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Well, I stopped reading here, because it is complete bull** "Nearly 40% of Europe’s so-called renewable energy is currently obtained by combusting wood, much of

Well, I stopped reading here, because it is complete bull** "Nearly 40% of Europe’s so-called renewable energy is currently obtained by combusting wood, much of it coming from forests in the US." I live in Poland and my (self built) house uses a wood pellet heat source. 30% of the surface area of my country is used for woodlands. Most of the wood produced is used by manufacturing industry. One of the byproducts made when manufacturing furniture and other things from wood are shavings, wood chips and wood dust. This can be made into many engineered wood products, but a lot of it is purchased by small manufacturers of wood pellets as fuel. Before I chose a heat source for my house I did enough research to know that the pellets I use (and are mostly accessible here) come from sustainable sources. So if there are countries in Europe that import their fuel wood from US it is not "much of it coming from US".

nrjames 4y ago
I can’t speak for the rest of the US, but there is a lot of wood pellet export happening from North Carolina: https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2019/10/statement-north-carolina-is-now-the-worlds-largest-wood-pellet-exporter/ https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2019/10/statement-north-caro... https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2021-12-14/as-the-wood-pellet-industry-expands-in-north-carolina-global-debate-ensues https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2021-12-14/as-the-wo...
jnsaff2 4y ago
I too live in a country in EU, the forests of which are being chopped down so british chicken farms can claim renewables subsidies. But a quick search will return these things https://theconversation.com/british-power-stations-are-burning-wood-from-us-forests-to-meet-renewables-targets-54969 https://theconversation.com/british-power-stations-are-burni...
adolph 4y ago
The sell on wood pellets is that the pellets are generated from industrial by-products. While that is true, it is also true that some percent is sourced directly from forests (which may or no also be byproduct from forestry activity). I'm not able to find a source to understand the big picture, but my impression is that pellets aren't all from waste. Another selling point for wood pellets is that they are sustainable. That may be true as long as the total use is lower than the growth rate. But sustainable isn't low-carbon. The energy source is still the recombining of carbon and oxygen that some plant broke apart earlier. At best this is carbon neutral atmospherically, at worst it is greenwashing. If you think that none of your personal wood pellets are sourced from the US, then welcome to a globalized commodity market where your purchasing power comes in part by some neighbor of neighbors purchasing from somewhere other than Poland. Do the math on your pellet use. How many acres of trees are needed to sustain your energy operation? If you think that they all come from waste, then multiply that number by 10 to account for the volume used industrially. If Poland is 312,683 square kilometres, and 100,000 are forest, then how much of that can be sustainably harvested? https://e360.yale.edu/features/wood_pellets_green_energy_or_new_source_of_co2_emissions https://e360.yale.edu/features/wood_pellets_green_energy_or_...
sremani 4y ago
Much of it coming from US does not mean more than 50% of it coming from US, it means a lot of wood chips are going to EU from US.. that is it. The qualitative aspect is open to interpretation. My second point, If imports from US are to be scrutinized, when I have no clue, I would start with the richest countries and move down the list. Meaning Poland may not importing anything from US, but how about other 20+ odd countries in EU many are much more richer and have bigger international trade foot print.
tpmx 4y ago
I live in the countryside in Sweden with its 87 billion trees/10 million population (yes, 8.7k trees per resident). I also do not think it is absurd to burn wood for energy. The things you need to do: - Burn wood that is sourced somewhat locally (for me, typically 1-2 km, but I think even hundreds of km would make sense) - Dry the wood well (like for a year) after logging. Not doing this will lead to higher particle emissions, because you can't reach high burning temperatures. - Burn the wood quickly at a high temperature to minimize particle emissions. This is quite effective. CO2-wise: It's ~neutral. We've been doing it in this way/scale in a responsible way (replanting) for much longer than the time it takes to grow the trees.
- cinntaile 4y ago
  > CO2-wise: It's neutral. That's part of what he's rallying against. It's not because it requires a large energy input to produce wood or wood pellets suitable for burning.
  - whatshisface 4y ago
    That calculation works just as well for solar panels and wind farms in an oil-based global economy, but it's just as fallacious. When there's only one solar panel in the world, each solar farm requires X barrels of oil / CFT of gas, but as you get more and more renewable energy in the mix that number goes down to zero. (Unless, of course, the pellets take more energy to produce than they produce themselves after burning and conversion... but that just makes them inefficient under any energy market mix, not CO2-producing under any mix.)
    - cinntaile 4y ago
      That's how you do LCAs, nothing fallacious about it. Solar or wind isn't CO2 neutral either.
    - dfee 4y ago
      Sorry, this didn’t make any sense to me. The reasoning about non-neutrality is that a tree has captured some carbon (its growth), then we burn it and release that carbon back into the atmosphere (1:1 equality). However, anything on top of that (production of pellets, transportation, retailing) takes significant carbon, too. Solar panels don’t take carbon from the air, and we don’t burn solar panels. We do manufacture, transport and retail them, though. So yeah, solar capture is non-neutral. The merits of one are independent of the other. Neither of which are carbon neutral. Last point, some might argue that solar panels reduce the carbon needed to combust; it’s hard to see that as carbon neutrality, that’s a broken argument. But, I’m not sure who’s making that point.
iancmceachern 4y ago
A lot of places in the US, rural cabins and such, also use these wood pellets. I did similar research and came to a similar conclusion. It's not as if we are cutting down big old growth trees and shredding them into pellets. These pellets are like propane is to gasoline, a byproduct that would have otherwise been thrown away.
walthamstow 4y ago
I live in the only ex-EU state and we do burn US wood here. Particularly at Drax power plant in Yorkshire
cush 4y ago
I'm not following. How does your personal anecdote lead you to believe the tweets are bulls**?
- hoffs 4y ago
  It's not personal anecdote if it covers whole country
  - cush 4y ago
    It's a personal anecdote because their conclusion was based on their own research and purchase of sustainable pellets used to produce heat, not to be exported by one country and used in a retrofitted coal plant to produce electricity. It's just a completely off-topic, unrelated story. They heard "wood pellets bad" and told their "wood pellets good" story.
- RichardCNormos 4y ago
  Because he can use his rational powers of observation and inference (otherwise known as instinct) to judge other peoples' assertions about the world. Studies, experts, and statistics are not required to analyze a narrative.
  - tyrust 4y ago
    This is satire, right?
stjohnswarts 4y ago
So the simple fact remains, how much of your country's wood burnt pellets are actual cast off "junk" and how much of it comes from forests getting mowed down to feed the system? Not just your house.

