BRFR Cake Stop 'breaking news' miscellany

[First Aspect]

This is getting silly.

For the two rooms of my house I need to heat, a wood burner is in competition with an electric space heater. The latter is now cheaper than oil heating. Burning wood is the aesthetic choice, for sure, but now we've undone the conflating of climate change and PM2.5s resulting from them all being "pollution", we are left with a debate about whether or not biomass derived energy is carbon neutral or not. I am hiding in amongst mainstream science on that one.

 

[Psamathe]

I am hiding in amongst mainstream science on that one.

From the Smithsonian Magazine (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/epa-declares-burning-wood-carbon-neutral-180968880/)

Biomass is only sustainable on long time scales
The idea that forest biomass is carbon neutral is not wrong. Trees absorb carbon from the atmosphere as they grow. So if a tree is burned for fuel, the thinking goes, another can be planted to replace it. And then that replacement tree should eventually re-absorb the carbon.

But while burning wood immediately releases carbon, it takes decades or even a century for a replacement tree to absorb the same amount of carbon. In the meantime, all that atmospheric carbon will continue to drive climate change.

And it's only carbon neutral if we replant enough which we are not.

And then there is the soil (more significant carbon store than the trees) and the impact removing trees has on releasing that soil carbon.

A very large percentage of the carbon stored in the forest is actually stored in the soil itself," says Sami Yassa, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Say you go in and log a forest, take the lumber to a sawmill, and burn only the tops of the branches. That might be carbon neutral. But all of that soil that gets disturbed gets oxidized." Oxidation releases carbon that would otherwise be stored, and a lot of it: According to the US Forest Service, soil can sequester up to twice as much carbon as the aboveground forest ecosystem.

Plus as commented earlier the felling, processing, drying and transport emits additional carbon.

 

[First Aspect]

From the Smithsonian Magazine (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/epa-declares-burning-wood-carbon-neutral-180968880/)

And it's only carbon neutral if we replant enough which we are not.

And then there is the soil (more significant carbon store than the trees) and the impact removing trees has on releasing that soil carbon.

Plus as commented earlier the felling, processing, drying and transport emits additional carbon.

I am very sorry but you are all sorts of confused. It boils down to where the wood cones from. In the US and Canada, scandalously, old growth forest is still being felled for lumber. All the comments about the relatively poor biodensity of second and third growth forest absolutely applies.

However, here in the UK, and across most of Europe as far as I'm aware, if you cut down a plantation and replace it with another plantation, it's carbon neutral. And the timescales are the same as the forestry timescales, so here about 30 years.

Don't get me wrong, there are ample reasons to look elsewhere for energy, but there are also much, much better targets for your ire if you are worried about climate change.

Incidentally, in the UK, one thing that isn't carbon neutral is plantations on peat land. Or anything that dries it out, including rewilding or indeed climate change itself.

For UK forestry, there you may have a point. It's also an argument against some onshore wind projects.

 

[briantrumpet]

Matt Hancock lying to the covid enquiry isn't doing much to dispel my opinions voiced at the time on BR of Johnson's government being a bunch of mendacious charlatans. The Tory Party still hasn't recovered from their reign of error.

 

[Pblakeney]

Matt Hancock lying to the covid enquiry isn't doing much to dispel my opinions voiced at the time on BR of Johnson's government being a bunch of mendacious charlatans. The Tory Party still hasn't recovered from their reign of error.

View attachment 17871

They really are blind to their actions, or just think everyone else is just stupid.
Not only is it recent enough for people to remember but it was all on the public record. Daily.

 

[briantrumpet]

Grey cars are winning. Boo. (Someone did this via Claude.)

 

[Pblakeney]

Grey cars are winning. Boo. (Someone did this via Claude.)

View attachment 17872

Tells me that my next car will likely be green. Harder to find but will be cheaper as undesirable.
Never did want to look like everyone else anyway. 😉

 

[PurplePenguin]

Wooden tables are carbon neutral*. They're even better if you plant a replacement tree.

*They're not really due to all the wastage, but I still find it fascinating all the research that goes into carbon storage when no one properly values kitchen tables and furniture.

 

[First Aspect]

Wooden tables are carbon neutral*. They're even better if you plant a replacement tree.

*They're not really due to all the wastage, but I still find it fascinating all the research that goes into carbon storage when no one properly values kitchen tables and furniture.

Lots of things can be made of wood. It's exciting isn't it.

 

[Psamathe]

Not only is it recent enough for people to remember ...

I'm afraid I'm one who wants to see repercussions for Hancock et al. Had they driven a car down a crowded street with such lack of care resulting in deaths they'd be in prison.

Maybe my feelings in part due to that my Dad caught Covid in his care home early during the 1st lockdown when visits were not permitted. That said he was on an automated morphine pump thing for most of the 7 days it took him to die so he would probably not have even known if visits had been allowed.

 

[briantrumpet]

As it's so marginal, it's no wonder the separatists are vowing to stay in the fight.

 

[Psamathe]

Wooden tables are carbon neutral*. They're even better if you plant a replacement tree.

*They're not really due to all the wastage, but I still find it fascinating all the research that goes into carbon storage when no one properly values kitchen tables and furniture.

I made my kitchen table out of old oak floor boards. Off-cuts saved and used for wood turning (often glued together). 3" x 3" legs solid made from the bits tongue and grove offcuts glued together and thinner plank glued to outside surface and you can't tell they are not one bug chunk of wood.

 

[Rusty Nails]

And it's costing more to use tham than eg gas Wood burners more costly for heating than gas boilers, study finds

Not for a friend of mine who lives in Forestry Commission territory.

 

[briantrumpet]

Not for a friend of mine who lives in Forestry Commission territory.

A lot will depend on the quality and price of the wood. The suppliers in Devon were shysters when I had the stove here ("dry hardwood" was wet softwood, and loads were however much they felt like you deserved), the ones in France much better, as I think ones in Devon are mostly supplying for 'cosmetic' woodburners ('cosy evenings by the fire', aw!!), and in France more often for essential heating.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Luckily log burners are a bit of a niche source of fuel and rarely used as a main source of heating. If they were ever to become one of the major sources of heating then I am not sure the argument of sustainability would stand without the UK turning over a huge amount of land for forestry to cover the Carbon Debt effect.