A return to firewood is bad for forests and the climate. So reports William Schlesinger, President Emeritus of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, in an Insights article published today in the journal Science.
In the race to meet clean energy standards, biomass energy is often touted as carbon neutral. To satisfy European Union (EU) demand, forests in the United States are turned into wood pellets and shipped overseas, to the tune of 7 million metric tons annually.
When these pellets are burned in the EU, the electricity they generate helps fulfill Paris Agreement commitments.
The stage is also being set for a potential uptick in biomass energy in the US, as Congress may declare biomass carbon neutral in an effort to revive the American forest product industry. A tax on fossil carbon would further incentivize US demand for wood pellets.
But turning forests into fuel has hard limitations. Accounting for biomass energy often ignores the critical role forests play as a sink for carbon dioxide that might otherwise accumulate in the atmosphere.
As Schlesinger reports, each year, an estimated 31% of the carbon dioxide emitted from human activities is stored in forests.
Native forests store more carbon dioxide than their plantation counterparts. Harvested pellets require fossil energy during manufacturing and overseas shipping.
As Schlesinger explains, “The benefits of wood power must be discounted by the loss of the carbon sequestration that would have occurred in the original forests if they had not been harvested.”
He notes, “It makes no sense to have Europeans embracing wood pellets as carbon neutral, while overlooking the carbon dioxide emitted during shipment and the losses of carbon storage from forests in the United States.”
Then there is biodiversity to consider. In the southeastern US, pine plantations are a major source of pellet wood. Yet pines are of limited value in preserving the region’s rich biodiversity.
As demand for wood pellets rises, old growth forests are also put under pressure of harvest. A myriad of species relies on these globally rare ecosystems.
Schlesinger concludes, “Ultimately, the question is what kinds of forests are most desirable for the future. Recent research indicates that unless forests are guaranteed to regrow to carbon parity, production of wood pellets for fuel is likely to put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and preserve fewer species on the landscape during the next several decades.”
Biomass shortfalls include:
- Fossil fuels power wood pellet export. Wood pellets produced in managed forests in the southern hemisphere are shipped to Europe where they are burned. The amount of energy required to power this shipping process can account for 25% of the total carbon emissions associated with biomass-fueled energy generation in Europe.
- Timber plantations do not store as much carbon as natural forests. It would take 40-100 years for a managed forest to store as much carbon as a natural one. Trees planted to produce wood pellets are often cut within 20 years, which is not enough time for them to take in the carbon released by the harvest and combustion of the previous ‘generation’ of natural forest.
- Monoculture degrades biodiversity. Timber plantations, which are typically dominated by a single tree species, cannot support the diversity of life found in natural forests. Also, increasing demand for wood pellets drives up the price of raw wood, incentivizing the harvest of biologically diverse old-growth forests.
- Cleared forests are vulnerable to non-forest development. New trees are not always planted where forests have been cut for fuel. In such cases, the carbon sequestration potential of the existing forest is completely eliminated.
Read more at Phys.org
Its good thing the Green Nuts were not around back during the early days of America otherwise they would have blocked the pioneers from using wood over their idiotic green pholosephies
Steely Dan had an old album titled “Pretzel Logic”. That’s the only way I can describe the contorted and tortured reasoning of William Schlesinger. It’s a perfect metaphor for the entire Man-made Global Warming argument and its twisted and convoluted computer model that the left promotes.
Pretzel Logic comes to mind often when reading about global warming.
Farmed trees were planted for profit, like Christmas trees. They’re for sale, and if Europeans want to waste money this way, fine. I’ve burned firewood my whole life and realized long ago to plan ahead. The less you handle it the more efficient it is.
Another thing about “plantation lumber” , it’s not as strong as natural lumber. It’s irrigated for rapid growth, bulk, not sinew. Something to think about if you build a house in hurricane country.
Burning wood pellets is not about truly reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It is about rationalization and feeling good.
The article made an excellent point that once a forest was cut down, the land might be used for something else. The result would be no different than pumping fossil fuel out of the ground. Even if the forest is replanted, it takes decades for an eight inch sapling to start adsorbing as much carbon dioxide as the sixty foot tree that was cut down.
The useful idiots with the Recycle paper and save a tree should know the trees used to make paper are raised spacificly for that purpose to Make Paper and beside they use paper in their signs
It’s 1100 am in the senior management meeting in Britain’s largest power station. The weekly 10am meeting has just ended and the managers are having coffee and their usual brainstorming session. New ideas are always welcome here.
“Boss, I’ve got an idea that I think is a winner”, this from the production manager. “Those new government carbon taxes are crippling us. How about we ask the government for a billion or so to convert our furnace to burn wood pellets instead of coal? There’s a supplier in North Carolina who produces these pellets from wood offcuts and sawdust. They’re keen for business and I bet we can get a good deal to ship these pellets to Liverpool. From there, it’s only a 12-hour train ride to our plant. Because we’ll be helping the government to meet their EU-mandated renewable requirements, they’ll pay us perhaps two or three times the amount for electricity from wood pellets as we currently get burning coal. There will be some cost to us building storage facilities for the pellets and adapting the trains, but the extra price for electricity will make it well worth it. What do you think?
Cue heads nodding around the room. “I like it” says the boss; “Call the Secretary for Energy and set it up”.
That’s probably not how the decision was taken, but taken it was. The DRAX power station imports wood pellets from America. It turns out though that the plant, having run short of offcuts and sawdust, are making up 75% of the delivery by cutting down hardwood trees.
The madness doesn’t end there; burning wood actually produces MORE CO2 than burning coal. The geniuses at the EU claim that burning wood is CO2-neutral in that the CO2 that is emitted will be taken up by replacement trees, (if they ever get planted) which can take up to a hundred years to grow. Their gradual absorption of CO2 over that time-span could hardly have any affect on climate.