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Burning wood is not ‘renewable energy,’ so why do policymakers pretend it is? (news.mongabay.com)
submitted 5 days ago by wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net to c/treehuggers@slrpnk.net
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[–] I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 74 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (10 children)

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.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Burning trees planted two years ago doesn't actually release any carbon that wasn't already in the atmosphere two years ago.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yes and leaving trees alone rather than cutting them down to burn for wood just means they’re going to end up releasing that carbon when they die and rot on the forest floor.

The only way for trees to sequester carbon is turn them into a form that does not rot. In the distant past, that process was geologic. Temperature and pressure turned the wood into fossil fuels which were trapped underground until we started digging them up to burn.

To replicate that process today we’d have to bury a bunch of trees in deep mines or empty oil wells and cap them off to make sure the CO2 doesn’t escape.

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wood is enjoying a resurgence of development as a building material. Perhaps it can be treated such that it becomes stable on the order of thousands of years instead of just hundreds, and replace a great deal of highly emitting materials like steel and concrete.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I’ve heard of some kinds of processes where the wood is injected with polymers or something, turning it into a much more solid structure.

I have a coffee table I inherited from my grandfather which is wood encased in some kind of ultra hard epoxy resin. The thing feels like an absolute tank!

[–] jerkface@lemmy.ca 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Engineered wood products have replaced steel girders in a small number of highrise/skyscraper buildings. It's a huge, huge carbon win, not even considering the sequestration in the frame.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

That is really cool! I didn’t know they were that far along!

[–] Captain_CapsLock@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The Portland (Oregon) airport recently finished remodeling their main atrium area and they used some pretty incredible engineered wood beams. I know a guy who worked on the mill that built those beams. The mill assembles plywood veneer (thin sheets about an eighth of an inch or so, usually in 4x8 foot sheets) into like 16 inch thick, 12 foot wide, however long you want pieces, and then they can basically cut out anything that isn't a beam from this massive brick of engineered wood.

Here's a pic

The picture doesn't show these massive plywood beams, but if you ever fly through pdx, go check out the main atrium just past security. It's absolutely breathtaking, and it's mostly wood.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Wow thanks for sharing! That is beautiful!

I’ve often felt very depressed because I’ve long had the idea that the best days of architecture were behind us. That we’d never have anything beautiful (like the gothic cathedrals of Europe) again and we were doomed to a dystopian feature of steel and glass monstrosities.

This engineered wood and its potential for more natural and beautiful architecture gives me hope!

[–] houseofleft@slrpnk.net 4 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I agree with you, but it's worth mentioning that a lot of goverments (such as the UK) are classing burning wood pellets as 0 carbon energy. The argument being that burning wood releases recently absorbed carbon (from the last 20 years or so) so doesn't increase overall levels of carbon in the same way as coal.

I kinda see the argument, but it does sound like a dangerous path towards "eco-accounting" like we've seen with offsetting, where calculations for carbon release are out of wack with the scientific reality.

Edit: I get that the writer is conflating two seperate terms btw, but think there's a version of this argument that makes sense.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

Not just carbon, but a lot of other combustion byproducts that people shouldn’t breathe.

It’s a dirty fuel with no way to clean up the emissions and causes massive health problems. But it’s definitely renewable

[–] Noodle07@lemmy.world 6 points 5 days ago

It literally grows on trees !

[–] Wilco@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Agreed.

Coal is not renewable. Oil is not renewable. Trees grow back and are thus renewable.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

All things are renewable on a long enough time scale but I’m not sure what you mean by coal is renewable. Not on a human timescale.

[–] thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I believe you read that wrong

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago

lol I could have sworn… maybe I’m losing it.

[–] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

That was basically the impression that I got. Depending on the wheres and hows, growing wood as fuel can degrade the ecosystem and make it more difficult to continue to grow it there, but that's more a question of "sustainability" of a particular practice than the renewability of the resource itself. The problems with burning wood for fuel are many:

  • Air pollution from wood smoke increases the incidence of respiratory issues...
  • Continually cutting young trees for wood reduces the total carbon storage of the forest...
  • Large-scale cutting of wild trees for their wood disturbs potentially fragile ecosystems and can accelerate local/regional climate change...
  • Monoculture farming of trees for wood risks incubating pathogens (Dutch elm disease comes to mind), locally extirpating symbiotic plants/fungi/microbes and displacing animals that depend on other species of trees...
  • As @GorGor@startrek.website mentioned, using wood combustion to meet present energy requirements would likely not be feasible due to the rate of consumption relative to the rate of renewal, not to mention the amount of land required...

