18 ms·

Carbon-neutrality is a tale: the race for renewables is burning Europe's forests

171 points by ericdanielski 5y ago

sundvor 5y ago
It's super interesting to see that Australia doesn't hold a monopoly on having completely brain-dead anti systemic thinking people in charge of developing environmentally friendly sustainability policies.
i_am_proteus 5y ago
>Biomass, of which wood from forests is the main source, now makes up almost 60% of the EU’s renewable energy supply, more than solar and wind combined, and a vast cross-border industry has emerged to meet this demand. In the early industrial revolution, European forests were being progressively logged out - the wood was used for construction and to heat buildings, but largely the new demand was from blast furnaces, smelting iron. More or less, England ran out of forests first, and turned to peat, and then coal, and then along came Thomas Newcomen (he did build on the work of others) with a heat engine to extract water from coal mines... and now, it seems, we have come full circle. Biomass is a reasonable carbon-neutral energy source, but managed forests are a long-term (centuries) play. Croplands (including pasturing fields as carbon sinks) is better in the near term (a few decades). NB: The omission of 'fairy' before 'tale' in the headline summary (the original is "'Carbon-neutrality is a fairy tale': how the race for renewables is burning Europe's forests") really changes the meaning here.
- open-source-ux 5y ago
  "In the early industrial revolution, European forests were being progressively logged out...More or less, England ran out of forests first" Forest cover (the amount of forest covering the land) has always been small in the UK for the past few hundred years. The Industrial Revolution was not the cause of the small forest cover in the UK. An estimate from the Forest Commission (a UK government department) is that forest cover in England in the 1100s was only about 15%. After World War I, it dipped to its lowest point - 5%. It's currently about 17% in England (similar in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). If you are interested in the reasons why, it's discussed in this BBC Radio programme: More or Less: Behind the Stats: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x66st https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x66st The stats I've listed above are taken from the programme. The discussion starts approximately at the 24-minute mark.
MattGaiser 5y ago
I was part of a startup accelerator at one point and one stream was technology commercialization. A professor was pitching us on his technology for more efficiently shipping wood pellets across the ocean (I live in Canada) to displace coal in the UK. At the time we thought this was a crazy business that would rapidly be killed off. And here it is 4 years later, still chugging.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
That's a frustratingly vague piece. Bottom line: tree based biomass isn't as good as solar and wind and shouldn't be subsidized as much. But, it's almost certainly better than coal which some places are still using. What I wanted to know, and the article very pointedly didn't tell me: is this a good thing if we limit to scraps from creating planks for other uses? I think it probably is.
- harg 5y ago
  I think it also highlights that cutting down forests for energy also greatly harms the natural ecosystem that depends on the existence of trees. So there are effects beyond carbon emissions
- i_am_proteus 5y ago
  I think the implication is that it's not necessarily better than coal because burning forests is only carbon neutral on a very long time scale. Eventually the cycle of harvesting trees, burning the wood, and planting more trees is carbon-neutral (minus any carbon from logging and transportation). But, if the process starts with logging existing forests, this releases carbon (more than coal). It would be "better" to burn coal and plant new trees than to burn wood and plant new trees. This would result in more land being forested - but that's the point.
  - KptMarchewa 5y ago
    > This would result in more land being forested Why? This is an additional variable. You can add additional area in both cases. Why would burning coal add some land that you can plant new forests, and burning wood not?
    - pjc50 5y ago
      Bear in mind that in Europe "plant new forest" means "change land use from agriculture" or "change non-forest ecosystem such as moorland to forest". There's isn't a lot of land that's just spare.
raverbashing 5y ago
"Wood pellets are sold as a clean alternative to coal. " Well, it's because they are. Managed forests are renewable. It's the same for all the paper/cardboard stuff replacing plastic bags.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > Managed forests are renewable Fair let's accept that. The issue is that the amount of managed forest area in Europe versus the amount of bio-mass furnaces is completely out of sync. These furnaces spend a huge amount of mass just to heat-up and another huge chunk to sustain in order to break even. All of the managed forests in Europe put together are unable to sustain these wood burning furnaces and they are happily importing wood pelets from the US/Canada/Malaysia etc. (often with tax payer subsidies). None of this energy generation is carbon neutral and absolutely none of it is sustainable. It is the wrong model and an even worse implementation of energy policy. Europe does not have the surface area for this. If we need more non-intermitent energy sources we would be better off applying this money in France's mini nuclear reactors or in geo-thermal bore drilling for non-geothermal areas.