nrjames 4y ago

I can’t speak for the rest of the US, but there is a lot of wood pellet export happening from North Carolina: https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2019/10/statement-north-carolina-is-now-the-worlds-largest-wood-pellet-exporter/ https://www.dogwoodalliance.org/2019/10/statement-north-caro... https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2021-12-14/as-the-wood-pellet-industry-expands-in-north-carolina-global-debate-ensues https://www.wfae.org/energy-environment/2021-12-14/as-the-wo...

jnsaff2 4y ago

I too live in a country in EU, the forests of which are being chopped down so british chicken farms can claim renewables subsidies. But a quick search will return these things https://theconversation.com/british-power-stations-are-burning-wood-from-us-forests-to-meet-renewables-targets-54969 https://theconversation.com/british-power-stations-are-burni...

adolph 4y ago

The sell on wood pellets is that the pellets are generated from industrial by-products. While that is true, it is also true that some percent is sourced directly from forests (which may or no also be byproduct from forestry activity). I'm not able to find a source to understand the big picture, but my impression is that pellets aren't all from waste. Another selling point for wood pellets is that they are sustainable. That may be true as long as the total use is lower than the growth rate. But sustainable isn't low-carbon. The energy source is still the recombining of carbon and oxygen that some plant broke apart earlier. At best this is carbon neutral atmospherically, at worst it is greenwashing. If you think that none of your personal wood pellets are sourced from the US, then welcome to a globalized commodity market where your purchasing power comes in part by some neighbor of neighbors purchasing from somewhere other than Poland. Do the math on your pellet use. How many acres of trees are needed to sustain your energy operation? If you think that they all come from waste, then multiply that number by 10 to account for the volume used industrially. If Poland is 312,683 square kilometres, and 100,000 are forest, then how much of that can be sustainably harvested? https://e360.yale.edu/features/wood_pellets_green_energy_or_new_source_of_co2_emissions https://e360.yale.edu/features/wood_pellets_green_energy_or_...

