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Many nations have embraced burning wood pellets to produce electricity — under the assumption that it is carbon neutral. But research shows this approach can boost greenhouse-gas emissions (www.nature.com)
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[-] kalkulat@lemmy.world 7 points 4 months ago

Fire that consumes hydrocarbon fuels and oxygen liberates CO2. So yeah. Gasoline, diesel, natural gas, wood chips, all hydrocarbon fuels. NO SUCH THING as 'green' wood burning.

[-] pupbiru@aussie.zone 4 points 4 months ago

you’re missing the point a little though… if you plant a tree, let it grow, burn it, it has consumed the co2 that you release from burning it to grown the tree

so if you’re burning a tree, planting a new one, and letting it grow to the maturity of the original tree, that’s… similar-ish

the devil is in the detail because transport and a bunch of other concerns come into play, but it’s not as simple as just burning things because there’s a carbon capture step too

[-] kalkulat@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

Totally agreed ... IF you plant a tree, and let it grow, then pellitize and transport it in a green way, then burning it won't release more hydrocarbons than it accumlated.

[-] silence7@slrpnk.net 1 points 4 months ago

As I said downthread:

The key thing about this is that when you build a power plant which burns wood pellets, it takes a whole lot of mature forest, and converts it into CO2; you go from a whole bunch of mature trees to a mix of trees of varying ages. So something like half the carbon in the forest is in the atmosphere for as long as the power plant is in operation.

[-] cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 4 points 4 months ago

If you continue reading they explain what's meant. They emit CO2 when burned that gets absorbed later. According to the study they cited it takes about 44+ years to re absorb the emitted CO2. The critics actually is, that it I creases CO2 emittion in the short term, which is kinda bad if were already overshooting the 1.5°C agreement.

this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2024
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