5 ms·

This “we have lots of it!” attitude is why we have very little old growth left. But the story here isn’t “company that makes power by burning wood burns wood”

This “we have lots of it!” attitude is why we have very little old growth left. But the story here isn’t “company that makes power by burning wood burns wood” it’s a company that receives money from the uk gov for “sustainable practices” and says they only burn waste wood is actually burning old growth.

briffle 4y ago
Every Summer, the State of Oregon seems to have at least one 50,000 acre fire, which is about 78 SQ miles. last few years have been more like 400,000-600,000 acres over a few very large fires. Most of these fires are caused by lightning. Either way, its losing forests to fire, but at least the power plants the smoke is getting treated to remove particulates, filtered, etc, plus generating power.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  No. Just no. You can’t justify clearcutting logs for power generation by citing forest fires. Forest fires are happening in part because of forest management practices that support logging. Not to mention climate change causing more heat, and bringing invasive species that kill trees. This is a positive feedback loop that would have all of north america as treeless as ireland if we accept “it’s gonna burn anyway” Forest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem - when the forest is managed well a fire can burn through quickly killing VERY few trees.
xyzzyz 4y ago
The article says that they only burned waste from logging process. This might be unclear, because the article is written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but they very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth timber for pellets. Setting aside the issue of logging an old growth forest, in any logging operation you’ll always end up with some material that’s not practically usable for various reasons. Using it as fuel sounds to me like rather effective use of resources.
- iso1631 4y ago
  "Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of precious forest" Maybe a "whole log" is waste, sounds odd to me though - surely someone wants to use whole logs for more than burning?
  - MichaelCollins 4y ago
    That depends entirely on the size and shape of the log. Lumber mills don't want thin and twisted logs. It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable logs just to be cartoon villains.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      > It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable logs just to be cartoon villains. Perhaps are they chopping down more wood than would be normally chopped because they are being paid above market rates for it and thus is becomes profitable to do so
      - MichaelCollins 4y ago
        If they're burning trees that could have been valuable lumber instead, then they're burning money for no reason. Probably they aren't doing that.
    - DrPhish 4y ago
      The economics of sawmilling are absolutely brutal, and everything is done for profit maximization on every tree harvested. Sometimes perverse incentives will drive things like eg the price of 7' studs surges so all the 14' 2x4 or 2x6s are cut in two, or in an extreme example if the price of chips surges enough then maybe perfectly good lumber would be chipped instead of sold as lumber (this happened briefly in the 80s if I recall correctly) To go over how from seedling to end product every single part of the usable tree is used to maximum economic advantage would take more time than I have available, but suffice it to say that in Canadian lumber, plywood, osb and paper there is as close to zero waste as is humanly possible. Also, as a footnote, there is a lot more thought given to future harvests, environmental concerns (carbon capture, riparian areas etc) and social license (work with first nations, community involvement, worker safety) than the average person would believe.

briffle 4y ago

Every Summer, the State of Oregon seems to have at least one 50,000 acre fire, which is about 78 SQ miles. last few years have been more like 400,000-600,000 acres over a few very large fires. Most of these fires are caused by lightning. Either way, its losing forests to fire, but at least the power plants the smoke is getting treated to remove particulates, filtered, etc, plus generating power.

kennywinker 4y ago
No. Just no. You can’t justify clearcutting logs for power generation by citing forest fires. Forest fires are happening in part because of forest management practices that support logging. Not to mention climate change causing more heat, and bringing invasive species that kill trees. This is a positive feedback loop that would have all of north america as treeless as ireland if we accept “it’s gonna burn anyway” Forest fires are a natural part of the ecosystem - when the forest is managed well a fire can burn through quickly killing VERY few trees.

xyzzyz 4y ago

The article says that they only burned waste from logging process. This might be unclear, because the article is written in a (probably purposefully) confusing way, but they very much did not cut and ground up massive old growth timber for pellets. Setting aside the issue of logging an old growth forest, in any logging operation you’ll always end up with some material that’s not practically usable for various reasons. Using it as fuel sounds to me like rather effective use of resources.

iso1631 4y ago
"Reporter Joe Crowley also followed a truck from a Drax mill to verify it was picking up whole logs from an area of precious forest" Maybe a "whole log" is waste, sounds odd to me though - surely someone wants to use whole logs for more than burning?
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  That depends entirely on the size and shape of the log. Lumber mills don't want thin and twisted logs. It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable logs just to be cartoon villains.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    > It seems safe to assume they aren't burning valuable logs just to be cartoon villains. Perhaps are they chopping down more wood than would be normally chopped because they are being paid above market rates for it and thus is becomes profitable to do so
    - MichaelCollins 4y ago
      If they're burning trees that could have been valuable lumber instead, then they're burning money for no reason. Probably they aren't doing that.
  - DrPhish 4y ago
    The economics of sawmilling are absolutely brutal, and everything is done for profit maximization on every tree harvested. Sometimes perverse incentives will drive things like eg the price of 7' studs surges so all the 14' 2x4 or 2x6s are cut in two, or in an extreme example if the price of chips surges enough then maybe perfectly good lumber would be chipped instead of sold as lumber (this happened briefly in the 80s if I recall correctly) To go over how from seedling to end product every single part of the usable tree is used to maximum economic advantage would take more time than I have available, but suffice it to say that in Canadian lumber, plywood, osb and paper there is as close to zero waste as is humanly possible. Also, as a footnote, there is a lot more thought given to future harvests, environmental concerns (carbon capture, riparian areas etc) and social license (work with first nations, community involvement, worker safety) than the average person would believe.