sremani 4y ago

Much of it coming from US does not mean more than 50% of it coming from US, it means a lot of wood chips are going to EU from US.. that is it. The qualitative aspect is open to interpretation. My second point, If imports from US are to be scrutinized, when I have no clue, I would start with the richest countries and move down the list. Meaning Poland may not importing anything from US, but how about other 20+ odd countries in EU many are much more richer and have bigger international trade foot print.

tpmx 4y ago

I live in the countryside in Sweden with its 87 billion trees/10 million population (yes, 8.7k trees per resident). I also do not think it is absurd to burn wood for energy. The things you need to do: - Burn wood that is sourced somewhat locally (for me, typically 1-2 km, but I think even hundreds of km would make sense) - Dry the wood well (like for a year) after logging. Not doing this will lead to higher particle emissions, because you can't reach high burning temperatures. - Burn the wood quickly at a high temperature to minimize particle emissions. This is quite effective. CO2-wise: It's ~neutral. We've been doing it in this way/scale in a responsible way (replanting) for much longer than the time it takes to grow the trees.

cinntaile 4y ago
> CO2-wise: It's neutral. That's part of what he's rallying against. It's not because it requires a large energy input to produce wood or wood pellets suitable for burning.
- whatshisface 4y ago
  That calculation works just as well for solar panels and wind farms in an oil-based global economy, but it's just as fallacious. When there's only one solar panel in the world, each solar farm requires X barrels of oil / CFT of gas, but as you get more and more renewable energy in the mix that number goes down to zero. (Unless, of course, the pellets take more energy to produce than they produce themselves after burning and conversion... but that just makes them inefficient under any energy market mix, not CO2-producing under any mix.)
  - cinntaile 4y ago
    That's how you do LCAs, nothing fallacious about it. Solar or wind isn't CO2 neutral either.
  - dfee 4y ago
    Sorry, this didn’t make any sense to me. The reasoning about non-neutrality is that a tree has captured some carbon (its growth), then we burn it and release that carbon back into the atmosphere (1:1 equality). However, anything on top of that (production of pellets, transportation, retailing) takes significant carbon, too. Solar panels don’t take carbon from the air, and we don’t burn solar panels. We do manufacture, transport and retail them, though. So yeah, solar capture is non-neutral. The merits of one are independent of the other. Neither of which are carbon neutral. Last point, some might argue that solar panels reduce the carbon needed to combust; it’s hard to see that as carbon neutrality, that’s a broken argument. But, I’m not sure who’s making that point.

iancmceachern 4y ago

A lot of places in the US, rural cabins and such, also use these wood pellets. I did similar research and came to a similar conclusion. It's not as if we are cutting down big old growth trees and shredding them into pellets. These pellets are like propane is to gasoline, a byproduct that would have otherwise been thrown away.

walthamstow 4y ago

I live in the only ex-EU state and we do burn US wood here. Particularly at Drax power plant in Yorkshire

cush 4y ago

I'm not following. How does your personal anecdote lead you to believe the tweets are bulls**?

hoffs 4y ago
It's not personal anecdote if it covers whole country
- cush 4y ago
  It's a personal anecdote because their conclusion was based on their own research and purchase of sustainable pellets used to produce heat, not to be exported by one country and used in a retrofitted coal plant to produce electricity. It's just a completely off-topic, unrelated story. They heard "wood pellets bad" and told their "wood pellets good" story.
RichardCNormos 4y ago
Because he can use his rational powers of observation and inference (otherwise known as instinct) to judge other peoples' assertions about the world. Studies, experts, and statistics are not required to analyze a narrative.
- tyrust 4y ago
  This is satire, right?

stjohnswarts 4y ago

So the simple fact remains, how much of your country's wood burnt pellets are actual cast off "junk" and how much of it comes from forests getting mowed down to feed the system? Not just your house.