Another Ban on the way?

[Jacob]

The Chinese? They are one of the largest contributers to CO2 output, probably in part because they are manufacturing such solar solutions and batteries. Closely followed by India. What we do in our little country has little or no impact on global warming.

Chine well down the list "per capita" but top on total output. Click the top of a column to order it: https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
Chinese is also tops in terms of renewable energy production, and serving the rest of the world with the technology.
One dubious advantage of a totalitarian state is that govts can follow the science and impose radical solutions. They are not at the mercy of fossil fuel industry or climate change sceptics.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Chinese is also tops in terms of renewable energy production.

Yes. My friend's s.i.l. is very high up in an international mining corp. - he told us he'd just returned from China where he'd just commissioned a huge new coal mine. The sole purpose of this mine was to fuel electricity generation for a massive industrial estate ......................... whose sole purpose was to manufacture low and renewable energy products for the West. It's not all as clean as it appears.

 

[paulrbarnard]

The Chinese? They are one of the largest contributers to CO2 output, probably in part because they are manufacturing such solar solutions and batteries. Closely followed by India. What we do in our little country has little or no impact on global warming.

The classic attitude that has the biggest impact on addressing difficult problems. Add up all those little ‘no impacts’ and it becomes a very significant issue.

 

[Krome10]

The Chinese? They are one of the largest contributers to CO2 output, probably in part because they are manufacturing such solar solutions and batteries. Closely followed by India. What we do in our little country has little or no impact on global warming.

What we do in our little country is buy the goods that are made in places like China.

 

[Windows]

CO2 neutral via carbon cycle. Smoke pollution less severe in low housing density areas. I wonder if there are design or operational improvements which can be made for wood and waste burning? Low tech solutions tend to get overlooked.

Burning puts CO2 (and other gases and particulates) into the atmosphere instantly. It isn’t CO2 neutral vs much slower animal, plant, fungi, & bacterial processes where most of the carbon remains in the wood until it gets sequestered in other living & dead things.

 

[Jacob]

Burning puts CO2 (and other gases and particulates) into the atmosphere instantly.

But if there are sustainable sources growing then they are absorbing CO2 simultaneously, or even in advance.

It isn’t CO2 neutral vs much slower animal, plant, fungi, & bacterial processes where most of the carbon remains in the wood until it gets sequestered in other living & dead things.

It's a continuous cycle, not emission followed by adsorption

 

[Jacob]

The classic attitude that has the biggest impact on addressing difficult problems. Add up all those little ‘no impacts’ and it becomes a very significant issue.

Not only that but we could be setting an example and leading on the technology rather than buying chinese.

 

[Windows]

But if there are sustainable sources growing then they are absorbing CO2 simultaneously, or even in advance.

It's a continuous cycle, not emission followed by adsorption

My point is that “the carbon cycle” doesn’t make one’s decision to burn wood C-neutral even if you’re talking about waste from sustainable timber. The decision about sustainable forestry has already been taken. If you are faced with a choice between burning or not burning, you should know that burning adds more CO2 to the atmosphere than not burning (assuming that not burning the wood doesn’t result in burning massive amounts of fuel for another form of disposal).

Sustainable timber means that (on decades long timescales), wood will be available. It doesn’t mean that burning it is carbon neutral.

 

[Jacob]

My point is that “the carbon cycle” doesn’t make one’s decision to burn wood C-neutral even if you’re talking about waste from sustainable timber. The decision about sustainable forestry has already been taken. If you are faced with a choice between burning or not burning, you should know that burning adds more CO2 to the atmosphere than not burning (assuming that not burning the wood doesn’t result in burning massive amounts of fuel for another form of disposal).

Sustainable timber means that (on decades long timescales), wood will be available. It doesn’t mean that burning it is carbon neutral.

But sustained forestry has already been practiced for 100s of years, so as long as it is growing at the same rate as it is being burned it will be CO2 neutral.
Interestingly - according to Oliver Rackham and others, those parts of Britain where wood was most in demand; for the early iron industry, for ship building etc, were also the places where forestry was maintained and replaced - hence carbon neutral.
The main destroyers of forests and CO2 production has always been farming, especially meat/dairy production which involves far greater areas than equivalent plant food sources. https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/index.html

 

[RobinBHM]

What we do in our little country is buy the goods that are made in places like China.

Off shoring is a problem

 

[Windows]

“But sustained forestry has already been practiced for 100s of years, so as long as it is growing at the same rate as it is being burned it will be CO2 neutral.”

That’s not correct. To understand why consider this: if you burned every last scrap of sustainably produced timber this year, you would put more CO2 into the atmosphere than if you had burned none of it. If you make the same decision to burn the entire crop of sustainable timber again next year, you would put more CO2 in to the atmosphere than if you stopped burning it after one year. Clearly the sustainability of the timber is not directly tied to the amount of CO2, it’s the use to which it is put that is key.

