Burning stuff and green issues

N9eav

Just a question....

With the rising cost of oil and gas, I have stockpiled several tons of free wood. I figure I will burn all of that as well as old palletts and stuff to keep warm this winter. I can't afford to buy heating oil at 60-70p a litre.

Now because I am forced to burn wood... scientifically does that harm the enviroment more than my efficient central heating boiler?

Penelope_Penguin

Hi, N9eav :beer: As this isn't strictly Old Style, I'll move your question to the Green and Ethical Board, where you'll get more responses.

Penny. x

miss_corerupted

As far as konw everything i've read about this is burning wood is carbon neutral.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-6ungrm

geordie_joe

miss_corerupted wrote: »

As far as konw everything i've read about this is burning wood is carbon neutral.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/infd-6ungrm

I never understood that, how can it be carbon neutral?

I understand carbon neutral to mean that you cause some carbon to be released into the atmosphere and cause an exact same amount to be taken out.

By burning wood you are causing carbon to be released into the atmosphere, but where is the amount you are taking out?

Are you (that's the royal you and not aimed at miss_corerupted) claiming the carbon the tree took out 20 years before you were born?

Or are you/me/we supposed to think that planting another tree will make up for it. If that is the case then I don't get it. If you buy a tree and plant it somewhere you are not causing a new tree, you are simply moving an existing tree into a different place.

What ever reasons there are for claiming burning wood is carbon neutral then these must also apply to burning oil and coal. Only the time the carbon was taken out of the atmosphere differs.

Off my soap box now

To the OP, if you've got free wood then burn it.

N9eav

Oh I am planning to burn it. But I was also wondering if burning became a cheaper source of heat, would we get all smogged up again? the co2 is irrelavant if everyone was producing loads of smoke

Solar and wind is all very nice, but not many people have the space to set that up.

CLAPTON

if trees are grown and then felled and burnt and then new trees are grown and then felled and burnt .. then over time there is no net CO2 added to the atmosphere. .. So if the source of the wood is a forest that is being maintained at the same overall size then one can say burning wood is carbon neutral.

Unlike coal and oil which is not being created only burnt.

Jonesya

N9eav wrote: »

But I was also wondering if burning became a cheaper source of heat, would we get all smogged up again?

No because most large towns and cities are smokeless zones which prohibits burning smokey fuels like coal or wood unless they are burnt in approved fires/stoves which have minimal smoke emission.

geordie_joe

CLAPTON wrote: »

if trees are grown and then felled and burnt and then new trees are grown and then felled and burnt .. then over time there is no net CO2 added to the atmosphere. .. So if the source of the wood is a forest that is being maintained at the same overall size then one can say burning wood is carbon neutral.

Unlike coal and oil which is not being created only burnt.

Yes but you have to cause co2 to be taken out of the atmosphere, just as by burning wood you cause carbon to be put into the atmosphere.

Just saying that if another tree is grown then it is carbon neutral doesn't work. Where does the tree come from?

If you mean that a seed drops from another tree and grows then that seed was going to grow anyway and you have not "caused" it to grow.

If you mean a tree is bought and planted then this doesn't work either as that tree also came from a seen and would have grown anyway. Just because someone picked it up and put it in a pot for a few years then transplanted it back into the forest doesn't mean they created the tree or caused any co2 to be taken out of the atmosphere.

Cutting down trees and claiming it is carbon neutral because another tree will grow is just claiming credit for a tree that was going to grow whether or not you cut the other one down.

You might as well just look in the obituary column and find someone who died today and offset all your carbon against the carbon they are not going to cause to be released.

CLAPTON

You have a forest ... it has a certain number of trees in it.
you chop a tree down, now making a space for a new tree.
In general, in a mature forest additional trees depend upon the removal of an exisitng tree.

the new tree grows and absorbs CO2 .. you burn the original tree that releases CO2 .. overall you are carbon neutral.
of course you could increase the amount of space allocated to trees and then you would get a one time reduction in atmospheric CO2.

geordie_joe

CLAPTON wrote: »

You have a forest ... it has a certain number of trees in it.
you chop a tree down, now making a space for a new tree.
In general, in a mature forest additional trees depend upon the removal of an exisitng tree.

the new tree grows and absorbs CO2 .. you burn the original tree that releases CO2 .. overall you are carbon neutral.
of course you could increase the amount of space allocated to trees and then you would get a one time reduction in atmospheric CO2.

No, seeds are designed to get as far way from the "mother tree" as possible. Cutting a tree down to make room for another one means you have REDUCED the tree population because you have stopped that tree dropping thousands of seeds. It will take years for the young tree to produce seeds.

Even iff out of all the seeds a tree drops only two per your grow into trees, by chopping it down you have prevented 2 trees per year growing. If the new tree you replace it with takes 10 years to produce seeds then 20 potential trees have been lost in the mean time.

How can preventing 21 trees (Including the original one) from sucking co2 out of the atmosphere and replacing them with one tree be carbon neutral?

Not to mention the fact that the tree you replaced them with was once a seed on a tree, and if left alone probably would have grown anyway. You haven't created the tree, you simply moved it from where nature intended it to grow to the place you want it to grow.

CLAPTON

In deed so , if we allocate infinite space for trees to grow and spread then of course that's right.
But if the amount of space allocated to trees is constrained then the process I described is carbon neutral.