FSC only accepts the burning of waste wood in terms of the likes of sawdust etc, not what it terms primary biomass, or actual wood, so not your trees.
The joys of electric car ownership!
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Jameshow
Established Member
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
Probably, trying to rigorously enforce the one child cap worldwide?
Yes it's human rights gorn mad! Just like elf n safety - we didn't need any of that nanny state when ar worra lad!
Slightly off the original topic but just been watching the programme about heat pumps etc on the Beeb. One of the ideas discussed is to use many little reactors like the ones on submarines to provide a source of power to back up renewables. Plausible enough idea in many ways I suppose, certainly ought to be quicker and cheaper than the behemoths like sizewell. Not ordinarily a NIMBY, but not too sure how I would feel about having one of those just up the road 
Yojevol
Clocking on
Scaling the concept up, you've been living with one just up the road at Sizewell for the last 60 years.Slightly off the original topic but just been watching the programme about heat pumps etc on the Beeb. One of the ideas discussed is to use many little reactors like the ones on submarines to provide a source of power to back up renewables. Plausible enough idea in many ways I suppose, certainly ought to be quicker and cheaper than the behemoths like sizewell. Not ordinarily a NIMBY, but not too sure how I would feel about having one of those just up the road
Brian
Agent_zed
Established Member
I'm not sure you fully understand the carbon cycle and how trees grow. The forestry commission doesn't cut 1 tree down and carefully plant one in it's place, it is a continual cycle planting many trees as some are removed and allowing others to continue to grow all at different rates. There was a time when they just planted the same species but they now intermix ones that grow at different rates so they can be harvested at different times.
https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/t...nd-area-2/area-of-woodland-changes-over-time/
according to the above 'The chart indicates that the UK woodland area has risen by around 250 thousand hectares since 1998 (to 2018), an increase of 9% over the period.'
Forestry UK are actively trying to increase woodland in the UK and a lot of money is being spent to do so. Although I will agree that it isn't currently practical on a large scale to use wood for heating houses as we don't have enough forest to support everyone doing that.
but the current alternative is to burn oil/gas that has been locked away for millions of years as we currently do which is nothing but additional carbon into our current carbon cycle.
If we actually designed houses properly they could use minimal wood/biomass to be heated during the cold months as they would be both insulated to retain the heat input and also use passive solar gain and other technologies to reduce overall heat required. But anyone suggesting this is normally called an 'eco-zealot' or a 'greeny loony' or some such, which I find quite weird as it would actually significantly benefit the homeowner
Indeed, and if it went seriously Pete Tong in either case I don't suppose I would have much of a chance to worry about it
Yes I agree, and of course the amount of carbon captured is largely down to the leaves, so trees will trap relatively little at first, and progressively more as they grow. My point was that to make it genuinely neutral you need an awful lot of trees, exactly as you say. So in my example you would need potentially 520, ranging in size from the sapling you planted today, to the next one to be chopped down on reaching its tenth anniversary. Having some sort of blind faith that someone somewhere will be planting enough to offset what you are burning is a bit daft, as it very probably is not the case. And of course this is only one issue. Burning wood produces large amounts of particulates and other nasty stuff, far worse than an internal combustion engine. To do it on any meaningful scale in an urban environment would surely have a disastrous impact on air quality, as is proving to be the case following the recent fad for woodburners. Pointless in my view to plant trees and then chop them down and burn them, whether sustainable or not. We need more of them, lots more, they are one of our greatest allies if we are to have any hope of saving ourselves from our own stupidity. Can we do without fossil fuels immediately, no. But we should be looking at trying to eliminate them as quickly as we can, and for precisely the reasons you state. My personal view is that the only long term solution is for us to master fusion. If we can do that then it ought to be possible to generate electricity so cheaply that there would be no reason for anyone anywhere to contemplate using any other method to generate it, or to use anything other than electricity to heat our homes etc. I am 61, I would love to think this night be realised in my lifetime, although realistically I doubt it. In the meantime let's plant more and more trees, they are beautiful and provide us with the oxygen we breathe as well as doing a pretty good job of cleaning up after us. I am lucky enough to have space for a few mature trees, and live in a village where we have collectively planted hundreds of them over the years. As a result we have some lovely mature trees on and around the village green, and quite a few areas of man made woodland in the immediate surroundings. We also have several large "matchstick" plantations nearby, a bit bland but still doing their bit, as they have for over a hundred years since Bryant And May first planted them, regularly felled and replanted in rotation. Not sure how long that will continue, I don't suppose there is the demand for matches there once was.
We are somewhat similar :
Our main reception rooms have no heating aside from wood burners.
We have a small area of woodland on our property. All of our wood for the burners comes from our land.
