Burning wood for power worse for climate than gas equivalent (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 days ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net

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The key problem is that they cause deforestation:

Bio-energy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) has been touted as a clean way of producing baseload power, substituting for gas and coal, which could even result in “negative emissions” as when replacement forests are grown they take up CO2 from the air.

But such systems could take 150 years to be “carbon negative”, researchers from the US, UK and China have found, in part because of the long time it takes to regrow forests, and because of the damage done when existing savannah, pasture or cropland is converted to grow biomass for burning.

The paper is here

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[+] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca -7 points 4 days ago

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[-] tyler@programming.dev 17 points 4 days ago

This is such an idiotic take. This knowledge isn’t new. Decaying trees are eaten by other plants and animals, their CO2 doesn’t return to the atmosphere completely. On top of that, decaying takes DECADES, not minutes. That slow release matters, as it’s the entire problem with how humans have released CO2 to the atmosphere in the first place.

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 10 points 4 days ago

Plus some of that carbon ends up in the soil where it can be stored for thousands of years.

[-] TheTechnician27@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

(This is unrelated to the argument discrediting I'm about to do: usually journal entries like this are called "articles"; manuscripts are hand- or typewritten. This does not detract from your argument; I just wanted you to know.)

I'm going to trust four expert researchers writing in 2026 for one of the most academically prestigious journals on Earth over some random social media user who can't even spell "CO2" and categorically did not read the article (it's closed-access, and you're offering no specific critiques). I'd doubt you even read the abstract given how generic this half-baked critique is. Sorry to say that I only read a preprint which isn't exactly reflective of the full, closed-access article, but you're just authoritatively spouting made-up bullshit about a field you clearly have zero understanding of and probably haven't ever read a single peer-reviewed paper in.

And literally what the fuck do you mean "especially at that journal"? That journal is one of the best ones there is.

this post was submitted on 20 Apr 2026

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