  - raverbashing 5y ago
    Thanks for clarifying, makes sense and I agree with this. Though some burning furnaces operate also with trash/gas (the latter to start the fires usually). And it is better than coal, surely. But yeah I'd rather see the money on nuclear/geothermal/etc
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > All of the managed forests in Europe put together are unable to sustain these wood burning furnaces and they are happily importing wood pelets from the US/Canada/Malaysia etc. (often with tax payer subsidies). > None of this energy generation is carbon neutral and absolutely none of it is sustainable. It is the wrong model and an even worse implementation of energy policy. It sounds you're making a couple of mistakes along the way: presuming the current state of biomass output is at a steadt-state, and following a miopic train of thought where you confuse a ramp-up stage with a steadt-state. Regarding the current biomass output being out of sync with production, the Guardian article that sparked this discussion states quite clearly that Estonia's problem was that it's licensing process failed, motivated by the need to grab the most EU subsidies they possibly can. Therefore this motivates spending as much cash building up infrastructure that's largely overprovisioned. This is a systemic problem with all kinds of EU subsidies, but that does not mean the potential biomass production level should be interpreted as a fixed variable and everything else should be solved with regards to it.
streamofdigits 5y ago
co2 emissions is just one of the sustainability dimensions. Biodiversity is another one. We need forests (and other non-managed areas) to give the rest of nature (literally) some room to breathe.
- nicolaslem 5y ago
  As someone who enjoys nature quite a lot but doesn't know anything about forestry, I am always surprised by the damage done by cutting a single tree. There is always a wasteland of 15 m radius done by the truck that has to come right in the middle of the forest to carry the tree. Surely that cannot be good for biodiversity.
  - uuidgen 5y ago
    If you do the forestry right you create many plots in there and aim to cut down e.g. 2% in a given year. That mean you will get the whole forest replaced in 50 years. If you're careful to not cut too much in a single space then the animals and plants can move around and it should be ok for biodiversity. Now for the energetic biomass - this is more like 5-10 year rotation so while the animals can move around the plants can't. Those will be mono-cultures to sustain energy demand until we have enough of some other energy sources.
pjc50 5y ago
A lot of the wood is imported (via oil-burning ships). At one point I tried to calculate the impact of Drax shifting to wood pellets from Canada, and concluded that if it was limited to local wood it would consume every tree in the UK within a year. I may have my maths wrong, but European forests are a resource that's been depleted for centuries..
- oblio 5y ago
  > I may have my maths wrong You do :-) Europeans are moving into denser and denser built up areas, agriculture is becoming more efficient and as a result we can leave more of the continent alone, than 100 years ago. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20180321-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch-how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04...
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Would you do the work of fishing out the bit that contradicts my maths about Drax?
    - oblio 5y ago
      I don't even know what or who Drax is. Drax the Destroyer?
      - ben_w 5y ago
        The largest power station in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Power_Station In particular for this topic, it has a 2.6 GW capacity for biomass, in addition to 1.29 GW capacity for coal.
    - nuerow 5y ago
      > Would you do the work of fishing out the bit that contradicts my maths about Drax? What math? No math was presented at all, only a baseless assertion consisting of a vague claim that all forests in the UK could be wiped out within a year. I'd love to see this "Draw math" though. Care to show it?
GekkePrutser 5y ago
The only reason this "biomass" is so popular is an artificial reason. It's just a means for electricity companies to continue using coal and basically not doing anything, while selling their power as 'green'. All they need to do is throw a few wood chips in the mix.. This practice should really be banned. Or at least not be allowed to be labeled as green power. But if they did that the governments look really bad because they won't even come close to meeting their Paris accord goals. So big business is burning the forests for no other reason than a green label .. While not improving anything for the environment.
- amelius 5y ago
  What angers me most about this is not the burning of forests (which is bad), but how politicians could allow this to happen in the first place.
  - jsilence 5y ago
    You can reduce your electricity demand and then buy the remaining electricity from 'true green' providers. Don't have to wait for the politicians.
    - oblio 5y ago
      That's nice, but the unfortunate thing is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc It's a Kurzgesagt video about why individual action is far from enough, and why we need systemic action. Do your part, but also pressure politicians, because that's where the main pain point is.
      - jsilence 5y ago
        Well yes, do both, do your thing and pressure politicians. still no need to wait for the politicians. I just loath people putting the blame on politicians, China, capitalism or some sort of world cabal just to have a rationale to continue their own unsustainable style of living.
