I don't disagree with your basic point. But a problem that doesn't get discussed is what to do with the leftover branches, chips, sawdust, etc. that result from turning trees into lumber. I'm not sure it can just be left on the forest floor. And does the leftover stuff increase the fire risk?
Drax imports pellets from the Southeast US made from entire trees, not just the unusable parts. That's truly nuts, from a climate change perspective. But burning just the unusable wood is more complicated. What is the alternative fuel that would be burned to make the power? Is that alternative better or worse than using the wood?
OF COURSE the leftover stuff increases fire risk. It's why California's hands-off approach to forest management over the past 70+ years led to runaway forest fires when they inevitably ran through the massive amounts of undergrowth and detritus leftover from fallen, dead trees—which is the truth, unlike the MSM narrative of climate change increasing the risk of wildfire.
I took a bit of a look into some figures and data involved here.
Roger Pielke writes recently on his Substack that: "wildfire emissions have declined globally since 2003, based on data from the EU." This is good news.
Also, it's good to be careful about using scientists' remarks from journalism, rather than from scientific reports. For instance, I took a look at Steven Davis's (quoted above, from Cal-Irvine) and the other related reports, and they show this:
-Boreal emissions were .48 gtons of carbon in 2021.
-Flight emissions in 2019, before the pandemic, were 1.7 gtons, factoring in a low multiplier for extra climate forcing. If you factor in a larger multiplier, such as the UK uses, then it's double that amount.
This means that Davis was somewhat cherrypicking data for his quote that "boreal fires were double the carbon emissions from flying that year." If you take typical flight emissions for a typical year, then the boreal fires in 2021 were 28% of recent years' flight emissions average. Factoring in the UK's flight emissions climate multiplier (2x), those boreal-fire emissions were only 14% of flight emissions. Then there is the fact that forest fire smoke also has a cooling effect, and not including that in these claims is also a form of obfuscation or a mistake, it would seem.
hi Lloyd, this is a great explanation about how we got to biomass. And it is a super vivid explanation about carbon types. Thanks. But I have a question:
Assume you are in a part of the world where you are substituting biomass energy for coal/oil.
Assume you are burning it in one of those super high tech Danish heat/waste recovery facilties, that both filter the particles and recover the heat from burning.
Then your argument that it is like a ‘forest fire’ doesn’t seem to hold up? The fires don’t replace any other energy. Their emissions are not filtered in anyway from damaging particulates. And certainly their carbon is not filtered, as you so vividly point out.
What I don’t know is the deep science of the heat recovery systems to know if some of the particles they recover are the carbon particles. They recover a lot, and my I-sustain tours in 2004 claimed that the emissions were as clean as steam. Of course the wood or waste got burned, and the carbon is no longer in the wood. But isn’t that a bit like wood decomposing inside a soil bank, whether the roots of a dead tree or a landfill? The carbon goes back to the earth, or is capped by landfill, but is not released to the atmosphere.
The plant I talk about has electrostatic filters to remove most of the particulates, as does Amager Bakke in Copenhagen, which burns garbage, and even the Danes are cutting back on burning and trying to do more recycling, as they told me when I toured the plant. The argument that the wood decomposes down to CO2 eventually anyway doesn't make sense to me when we are worried about "now" emissions rather than "later" emissions; perhaps I am simplistic and doctrinaire, but I just don't think we should be burning stuff when we have alternatives like wind and water and conservation.
Your comments remind me again of a chapter title from Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart's book, "Why being less bad is no good." We don't want, and can't afford, to be carbon neutral. We have to be carbon negative. You can't burn the trees and draw down carbon. This means conservation and reduction first, then solar and wind for production of energy. Nothing works if we don't consume less. The prompts doing exactly the things you promote, passive house building, riding bikes, living more densely in cities with decentralized and more convenient shopping, and more. A crucial and more is to grow our own food where possible and planting a trillion trees that mature successfully. Premier Ford, and Governor Youngkin in my state, are so off base that laughing at them is the only appropriate response.
"We don't want, and can't afford, to be carbon neutral. We have to be carbon negative."