Whatever the problem, "we can just cut down more trees" is not the solution. There is enough deforested land in the world, and letting native forests grow back is one of the simplest and most effective ways to stabilise the climate. Forests are worth so much more than their wood.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Depending on the wheres and hows, growing wood as fuel can degrade the ecosystem and make it more difficult to continue to grow it there, but that's more a question of "sustainability" of a particular practice than the renewability of the resource itself.

You also need to rotate crops or you slowly reduce yield to nothing over time. Is farm-grown food not renewable? 🤪

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Some have made this argument. Certainly agriculture as its currently practiced depletes the earth’s productive capacity. Does that make it not renewable? Depends on how you define this word.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

No. The answer is "no, it is absolutely renewable."

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I wonder if ag waste or help is a better idea. that should be carbon neutral while also providing power during still wind nights

[–] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In the transition to more sustainable agriculture, I think that there could be a place for burning biomass on the local level. For example, some sugar cane plantations use the fibre left over after juicing as biofuel for the evaporation process. I imagine that using coconut fibre for energy production would also work (to power machinery for processing oil and so forth).

But in a sustainable agricultural system (i.e. agroforestry and tree-based systems) there wouldn't be "waste" in the first place; all organic material would be recycled back into the land in order to maintain soil fertility, just like what happens in a forest (minus the small amount lost to natural erosion processes and migrating animals and such). The ultimate goal of sustainable agriculture must be keeping the organic matter in (or on top of) the soil and in living tissues. Otherwise, the system will require inputs from outside in order to replenish fertility, which in turn will require transportation, well-organised distribution networks, humans or machines working to produce the additional agriculture inputs... all of which also consumes energy, which requires more biomass, and around and around we go.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What if you burn it and then bury the ashes?

[–] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 2 points 4 days ago

That would ensure that the rain doesn't carry away the minerals, but again, the organic component of the wood/vegetation would be lost to the atmosphere.

[–] GorGor@startrek.website 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

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.

[–] Jambalaya@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago (2 children)

If we are looking at just the carbon though, that carbon is collected by the 2 year old trees, right? So it's net carbon-neutral in that sense.

[–] Omgpwnies@lemmy.world 4 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The tree itself would in theory have consumed as much carbon as it releases when burned, but when you take into consideration harvesting and processing, then it's still a net producer.

[–] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 5 days ago

It should also be noted that the order of magnitude is very different to fossil fuels. And at least in theory the harvesting and progressing can be done using renewable energy sources (at least for large parts of it). We are very far from actually doing this though.

The main issue in practice is the combustion byproducts and fine particulates.

[–] fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 days ago

is it from the machinery using fossil fuels?

[–] wolfyvegan@slrpnk.net 3 points 5 days ago

Depends on what would be there if those trees weren't grown/cut for wood. Old-growth forest stores more carbon than young forest. This perhaps would have been a more important point for the author to have made.

[–] solo@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 days ago

It's not really an article, it's more of an introductory text for the podcast. I think if you listen to it you will understand the perspective. It covers what you mention early on.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 5 days ago

It's locally released though right, and removed from the air when you grow the tree up "again". I mean not perfect but it's not like burning oil.

[–] Ledivin@lemmy.world 23 points 5 days ago (2 children)

The writer just doesn't know what the word "renewable" means, and is complaining solely about how dirty it is.

[–] solo@slrpnk.net 1 points 3 days ago

This is a podcast. At 4:20 it addresses what you say.

[–] BoulevardBlvd@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Holy shit, you're right! He literally thinks "renewable" and "green" energy are synonymous. That's middle school life science level knowledge. That's really embarrassing for him

[–] stickly@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

There's a lot of comments here on efficiency and environmental impact. I'd like to point out that, like any energy source, biomass' efficiency and impact vary wildly with how you use it.

Solar/wind energy isn't a silver bullet for every scenario and combustion isn't always an outmoded relic. The impact and costs for each are actually quite complex. For an interesting read, I'd recommend these articles: https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/12/too-much-combustion-too-little-fire/

https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again/

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Nomenclature about clean vs renewable aside, there's some county towns in Australia that'r absolutely disgusting at night in winter from the woodsmoke from all the houses. Sure electricity heating is less effective, but we've paid the carbon cost for that infrastructure and electricity production IS becoming greener.

[–] qupada@fedia.io 1 points 5 days ago

Not that long ago in New Zealand we had a lot of the same.

In Christchurch (which is a sprawling, flat, and low-lying city), the combination of smog from widespread wood fireplaces plus old sodium street lights, when driving in from the outskirts at night you'd see a grotty orange-pink cloud hanging low over the city.

https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/archives/star/prints/1992-1995/ccl-cs-4765

It's improved a lot, partly due to policy, although a fair bit due to the city being extensively damaged by an earthquake, and fireplaces (which had their brick chimneys destroyed) being replaced by heat pumps.