agent327 5y ago
In my village in the Netherlands, a great amount of greenery has been eradicated in this last year. Gone are almost all the brambles with their delicious harvest, all we have now is grass, grass everywhere. Surrounding villages have the same problem: if it's green and could be cut down, it's now gone. I strongly suspect this is because the government has mandated a minimum amount of 'biomass' to be produced. God help us for the next year, we'll probably lose all the remaining trees.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Well that's depressing.
maciejw 5y ago
Few years ago I worked on an biomass tarehouse project for one of Poland's power plants. One of supported kinds of biomass was palm kernel shells. Palms do not grow neither in Poland, nor within 500km from its borders. Yet someone considered it a good solution to produce "green" energy.
possiblelion 5y ago
Is there a reason this old article from January was posted again now? As someone from Estonia, it's quite biased in my opinion and takes some fringe viewpoints and presents them as representing my people.
Dumblydorr 5y ago
I believe much of the wood pellets are coming from the US, I know in the south many reject trees are used for pellets. Still, we can't pretend burning anything for power is allowable for our biosphere.
ulrikrasmussen 5y ago
I live in Denmark, and I am so frustrated that my country has invested so heavily in biomass plants for heating and electricity. We are supposed to be one of the countries that lead the way and demonstrate how the rest of the world can de-carbonize, but even if biomass was truly carbon-neutral (and I doubt that it is, at least in the short term of the next 50-100 years) it does not scale to the rest of the world, because we would need to have planted the forests for that a long time ago. I live in an area that is planned to get central heating from a biomass plant, but I have chosen to invest in a heat pump instead. Yes, this will in part be driven by electricity from biomass, but hopefully our energy mix will become more sustainable in the near future, and at least I won't be locked into 100% biomass for the next 30 years.
- uuidgen 5y ago
  Biomass takes 5-10 years to grow. Given that it can be used in many coal furnaces it is imo the best "now" solution.
credit_guy 5y ago
Here's an idea how to become carbon neutral in a hurry. New York State is proposing an emission tax on gasoline of 55 cents per gallon [1]. When you burn a gallon of gasoline you produce about 20 pounds of CO2, so NYS should collect about 2.8 cents for each pound of CO2 emitted by ICE cars and trucks. The state could retain 0.8 cents for various administrative and overhead costs and pass on 2 cents to anyone who can scrub 1 pound of CO2 from the atmosphere. In particular to forest owners (by the way, I'm not one and none of my friends are). An acre of forest can remove many thousands of pounds of CO2 per year from the air (for example [2] claims 6k for a generic forest, while [3] says 30k for a 50-year old oak forest). Let's say a given acre scrubs only 5k pounds. At 2 cents a pound its owner could receive a tax credit of $100/year. There are plenty of lots out there that sell for less than $1000/acre (see for example [4], where a 260 acre lot is being offered for less than $200k). That translates in an annual ROI of more than 10%. Where can you find such an investment opportunity in today's markets? [1] https://www.news10.com/news/ny-news/proposed-green-gas-tax-bill-draws-criticism-and-praise/ https://www.news10.com/news/ny-news/proposed-green-gas-tax-b... [2] http://www.forestecologynetwork.org/climate_change/sequestration_facts.html http://www.forestecologynetwork.org/climate_change/sequestra... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-of-carbon-dioxide-does-our-forest-absorb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-o... [4] https://www.landandfarm.com/property/261_acres_Cabin_and_Hunting_Land_in_Osceola_NY_Glenfield_Western_Railroad-11597091/ https://www.landandfarm.com/property/261_acres_Cabin_and_Hun...
cee_el123 5y ago
agree that neutrality is a tale - in trying to emit less, we emit more for the short term its probably not an exaggeration to say that all the conveniences, innovations and economic growth of the past 100 years rely on fossil derived energy to various degrees
boringg 5y ago
Biomass is total BS and not a green renewable fuel. It's the equivalent of ethanol. You grow it to burn it. Its different in that you aren't releasing fossil fuel based carbon to the planet however if you aren't growing it (which requires resources anyways) and you are taking it from existing stock you are releasing stored carbon.
- boringg 5y ago
  That said of you are using some biomass to supplement renewable natural gas (IE biogas collected from manure treatment facilities, agricultural facilities, waste water treatment) it helps to augment and make the RNG generation process more robust. In that case it has a use case -- however if you are using solely biomass I don't think it has a lot of environmental merits.
IdontRememberIt 5y ago
I live in an area were most of the houses (+2 flats) use pellet (also in summer for hot water production). The air quality drastically dropped. It really "burns" the lungs some days. I suspect that: - combustion is not properly done most of the time and there is no need to have filters in the chimney. - some pellets must not contain only "clean" wood We are only waiting to move to a place with single familly houses because (in my area) they mainly migrate from petrol-gaz to solar energy (thermal) and heat pump (water-water).