And how do we do that, because YOUR suggestions—conservation, reduction, solar and wind, Passivhaus, riding bikes, dense urban centres, "and more"—are NOT carbon negative. They may *approach* carbon neutral, but they're definitely NOT carbon negative.
As you said, "Nothing works if we don't consume less" but as more and more people continue to be born, more and more energy—carbon-based or otherwise—will be required. People do NOT voluntarily reduce their standard of living dramatically, which means that either a reduction in standards of living is FORCED on the populace or the overall number of people needs to be dramatically reduced.
Neither is a viable "solution" to successfully addressing the climate issue.
I have not dispute with your characterization of my list, it is not carbon negative, just approaching neutral. The carbon negative come from nature and involves rehabilitation of ecosystems, including agroecosystems that presently release rather than store carbon. Tree planting, re-establishing prairie ecosystems, regenerative farming, agroforestry and the like actually capture carbon. If this can be done on a broad scale we just might be able to draw down carbon, but not if we keep burning fossil fuels. My first list was really about doing that.
The crux of your point is that we won't voluntarily reduce our energy use. Sadly, you are correct, though some of us are inconsistently trying. I commute on an electric bike, which takes a significant dent out of my car use. I still fly too much. It is tough to quit what you are addicted to doing. Nevertheless we must. So therefore the idea of Garret Hardin, discredited though he may be (deservedly) about aspects of the Tragedy of the Commons, "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon" is likely where we will have to go if a majority in the US agrees to impose it. Right now, we are not close, but how many more unnatural disasters will it take before a majority of us can agree on a mandatory build down? This is our collective problem and the seed of our own demise if we cannot rise above our "prognostic myopia" (the ability to see the future but failure to act appropriately).
To be carbon negative, we will need carbon offsetting and drawdown--such as soil and forest regeneration and other forms of ecological repair. This is a topic that frequent-flyer Lloyd might look at, because offsetting and taking responsibility for our own emissions (by paying reputable offsetters) is an interim solution for high emitters.
I don't disagree with your basic point. But a problem that doesn't get discussed is what to do with the leftover branches, chips, sawdust, etc. that result from turning trees into lumber. I'm not sure it can just be left on the forest floor. And does the leftover stuff increase the fire risk?
Drax imports pellets from the Southeast US made from entire trees, not just the unusable parts. That's truly nuts, from a climate change perspective. But burning just the unusable wood is more complicated. What is the alternative fuel that would be burned to make the power? Is that alternative better or worse than using the wood?
OF COURSE the leftover stuff increases fire risk. It's why California's hands-off approach to forest management over the past 70+ years led to runaway forest fires when they inevitably ran through the massive amounts of undergrowth and detritus leftover from fallen, dead trees—which is the truth, unlike the MSM narrative of climate change increasing the risk of wildfire.
I took a bit of a look into some figures and data involved here.
Roger Pielke writes recently on his Substack that: "wildfire emissions have declined globally since 2003, based on data from the EU." This is good news.
Also, it's good to be careful about using scientists' remarks from journalism, rather than from scientific reports. For instance, I took a look at Steven Davis's (quoted above, from Cal-Irvine) and the other related reports, and they show this:
-Boreal emissions were .48 gtons of carbon in 2021.
-Flight emissions in 2019, before the pandemic, were 1.7 gtons, factoring in a low multiplier for extra climate forcing. If you factor in a larger multiplier, such as the UK uses, then it's double that amount.
This means that Davis was somewhat cherrypicking data for his quote that "boreal fires were double the carbon emissions from flying that year." If you take typical flight emissions for a typical year, then the boreal fires in 2021 were 28% of recent years' flight emissions average. Factoring in the UK's flight emissions climate multiplier (2x), those boreal-fire emissions were only 14% of flight emissions. Then there is the fact that forest fire smoke also has a cooling effect, and not including that in these claims is also a form of obfuscation or a mistake, it would seem.
hi Lloyd, this is a great explanation about how we got to biomass. And it is a super vivid explanation about carbon types. Thanks. But I have a question:
Assume you are in a part of the world where you are substituting biomass energy for coal/oil.
