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This is one of the greatest achievements of the Biomass industry - marketing wood as "renewable" and "carbon neutral". First and foremost - at a time, when eve

This is one of the greatest achievements of the Biomass industry - marketing wood as "renewable" and "carbon neutral". First and foremost - at a time, when every bit of CO2 not emitted counts, we should be happy about CO2 being fixated in trees - once it's released, it doesn't matter whether the it is coming from jet engines or wood - the effect on climate change is the same. Furthermore, burning wood is quite inefficient in terms of mass/energy gain - even worse than coal. But besides that, there are a lot of systematic effects which make wood a non-neutral source of energy and making use of it as energy source comes with a lot of issues. Even if wood would be completely neutral, it would still be negative due to the energy required to harvest, process and transport it. Trees don't only sequestrate carbon in wood, but also in the forest soil through their roots. Decaying wood is processed by microorganisms and mycelium in the soil, so it's not only about the tree itself capturing CO2, but also about it being part of a more complex sequestration system which is disturbed by removing the tree. Cutting down single trees from an otherwise intact forest as part of a "sustainable forestry" strategy is actually often quite problematic, as the sudden exposure to sun & weather leads to decreased survival rates of fresh growth, but also soil erosion and thereby CO2 release - not even taking the damage of harvesting machinery etc. into account. Those "wounded" forests decrease the Earth's Albedo which also adds to climate change. Last but not least are forests not simply something that can be "renewed" by replanting trees, but are extremly complex ecosystems which might take millenia to build up. Right now, we're cutting down massive amounts of old growth around the world which can never be properly restored - we're far from managing wood like a crop on designated "farms". With technologies available like Passivhaus construction, heatpumps, solar and/or geothermal energy, there's zero reason to add to our systemic issues by using wood as an energy source. When it comes to particle and toxic emissions, there isn't a single non-industrial wood burner that would only come close to the emissions of a gas or oil furnace (not saying they're good, as they're using fossil fuels). The best even modern filters will get you is still worse by factor of ~400-500 compared to oil.

alamortsubite 6y ago
People aren't cutting down live trees to burn in their wood stoves.
- eliaspro 6y ago
  Even if (which is far from the reality) only dead wood would be collected from the forest, it's still releasing CO2 which would otherwise be mostly sequestrated by microorganisms and fungi in the forest soil and provide a key ingredient to a functioning soil ecosystem. The reality is: huge amounts of protected forests (e.g. in Romania or Estonia) are cut down and sold as firewood in central Europe.
  - alamortsubite 6y ago
    Live trees are full of water, and take, in my experience, two years minimum after they die to season properly before their wood can be burned in a stove. If people are harvesting live trees for firewood, my guess is they're desperate for other options. I don't think that's the case in NZ (the context for this discussion), but I admit to being clueless about the situation in Central Europe. Also, if a dead tree is laying on the ground and your options are 1) use it to heat your home, or 2) leave it the to mushrooms and bugs and burn fossil fuel instead, then if the environment is your concern, I don't see how you could pick the latter. Keep in mind that one of the best things about heating with wood is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort on the part of the end user. Cutting, splitting, stacking, starting a fire, feeding the stove, adjusting the stove, taking out the ashes. Some of us enjoy it, but it's definitely a lot of hard work, and I'd argue all the time you put into it makes you far more in touch with how much energy you consume than someone who simply twists a dial on the wall and kicks back to Netflix. You might even choose a much smaller house and wear a sweater. I've hiked in a forest in Romania. Despite the fact that it was a great place to be eaten by a bear, it was spectacular and a resource to be treasured.
    - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
      I'm pretty sure live trees are harvested, cut to length and split into firewood, dried for two years, and sold. It's sort of necessarily true that the trees used are dead. I think the point is: many are killed specifically to produce firewood.
      - 6y ago
bacon_waffle 6y ago
Without starting a point-by-point rebuttal, I think we're talking a bit past each other. Here, there are a couple perspectives to consider: You're a landowner and need to decide how to use your land (ed: which has already been cleared of native bush). Practically, the usual choices are something like: * Dairy farming * Subdivide and build residential sprawl * Crop farming * Forestry (introduced tree species) Note that all of those can provide wood that's suitable for heating, however only two do it in a way that aren't clearly bad from a greenhouse gas standpoint. A lot of land here isn't suitable for crop farming, and generally crop farms don't have many wind breaks either. Or, you're a homeowner and need to decide how to heat your existing, likely built to a low/nonexistent efficiency standard, house. Your choices are: * Heat pump, usually poorly located/installed * Electrical resistance heaters where needed * Burn wood * Burn coal In the balance, I think wood heat is a pretty good compromise. Currently, our electricity is relatively "clean", but only because previous generations installed a bunch of hydro. At some stage, we'll hopefully have a better mix with wind and PV, and of course those do have costs too, but we're not there yet.

alamortsubite 6y ago

People aren't cutting down live trees to burn in their wood stoves.

eliaspro 6y ago
Even if (which is far from the reality) only dead wood would be collected from the forest, it's still releasing CO2 which would otherwise be mostly sequestrated by microorganisms and fungi in the forest soil and provide a key ingredient to a functioning soil ecosystem. The reality is: huge amounts of protected forests (e.g. in Romania or Estonia) are cut down and sold as firewood in central Europe.
- alamortsubite 6y ago
  Live trees are full of water, and take, in my experience, two years minimum after they die to season properly before their wood can be burned in a stove. If people are harvesting live trees for firewood, my guess is they're desperate for other options. I don't think that's the case in NZ (the context for this discussion), but I admit to being clueless about the situation in Central Europe. Also, if a dead tree is laying on the ground and your options are 1) use it to heat your home, or 2) leave it the to mushrooms and bugs and burn fossil fuel instead, then if the environment is your concern, I don't see how you could pick the latter. Keep in mind that one of the best things about heating with wood is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort on the part of the end user. Cutting, splitting, stacking, starting a fire, feeding the stove, adjusting the stove, taking out the ashes. Some of us enjoy it, but it's definitely a lot of hard work, and I'd argue all the time you put into it makes you far more in touch with how much energy you consume than someone who simply twists a dial on the wall and kicks back to Netflix. You might even choose a much smaller house and wear a sweater. I've hiked in a forest in Romania. Despite the fact that it was a great place to be eaten by a bear, it was spectacular and a resource to be treasured.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure live trees are harvested, cut to length and split into firewood, dried for two years, and sold. It's sort of necessarily true that the trees used are dead. I think the point is: many are killed specifically to produce firewood.
    - 6y ago

bacon_waffle 6y ago

Without starting a point-by-point rebuttal, I think we're talking a bit past each other. Here, there are a couple perspectives to consider: You're a landowner and need to decide how to use your land (ed: which has already been cleared of native bush). Practically, the usual choices are something like: * Dairy farming * Subdivide and build residential sprawl * Crop farming * Forestry (introduced tree species) Note that all of those can provide wood that's suitable for heating, however only two do it in a way that aren't clearly bad from a greenhouse gas standpoint. A lot of land here isn't suitable for crop farming, and generally crop farms don't have many wind breaks either. Or, you're a homeowner and need to decide how to heat your existing, likely built to a low/nonexistent efficiency standard, house. Your choices are: * Heat pump, usually poorly located/installed * Electrical resistance heaters where needed * Burn wood * Burn coal In the balance, I think wood heat is a pretty good compromise. Currently, our electricity is relatively "clean", but only because previous generations installed a bunch of hydro. At some stage, we'll hopefully have a better mix with wind and PV, and of course those do have costs too, but we're not there yet.