burn the dead leaves and you shrink humus (or annihilate it, depending on how much you do it), another huge carbon store. So that makes it yet another accounting mistake. More generally, it is good practice to separate well atmospheric carbon (CO2) and captive carbone (anything in solid/liquid state). Just show that faithfully in the accounting method, and a lot of good will follow.

jacquesm 6y ago
You are mistaken. I don't have the time right now to explain in detail but it really is quite simple: burning new forest is carbon neutral. https://wood-energy.extension.org/is-burning-wood-carbon-neutral/ https://wood-energy.extension.org/is-burning-wood-carbon-neu...
- henearkr 6y ago
  You are thinking about the set of two actions {growing a forest from bare ground + burning it}. That indeed would be zero-emission. But burning a preexisting forest is cancelling an existing carbon store and converting lots of solid carbon into atmospheric carbon. The fact a forest is a carbon store is precisely why a startup such as Pachama exists: they help grow new forests to capture carbon. https://pachama.com https://pachama.com Would you then just unnoticingly burn them for energy, and keep telling the customers that you just captured a net amount of carbon? PS: oh you are jacquesm! :) didn't notice. How are you? PPS: some critic about the link you sent me ("wood-energy.extension"): I disagree with what they say, in that fallen wood too is a carbon store, and in a forest at equilibrium the amount decomposed by fungi/bacteria is roughly compensated by the newly fallen wood. So that's just a carbon store, and if you begin to burn it you shrink this store.

jacquesm 6y ago

You are mistaken. I don't have the time right now to explain in detail but it really is quite simple: burning new forest is carbon neutral. https://wood-energy.extension.org/is-burning-wood-carbon-neutral/ https://wood-energy.extension.org/is-burning-wood-carbon-neu...

henearkr 6y ago
You are thinking about the set of two actions {growing a forest from bare ground + burning it}. That indeed would be zero-emission. But burning a preexisting forest is cancelling an existing carbon store and converting lots of solid carbon into atmospheric carbon. The fact a forest is a carbon store is precisely why a startup such as Pachama exists: they help grow new forests to capture carbon. https://pachama.com https://pachama.com Would you then just unnoticingly burn them for energy, and keep telling the customers that you just captured a net amount of carbon? PS: oh you are jacquesm! :) didn't notice. How are you? PPS: some critic about the link you sent me ("wood-energy.extension"): I disagree with what they say, in that fallen wood too is a carbon store, and in a forest at equilibrium the amount decomposed by fungi/bacteria is roughly compensated by the newly fallen wood. So that's just a carbon store, and if you begin to burn it you shrink this store.