171 points by ericdanielski 5y ago

It's super interesting to see that Australia doesn't hold a monopoly on having completely brain-dead anti systemic thinking people in charge of developing environmentally friendly sustainability policies.

i_am_proteus 5y ago

>Biomass, of which wood from forests is the main source, now makes up almost 60% of the EU’s renewable energy supply, more than solar and wind combined, and a vast cross-border industry has emerged to meet this demand. In the early industrial revolution, European forests were being progressively logged out - the wood was used for construction and to heat buildings, but largely the new demand was from blast furnaces, smelting iron. More or less, England ran out of forests first, and turned to peat, and then coal, and then along came Thomas Newcomen (he did build on the work of others) with a heat engine to extract water from coal mines... and now, it seems, we have come full circle. Biomass is a reasonable carbon-neutral energy source, but managed forests are a long-term (centuries) play. Croplands (including pasturing fields as carbon sinks) is better in the near term (a few decades). NB: The omission of 'fairy' before 'tale' in the headline summary (the original is "'Carbon-neutrality is a fairy tale': how the race for renewables is burning Europe's forests") really changes the meaning here.

open-source-ux 5y ago
"In the early industrial revolution, European forests were being progressively logged out...More or less, England ran out of forests first" Forest cover (the amount of forest covering the land) has always been small in the UK for the past few hundred years. The Industrial Revolution was not the cause of the small forest cover in the UK. An estimate from the Forest Commission (a UK government department) is that forest cover in England in the 1100s was only about 15%. After World War I, it dipped to its lowest point - 5%. It's currently about 17% in England (similar in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). If you are interested in the reasons why, it's discussed in this BBC Radio programme: More or Less: Behind the Stats: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x66st https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09x66st The stats I've listed above are taken from the programme. The discussion starts approximately at the 24-minute mark.