 

[Vulcan]

 

[Terry - Somerset]

“But sustained forestry has already been practiced for 100s of years, so as long as it is growing at the same rate as it is being burned it will be CO2 neutral.”

That’s not correct. To understand why consider this: if you burned every last scrap of sustainably produced timber this year, you would put more CO2 into the atmosphere than if you had burned none of it. If you make the same decision to burn the entire crop of sustainable timber again next year, you would put more CO2 in to the atmosphere than if you stopped burning it after one year. Clearly the sustainability of the timber is not directly tied to the amount of CO2, it’s the use to which it is put that is key.

I assume sustainable means the weight (or more strictly the CO2 content) of wood harvested is equal to the new growth of the remaining + newly planted crops.

The main barrier to feasibility as a power source is that currently sustainable wood reserves in the UK would meet only a small fraction to the total energy demand.

Other crops - oil seed rape, wheat, corn etc - may be more efficient at converting solar energy to biomass. Also need to understand costs of crop husbandry (planting, harvesting etc) and environmental and collateral impacts of biomass production.

 

[Chris Puttick]

My point is that “the carbon cycle” doesn’t make one’s decision to burn wood C-neutral even if you’re talking about waste from sustainable timber. The decision about sustainable forestry has already been taken. If you are faced with a choice between burning or not burning, you should know that burning adds more CO2 to the atmosphere than not burning (assuming that not burning the wood doesn’t result in burning massive amounts of fuel for another form of disposal).

Sustainable timber means that (on decades long timescales), wood will be available. It doesn’t mean that burning it is carbon neutral.

But not burning means (a) less trees growing (if the wood is taken from a managed forestry setup), and the younger faster growing trees absorb more CO2 than the mature ones and (b) methane output (if the wood is coming from trees/branches that had to come down anyway).

 

[NickWelford]

Aluminium, Copper, and Pyrex pans won't work on induction hobs, just saying .

Some aluminium pans have a steel plate moulded in to use on induction hobs.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Some stainless pans don't work on induction hobs - if you look to buy s/d pans take a magnet with you to be sure.

 

[Windows]

But not burning means (a) less trees growing (if the wood is taken from a managed forestry setup), and the younger faster growing trees absorb more CO2 than the mature ones and (b) methane output (if the wood is coming from trees/branches that had to come down anyway).

I’m not sure what you mean by (a). Fewer trees growing isn’t clear to me. (I started my comments in response to the suggestion that burning waste wood from sustainable timber was a carbon neutral act).

You also need to be careful with the younger trees absorbing more CO2 than older trees thing. The maths is more complex than that statement suggests. The actual numbers of young and old trees matter if you want to balance the carbon emission/absorption if the wood is produced for burning. These numbers are different than if you are only trying to ensure a renewable supply of timber for any purpose (which is what sustainable forestry has traditionally meant)

For (b), the details of which gases get produced doesn’t make a difference to the net result that burning puts more carbon in the atmosphere more quickly than not burning.

To summarize: sustainable forestry is about ensuring a supply of timber without additional deforestation, it’s not about being carbon neutral.

 

[Jacob]

“But sustained forestry has already been practiced for 100s of years, so as long as it is growing at the same rate as it is being burned it will be CO2 neutral.”

That’s not correct. To understand why consider this: if you burned every last scrap of sustainably produced timber this year, you would put more CO2 into the atmosphere than if you had burned none of it. If you make the same decision to burn the entire crop of sustainable timber again next year, you would put more CO2 in to the atmosphere than if you stopped burning it after one year. Clearly the sustainability of the timber is not directly tied to the amount of CO2, it’s the use to which it is put that is key.

Think of CO2 in atmosphere like water in a lake. Burning wood is putting more water in, growing wood is taking it out. The level stays the same.

 

[Windows]

If you decide to use timber for building instead of burning it, you contribute a different amount of carbon to the atmosphere.

If you decide to let timber decay instead of burning it, you contribute a different amount of carbon to the atmosphere.

You can make the calculation at the point at which you make the decision.

 

[Jacob]

Yes, burning increases the CO2 and growing decreases the CO2 in the atmosphere. Your statement that these are somehow balanced by sustainable forestry is where you’re mistaken.

A sustained forestry is carbon neutral by defintion. Whatever you do with the wood the amount of sequestered carbon stays steady.

It’s not impossible to plan to balance the emission and absorption, but “sustainable forestry” doesn’t do that. You need a lot more land for carbon neutral wood fuel than for sustainable forestry (which only promises not to increase deforestation and does not promise to be carbon neutral).

I'm not planning anything - I'm just justifying my own usage.