[Reason077]

> "Wood and animal waste"

Also known as biomass. These are a renewable resource and massively better than fossil fuels when it comes to climate change. Obviously you need to ensure they are burnt in a controlled environment (not dumping smoke into people's kitchens, for example), but in the right circumstances they are vastly preferable to coal and gas.

Developing countries need not repeat the same mistakes as the developed world. We have better technology and far more options now.

[brnaftr361]

I've never actually sat down and worked it out, but it seems to me that this is more of a political buoy than legitimately optimized.

Once you factor in all the processing of certain biomass, specifically I recall a European nation, the UK perhaps, was burning wood product. Wood is significantly less energy dense than coal for instance... If your workers are driving to and from work, if you're cutting it down with two stroke chainsaws, loading it into trucks, packing it into trains... I think these factors were all removed from calculations to conclude it's "carbon neutral".

And for some reason, probably wrongly, I'd like to imagine leaving the trees up is more beneficial (even if the fuel is a byproduct of industry), but I can imagine during a tree's lifecycle there's a "peak sequestration" age/size they're maybe targeting.

[Reason077]

You're quite right that wood biomass is not fully carbon-neutral when fossil fuels are expended in harvesting it and transporting it.

UK biomass is estimated to have a total-lifecycle carbon footprint of 230g CO2 per kWh. This is much worse than wind, solar, or nuclear. But still a very significant improvement on burning coal and natural gas! Compared to coal, it's about a 4x improvement.

[tablespoon]

> Also known as biomass. These are a renewable resource and massively better than fossil fuels when it comes to climate change. Obviously you need to ensure they are burnt in a controlled environment (not dumping smoke into people's kitchens, for example), but in the right circumstances they are vastly preferable to coal and gas.

And won't they decay, releasing the CO2, anyway? IIRC, I think I heard decay referred to as "slow fire."

The only bad aspect of biomass fuel that I can think of is that people might be tempted to cut down established forests to get it.

[cupofpython]

>The only bad aspect of biomass fuel

Let's not forget the simple logistical difficulty of using biomass. It is not as energy dense, which makes moving its own weight around more expensive too.

"The net energy ratio between energy output and input was 10.41.. Energy used for hauling hog fuel represented the largest part (36.27%) of the total energy input. The net energy ratio decreased 0.11 with each additional transportation mile

the net energy ratios reported here were on the high end of this range as energy input for possible active drying, storage, and final delivery was not included. " [0]

"The energy content was taken at 137,000 BTUs per gallon for diesel, and 125,000 BTUs per gallon for gasoline (Adams 1983)...

output: the mean HHV ranged from 8,946 to 9,105 BTUs/pound " [0]

A gallon weighs about 6 pounds, so it seems like pound-for-pound (pine-tree) biomass is less than half as productive as gasoline.*

Honestly, I was expecting worse. But over doubling energy costs isn't negligible, especially for poorer countries.

*this is at a glance work, not an actual deep dive

[0] Net energy output from harvesting small-diameter trees using a mechanized system Fei Pan Han-Sup Han Leonard R. Johnson

FOREST PRODUCTS JOURNAL VOL. 58, NO. 1/2 William J. Elliot

[pojzon]

> Developing countries need not repeat the same mistakes as the developed world. We have better technology and far more options now.

They can only do so if we help them. Providing the technology FOR FREE.

Human race is slowly outgrowing the concept of money. Current system does not fit into the future we have ahead of us. And quite a bit of high profile ppl see that and are afraid of losing power.

[cwp]

What does renewability have to do with climate change?

[hypertele-Xii]

When you burn a tree, everything that's released into the atmosphere is something the tree absorbed from the atmosphere as it grew. So it's plus minus zero in terms of pollution.

When you burn non-renewables, i.e. stuff dug up from the ground, you're adding pollution into the atmosphere.

Pollution that changes the climate.