MattGaiser 5y ago

I was part of a startup accelerator at one point and one stream was technology commercialization. A professor was pitching us on his technology for more efficiently shipping wood pellets across the ocean (I live in Canada) to displace coal in the UK. At the time we thought this was a crazy business that would rapidly be killed off. And here it is 4 years later, still chugging.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

That's a frustratingly vague piece. Bottom line: tree based biomass isn't as good as solar and wind and shouldn't be subsidized as much. But, it's almost certainly better than coal which some places are still using. What I wanted to know, and the article very pointedly didn't tell me: is this a good thing if we limit to scraps from creating planks for other uses? I think it probably is.

harg 5y ago
I think it also highlights that cutting down forests for energy also greatly harms the natural ecosystem that depends on the existence of trees. So there are effects beyond carbon emissions
i_am_proteus 5y ago
I think the implication is that it's not necessarily better than coal because burning forests is only carbon neutral on a very long time scale. Eventually the cycle of harvesting trees, burning the wood, and planting more trees is carbon-neutral (minus any carbon from logging and transportation). But, if the process starts with logging existing forests, this releases carbon (more than coal). It would be "better" to burn coal and plant new trees than to burn wood and plant new trees. This would result in more land being forested - but that's the point.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  > This would result in more land being forested Why? This is an additional variable. You can add additional area in both cases. Why would burning coal add some land that you can plant new forests, and burning wood not?
  - pjc50 5y ago
    Bear in mind that in Europe "plant new forest" means "change land use from agriculture" or "change non-forest ecosystem such as moorland to forest". There's isn't a lot of land that's just spare.

raverbashing 5y ago

"Wood pellets are sold as a clean alternative to coal. " Well, it's because they are. Managed forests are renewable. It's the same for all the paper/cardboard stuff replacing plastic bags.

DoingIsLearning 5y ago
> Managed forests are renewable Fair let's accept that. The issue is that the amount of managed forest area in Europe versus the amount of bio-mass furnaces is completely out of sync. These furnaces spend a huge amount of mass just to heat-up and another huge chunk to sustain in order to break even. All of the managed forests in Europe put together are unable to sustain these wood burning furnaces and they are happily importing wood pelets from the US/Canada/Malaysia etc. (often with tax payer subsidies). None of this energy generation is carbon neutral and absolutely none of it is sustainable. It is the wrong model and an even worse implementation of energy policy. Europe does not have the surface area for this. If we need more non-intermitent energy sources we would be better off applying this money in France's mini nuclear reactors or in geo-thermal bore drilling for non-geothermal areas.
- raverbashing 5y ago
  Thanks for clarifying, makes sense and I agree with this. Though some burning furnaces operate also with trash/gas (the latter to start the fires usually). And it is better than coal, surely. But yeah I'd rather see the money on nuclear/geothermal/etc
- nuerow 5y ago
  > All of the managed forests in Europe put together are unable to sustain these wood burning furnaces and they are happily importing wood pelets from the US/Canada/Malaysia etc. (often with tax payer subsidies). > None of this energy generation is carbon neutral and absolutely none of it is sustainable. It is the wrong model and an even worse implementation of energy policy. It sounds you're making a couple of mistakes along the way: presuming the current state of biomass output is at a steadt-state, and following a miopic train of thought where you confuse a ramp-up stage with a steadt-state. Regarding the current biomass output being out of sync with production, the Guardian article that sparked this discussion states quite clearly that Estonia's problem was that it's licensing process failed, motivated by the need to grab the most EU subsidies they possibly can. Therefore this motivates spending as much cash building up infrastructure that's largely overprovisioned. This is a systemic problem with all kinds of EU subsidies, but that does not mean the potential biomass production level should be interpreted as a fixed variable and everything else should be solved with regards to it.

streamofdigits 5y ago

co2 emissions is just one of the sustainability dimensions. Biodiversity is another one. We need forests (and other non-managed areas) to give the rest of nature (literally) some room to breathe.