Assume you are burning it in one of those super high tech Danish heat/waste recovery facilties, that both filter the particles and recover the heat from burning.
Then your argument that it is like a ‘forest fire’ doesn’t seem to hold up? The fires don’t replace any other energy. Their emissions are not filtered in anyway from damaging particulates. And certainly their carbon is not filtered, as you so vividly point out.
What I don’t know is the deep science of the heat recovery systems to know if some of the particles they recover are the carbon particles. They recover a lot, and my I-sustain tours in 2004 claimed that the emissions were as clean as steam. Of course the wood or waste got burned, and the carbon is no longer in the wood. But isn’t that a bit like wood decomposing inside a soil bank, whether the roots of a dead tree or a landfill? The carbon goes back to the earth, or is capped by landfill, but is not released to the atmosphere.
Would love to learn more.
Thanks,
Susan
The plant I talk about has electrostatic filters to remove most of the particulates, as does Amager Bakke in Copenhagen, which burns garbage, and even the Danes are cutting back on burning and trying to do more recycling, as they told me when I toured the plant. The argument that the wood decomposes down to CO2 eventually anyway doesn't make sense to me when we are worried about "now" emissions rather than "later" emissions; perhaps I am simplistic and doctrinaire, but I just don't think we should be burning stuff when we have alternatives like wind and water and conservation.
Your comments remind me again of a chapter title from Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart's book, "Why being less bad is no good." We don't want, and can't afford, to be carbon neutral. We have to be carbon negative. You can't burn the trees and draw down carbon. This means conservation and reduction first, then solar and wind for production of energy. Nothing works if we don't consume less. The prompts doing exactly the things you promote, passive house building, riding bikes, living more densely in cities with decentralized and more convenient shopping, and more. A crucial and more is to grow our own food where possible and planting a trillion trees that mature successfully. Premier Ford, and Governor Youngkin in my state, are so off base that laughing at them is the only appropriate response.
"We don't want, and can't afford, to be carbon neutral. We have to be carbon negative."
And how do we do that, because YOUR suggestions—conservation, reduction, solar and wind, Passivhaus, riding bikes, dense urban centres, "and more"—are NOT carbon negative. They may *approach* carbon neutral, but they're definitely NOT carbon negative.
As you said, "Nothing works if we don't consume less" but as more and more people continue to be born, more and more energy—carbon-based or otherwise—will be required. People do NOT voluntarily reduce their standard of living dramatically, which means that either a reduction in standards of living is FORCED on the populace or the overall number of people needs to be dramatically reduced.
Neither is a viable "solution" to successfully addressing the climate issue.
I have not dispute with your characterization of my list, it is not carbon negative, just approaching neutral. The carbon negative come from nature and involves rehabilitation of ecosystems, including agroecosystems that presently release rather than store carbon. Tree planting, re-establishing prairie ecosystems, regenerative farming, agroforestry and the like actually capture carbon. If this can be done on a broad scale we just might be able to draw down carbon, but not if we keep burning fossil fuels. My first list was really about doing that.
The crux of your point is that we won't voluntarily reduce our energy use. Sadly, you are correct, though some of us are inconsistently trying. I commute on an electric bike, which takes a significant dent out of my car use. I still fly too much. It is tough to quit what you are addicted to doing. Nevertheless we must. So therefore the idea of Garret Hardin, discredited though he may be (deservedly) about aspects of the Tragedy of the Commons, "mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon" is likely where we will have to go if a majority in the US agrees to impose it. Right now, we are not close, but how many more unnatural disasters will it take before a majority of us can agree on a mandatory build down? This is our collective problem and the seed of our own demise if we cannot rise above our "prognostic myopia" (the ability to see the future but failure to act appropriately).
To be carbon negative, we will need carbon offsetting and drawdown--such as soil and forest regeneration and other forms of ecological repair. This is a topic that frequent-flyer Lloyd might look at, because offsetting and taking responsibility for our own emissions (by paying reputable offsetters) is an interim solution for high emitters.