“Worse than fossil fuels”…wood burning “must stop…”
Source: Klimaschau 115
Governments and activists like claiming that burning wood and wood pellets from trees in power plants is an effective way to reduce global CO2 emissions. Yet researchers now say it is in fact having the opposite effect.
Hat-tip: Klimaschau 115
A team led by Laura Bloomer concluded here in a report that “burning trees and other forest biomass for energy is contrary to climate mitigation, biodiversity protection, and environmental justice goals” and that “governments must stop promoting climate-damaging forest bioenergy.” The researchers are calling for a stop to the folly of burning trees.
Takes decades to offset
According to the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (IGSD) press release, such bioenergy indeed “has a substantial greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint and will accelerate warming for decades” and “in fact, burning woody biomass releases more carbon dioxide (CO2) than fossil fuels per unit of energy” and that it takes many decades for tree regrowth to offset those emissions.
False bioenergy accounting
The researchers say governments have been using “ false accounting” when calculating forest bioenergy’s emissions and that it “must end”.
“Countries must move away from forest bioenergy which not only damages the forest sinks but also worsens the air pollution, biodiversity loss and environmental injustice,” said Durwood Zaelke, President of the IGSD.
“Will accelerate warming”
Because of bioenergy’s emissions footprint and the associated forest destruction, it will accelerate warming in the coming decades. The authors argue that countries should end subsidies for and move away from forest bioenergy.
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I don’t get it. Sure it’s “unsustainable” if more vegetation is burned than is grown. It that what we are talking about? Or maybe burning diesel fuel to harvest, transport, grind up and pelletize wood? Or is it the extremely inefficient burning of stuff to generate electricity? Is that it?
Confirmation bias and prejudiced research.
Waffle words and delusions are bolded by me for clarity.
Who are these researchers?
Use of vague phrases and waffle words plus adherence to the “World will end in ten years” identify these researchers as confirmed alarmists. That is, a without logic or sanity.
The woody biomass harvested for making wood pellets tends to be yellow pines, a softwood hard enough that they make floors and sub floors with the wood.
Meanwhile, the comparison these folks rely upon:
Forests, hardwood, pines and firs, in Massachusetts are diametrically different to rapid growing yellow pines further south.
There can be no energy source but one before the one?, two, solar/wind god. 😏
Oh goody! City people explaining the world. It’s fun to see the idiots.
The trees have a lifespan, many dying at multiple ages as the forest ages. City folk don’t see this but there are many baby trees and very very few adults. Biomass harvesting of whole forests is straight-up idiocy, but if it is tops and culls it nots so stupid. I heat from culls, tops and windfalls from a 2 acre woodlot. I never cut a healthy tree with a bright future.
If it’s worse than oil how much did it contribute to warming pre-industrial age?
ZERO!!!
This has been known for a very long time by WUWT readers and many others, as well. Numerous studies, not just this one has proved that Biomass buring is worse that burning coal for CO2, real pollutants and forests and air quality as well as causing deforestation.
The Obvious Biomass Emissions Error
Anthony Watts
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/02/07/the-obvious-biomass-emissions-error/
I checked the article. If you burn a tree that took 75 years to grow, it will take 75 years for a similar tree to recapture the carbon.
duh
So what is so bad about adding CO2 to the atmosphere? Before we did so, a Harvard professor wrote a book claiming we would all be starving to death in another 20 years or so due to our inability to produce enough food. (“The Population Bomb”)
Which reminds me.
Have they successfully banned pizza ovens in Italy or are the Italians sticking with their heritage?
I am that bloke in Wetherspoons who knows it all despite not having a degree or anything. I have been making this argument for at least 10 years in the comment sections of newspapers and getting many replies telling me how ignorant I am and trotting out BS about how they are saving the planet with their wood burner. I have taken every opportunity to criticise Drax. My point is, how come all those clever people with PhDs can be so wrong when an ordinary bloke like me with an interest in science got it right so long ago?
Either we burn the trees or the wildfires will. This is just an effort to eliminate the average person’s ability to have cheap wood heating.
Burning trees. Unsustainable? You bet. Big footprint? Indeed. Accelerate warming for decades? Only in their lurid models.
Masters of the Obvious, Episode 11,319
well without the redgum I am burning now keeping my home just bearable with 5c outside, Id be in the at risk elderly re hypothermia. because a fan heater costs far more and simply can NOT heat a room efficiently or the objects in it to store and release that heat when the fire dies down. slow growing redgum? hmm seedlings appearing after the wet yr in 17 are now a miniforest and 8ft high, theyre as good a woodlot as i will need to see me out I reckon