nicolaslem 5y ago
As someone who enjoys nature quite a lot but doesn't know anything about forestry, I am always surprised by the damage done by cutting a single tree. There is always a wasteland of 15 m radius done by the truck that has to come right in the middle of the forest to carry the tree. Surely that cannot be good for biodiversity.
- uuidgen 5y ago
  If you do the forestry right you create many plots in there and aim to cut down e.g. 2% in a given year. That mean you will get the whole forest replaced in 50 years. If you're careful to not cut too much in a single space then the animals and plants can move around and it should be ok for biodiversity. Now for the energetic biomass - this is more like 5-10 year rotation so while the animals can move around the plants can't. Those will be mono-cultures to sustain energy demand until we have enough of some other energy sources.

pjc50 5y ago

A lot of the wood is imported (via oil-burning ships). At one point I tried to calculate the impact of Drax shifting to wood pellets from Canada, and concluded that if it was limited to local wood it would consume every tree in the UK within a year. I may have my maths wrong, but European forests are a resource that's been depleted for centuries..

oblio 5y ago
> I may have my maths wrong You do :-) Europeans are moving into denser and denser built up areas, agriculture is becoming more efficient and as a result we can leave more of the continent alone, than 100 years ago. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/edn-20180321-1 https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/e... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environment/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/07/forest-europe-environ... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04/watch-how-europe-is-greener-now-than-100-years-ago/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/12/04...
- pjc50 5y ago
  Would you do the work of fishing out the bit that contradicts my maths about Drax?
  - oblio 5y ago
    I don't even know what or who Drax is. Drax the Destroyer?
    - ben_w 5y ago
      The largest power station in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drax_Power_Station In particular for this topic, it has a 2.6 GW capacity for biomass, in addition to 1.29 GW capacity for coal.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Would you do the work of fishing out the bit that contradicts my maths about Drax? What math? No math was presented at all, only a baseless assertion consisting of a vague claim that all forests in the UK could be wiped out within a year. I'd love to see this "Draw math" though. Care to show it?

GekkePrutser 5y ago

The only reason this "biomass" is so popular is an artificial reason. It's just a means for electricity companies to continue using coal and basically not doing anything, while selling their power as 'green'. All they need to do is throw a few wood chips in the mix.. This practice should really be banned. Or at least not be allowed to be labeled as green power. But if they did that the governments look really bad because they won't even come close to meeting their Paris accord goals. So big business is burning the forests for no other reason than a green label .. While not improving anything for the environment.

amelius 5y ago
What angers me most about this is not the burning of forests (which is bad), but how politicians could allow this to happen in the first place.
- jsilence 5y ago
  You can reduce your electricity demand and then buy the remaining electricity from 'true green' providers. Don't have to wait for the politicians.
  - oblio 5y ago
    That's nice, but the unfortunate thing is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc It's a Kurzgesagt video about why individual action is far from enough, and why we need systemic action. Do your part, but also pressure politicians, because that's where the main pain point is.
    - jsilence 5y ago
      Well yes, do both, do your thing and pressure politicians. still no need to wait for the politicians. I just loath people putting the blame on politicians, China, capitalism or some sort of world cabal just to have a rationale to continue their own unsustainable style of living.

agent327 5y ago

In my village in the Netherlands, a great amount of greenery has been eradicated in this last year. Gone are almost all the brambles with their delicious harvest, all we have now is grass, grass everywhere. Surrounding villages have the same problem: if it's green and could be cut down, it's now gone. I strongly suspect this is because the government has mandated a minimum amount of 'biomass' to be produced. God help us for the next year, we'll probably lose all the remaining trees.

CountDrewku 5y ago
Well that's depressing.

maciejw 5y ago

Few years ago I worked on an biomass tarehouse project for one of Poland's power plants. One of supported kinds of biomass was palm kernel shells. Palms do not grow neither in Poland, nor within 500km from its borders. Yet someone considered it a good solution to produce "green" energy.

possiblelion 5y ago

Is there a reason this old article from January was posted again now? As someone from Estonia, it's quite biased in my opinion and takes some fringe viewpoints and presents them as representing my people.

