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Burning wood is not ‘renewable energy,’ so why do policymakers pretend it is?
(news.mongabay.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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The writer of this article is an idiot who doesn't understand that there is a difference between "renewable energy" and "clean energy".
Of course burning wood pellets is renewable energy. It's wood. We can literally grow it. We will not "run out" because we can just grow more, it takes like 2 years to grow trees for that purpose. Just because where we grow it may have changed doesn't mean it's not renewable.
What it isn't, is clean. Burning wood releases a shit ton of carbon. But it's still renewable.
I agree, the points in this article are about clean energy, not the ability to continuously refresh a resource as you deplete it, however, to play devil's advocate:
Wood, specifically, is not likely renewable at a sufficient rate. i.e. it is impossible to grow enough wood to meet any significant energy requirements. While it is technically renewable, if we treat it as such, we will deplete resources faster than we can replace them.
This is a silly argument I am making, and requires a narrow definition ignoring other bio-fuels which, while unproven at scale, would potentially remove CO2 from the atmosphere.