So far we have been using logs which the previous owner had cut and left stacked. I've built a couple of large and dry wood stores and we now have about three years worth of logs drying.
There is no gas in our village, many of the houses are old, and there is a definite smell of wood burning if you walk around on cold winter evenings. I can appreciate that it's a massive problem in large towns and cities but burning wood is a way of life in the countryside. Many could not afford heat pumps or, because they rent, and not allowed to install them even if they wanted to.
I doubt we will ever need to actually cut down any of our trees as our wood usage can be addressed by coppiced wood. What we burn we try to replace with new willow or other similar species.
I do appreciate that we are both unusual and somewhat fortunate - but we try to do our bit.
stuart little
Established Member
They're too thick to realise bicycles need oil!
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
They don't need much oil. Maybe you didn't know that?
And plant or animal based oil would do, if you want to get technical!
bansobaby
Accustomly titled
Regarding the carbon cycle and whether or not you have enough trees growing to replace those being burnt, we could apply any given hypotheses to the carbon cycle in general, including fossil fuels.
What will probably happen is that we will take the human race to extinction before the last fossil fuels have been used (as the US will defend their dwindling resources to the bitter end).
When the next sentient being with enough 'intelligence' to repeat the whole process crawls out of the ooze, the intervening millennia of peace and quiet will have allowed the planet to restock on fossil fuels.......
What will probably happen is that we will take the human race to extinction before the last fossil fuels have been used (as the US will defend their dwindling resources to the bitter end).
When the next sentient being with enough 'intelligence' to repeat the whole process crawls out of the ooze, the intervening millennia of peace and quiet will have allowed the planet to restock on fossil fuels.......
Very depressing view, but sadly all too plausible.
Agent_zed
Established Member
Ok so instead of planting more trees and using them in a cyclical manner to capture and release carbon (rinse and repeat), it would seem your solution is to keep adding carbon to our current system that was stored millions of years ago, in the hope that at some point nuclear fusion will be viable?
Even if that does turn out to be viable we would still need to take care of the increased amounts of CO2 that have been released between now and whenever nuclear fusion comes online. Could be tomorrow could be 50 years from now, or indeed never.
Comparing wood to fossil fuels as fails to take into account that natural gas is mostly methane which is has 28x global warming potential than CO2, so all the leaks in our aging systems and incomplete combusion add significantly to the problem.
Just to recap though particulates and CO2 emissions are 2 separate issues.
Should everyone get a wood burner? no. But things like local biomass heating and/or power provide clean renewable energy as they can add scrubbers and monitor exhaust gases.
We are already using biogas generators from waste food (which is essentially biomass). Our food waste is anaerobically digested to produce methane and fertilizer.
Yojevol
Clocking on
As ever we will be utilising all sources of energy - wind, solar, bio, nuclear and fossil. In the medium term fossil will continue to reduce as we install greener methods. Some fossil will be ameliorated by carbon capture.
Nuclear fusion is still worth developing to replace the new fission stations as they retire in 50 years time. We are always going to need some form of base load generating capacity to give a reliable system especially in the absence of huge means of storage.
Brian
It’s all a moot discussion as the aliens are coming to save/destroy us anyway.
Wow firstly my comment was that I see fusion as the ultimate solution, not in the short or medium term. So please dont attribute comments to me that i did not make. And dont contradict yourself, having said that natural gas is mostly methane, and certainly given the impression that it is therefore bad, you then go on to cite the production of methane from bio waste as a good thing. Camt have it both ways.
Terry - Somerset
Established Member
One company in moving an energy intensive business to the south-west was keen to embrace renewable energy. Investigation of bio-mass revealed they would need the entire biomass production in the area to meet their needs.
Why mention this - biomass is is not a workable energy solution for humanity. It can support a large population at very low standards, or very few at standards most in the west would regard as acceptable.
If future conflict over resources involves nuclear or biological weapons global populations may fall below a sustainable level and the remaining few return to an age incapable of complex endeavour - no computers, aerospace, electrical infrastructure, steel making etc.
If the future, through drought, starvation and some conflict, slowly reduces global populations to a few hundred million, there may be sufficient to progress a stable civilisation with the range of skills and talents that exist today - hopefully making fewer future environmental demands.
All rather depressing!!
Why mention this - biomass is is not a workable energy solution for humanity. It can support a large population at very low standards, or very few at standards most in the west would regard as acceptable.
If future conflict over resources involves nuclear or biological weapons global populations may fall below a sustainable level and the remaining few return to an age incapable of complex endeavour - no computers, aerospace, electrical infrastructure, steel making etc.
If the future, through drought, starvation and some conflict, slowly reduces global populations to a few hundred million, there may be sufficient to progress a stable civilisation with the range of skills and talents that exist today - hopefully making fewer future environmental demands.
All rather depressing!!
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