Dumblydorr 5y ago

I believe much of the wood pellets are coming from the US, I know in the south many reject trees are used for pellets. Still, we can't pretend burning anything for power is allowable for our biosphere.

ulrikrasmussen 5y ago

I live in Denmark, and I am so frustrated that my country has invested so heavily in biomass plants for heating and electricity. We are supposed to be one of the countries that lead the way and demonstrate how the rest of the world can de-carbonize, but even if biomass was truly carbon-neutral (and I doubt that it is, at least in the short term of the next 50-100 years) it does not scale to the rest of the world, because we would need to have planted the forests for that a long time ago. I live in an area that is planned to get central heating from a biomass plant, but I have chosen to invest in a heat pump instead. Yes, this will in part be driven by electricity from biomass, but hopefully our energy mix will become more sustainable in the near future, and at least I won't be locked into 100% biomass for the next 30 years.

uuidgen 5y ago
Biomass takes 5-10 years to grow. Given that it can be used in many coal furnaces it is imo the best "now" solution.

credit_guy 5y ago

Here's an idea how to become carbon neutral in a hurry. New York State is proposing an emission tax on gasoline of 55 cents per gallon [1]. When you burn a gallon of gasoline you produce about 20 pounds of CO2, so NYS should collect about 2.8 cents for each pound of CO2 emitted by ICE cars and trucks. The state could retain 0.8 cents for various administrative and overhead costs and pass on 2 cents to anyone who can scrub 1 pound of CO2 from the atmosphere. In particular to forest owners (by the way, I'm not one and none of my friends are). An acre of forest can remove many thousands of pounds of CO2 per year from the air (for example [2] claims 6k for a generic forest, while [3] says 30k for a 50-year old oak forest). Let's say a given acre scrubs only 5k pounds. At 2 cents a pound its owner could receive a tax credit of $100/year. There are plenty of lots out there that sell for less than $1000/acre (see for example [4], where a 260 acre lot is being offered for less than $200k). That translates in an annual ROI of more than 10%. Where can you find such an investment opportunity in today's markets? [1] https://www.news10.com/news/ny-news/proposed-green-gas-tax-bill-draws-criticism-and-praise/ https://www.news10.com/news/ny-news/proposed-green-gas-tax-b... [2] http://www.forestecologynetwork.org/climate_change/sequestration_facts.html http://www.forestecologynetwork.org/climate_change/sequestra... [3] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-of-carbon-dioxide-does-our-forest-absorb.html https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/04/science/how-many-pounds-o... [4] https://www.landandfarm.com/property/261_acres_Cabin_and_Hunting_Land_in_Osceola_NY_Glenfield_Western_Railroad-11597091/ https://www.landandfarm.com/property/261_acres_Cabin_and_Hun...

cee_el123 5y ago

agree that neutrality is a tale - in trying to emit less, we emit more for the short term its probably not an exaggeration to say that all the conveniences, innovations and economic growth of the past 100 years rely on fossil derived energy to various degrees

boringg 5y ago

Biomass is total BS and not a green renewable fuel. It's the equivalent of ethanol. You grow it to burn it. Its different in that you aren't releasing fossil fuel based carbon to the planet however if you aren't growing it (which requires resources anyways) and you are taking it from existing stock you are releasing stored carbon.

boringg 5y ago
That said of you are using some biomass to supplement renewable natural gas (IE biogas collected from manure treatment facilities, agricultural facilities, waste water treatment) it helps to augment and make the RNG generation process more robust. In that case it has a use case -- however if you are using solely biomass I don't think it has a lot of environmental merits.

IdontRememberIt 5y ago

I live in an area were most of the houses (+2 flats) use pellet (also in summer for hot water production). The air quality drastically dropped. It really "burns" the lungs some days. I suspect that: - combustion is not properly done most of the time and there is no need to have filters in the chimney. - some pellets must not contain only "clean" wood We are only waiting to move to a place with single familly houses because (in my area) they mainly migrate from petrol-gaz to solar energy (thermal) and heat pump (water-water).