An interesting solution for global warming

[osarusan]

The carbon aspect should be fairly obvious. Dwayner posted some diagrams about how we can address air quality.

You're comparing simply burning wood vs other combustibles. That's not the whole picture. There are many different types of wood that are more or less efficient than others. The cost to transport the wood to and from the forests has already been cited, and we also need to consider the cost of cutting it down. Then there's storage costs. Not everyone can store tons of wood in their home so we'd need to keep large storage areas with good enough environmental controls to keep the wood from rotting or getting too moist to burn well. That's no problem for a farmer who has a shed, but what about in New York City? You're looking at the equivalent of a single page in a whole encyclopedia set and drawing a conclusion from that.

The land use and environmental impacts of harvesting the wood are more nuanced. The Forestry Stewardship Council creates standards for each region for responsible forest management. There's a lot of information there, but in summary, yes, we can harvest timber with minimal environmental impact.

Yes, they are far more nuanced even than what was overlooked above, we're again rushing to a conclusion after looking at some very limited information.

We definitely can harvest timber with little impact at all. Emphasis on can. Converting all our energy sources to wood will not have such a minimal impact.

The best land use is subjective. The federal government already owns the land and has designated them as forests. Whether they should be left alone or cut every so often is a matter of opinion since the purpose of the land is for people to enjoy. I've come to the conclusion that land should be clear cut periodically after spending a lot of time in the woods.

It's your opinion. Many other have come to the same opinion I'm sure, and many others have come to a very different opinion. In fact, the reason we still have those forests is because past presidents looked at those forests and thought that we should preserve them for people to enjoy rather than harvest them.

In a mature Appalachian forest, there's very little vegetation on forest floor, which means there's very little to eat since most large trees here don't produce much for animals to eat. But land that was clear cut 3-10 years ago tends to have much more, and more diverse life. Grouse and other game birds in this area have virtually disappeared. Those birds don't make it in mature forests. There's nothing to eat and nowhere to hide.

Sure, there's nothing to eat and nowhere to hide. If you're a game bird. Or if you're a lion. Elephants, too, would be out of luck here. It's far from a dead biome though, and you're passing it off as if there's no life whatsoever. You're just not thinking about the animals that do happen to thrive in that type of environment.

All of my outdoorsy friends agree.

Fine. Opinions again. Countless others have disagreed.

It's hard to imagine how bringing in machinery and cutting down all of the trees is "good" for a forest . . . until you witness it firsthand.

It's not hard at all. Controlled burning and cutting has been part of human history since we started living in villages. We could easily increase our lumber usage and decrease our other fuels by cutting down the forest, but we set aside those forest for a reason, and we're not at a point where we need to open up our last reserves of energy. If the goal is to cut down on global warming, I still say our first step is to reduce the amount we pollute. Solar and wind energy are just baby industries but are growing rapidly, and there are now plans for nuclear reactors that can reprocess spent fuel and nuclear waste over and over until it burns up the entire product and there is nothing left. Now that's some exciting technology.

[dwayner79]

Instead of making all these people burn wood for home heat, why not put a few of the larger biomass boilers in a power plant near the forest. Turn some turbines, and make some electric for the grid. This reduces the need for coal/gas, removes the transportation problems, provides for a solution to the ash cleanup, and is more efficient overall. Let the locals come buy wood for heating if they want, and let the rest of the grid benefit from the better produced electricity.

[ggeezz]

Instead of making all these people burn wood for home heat, why not put a few of the larger biomass boilers in a power plant near the forest. Turn some turbines, and make some electric for the grid. This reduces the need for coal/gas, removes the transportation problems, provides for a solution to the ash cleanup, and is more efficient overall. Let the locals come buy wood for heating if they want, and let the rest of the grid benefit from the better produced electricity.

Actually, I think that's less efficient. Converting heat to electricity, "transporting" electricity, and overproducing electricity to account for spikes is rather inefficient. Shipping the wood to your house and using the heat, without conversion, is the most efficient process. Thus it's quite a bit cheaper. I was also reading up on the ash problem. The EPA created some voluntary standards and EPA Stage 2 boilers are 90% cleaner than regular models, as well as being more efficient. AFAICT, they do gasification rather than scrubbing.

But I don't want to make anyone burn wood. If people would rather have heat pumps and only have to set the thermostats that's fine with me. These are a cheaper solution if you don't mind feeding the stove. If dealing with wood is unpleasant, these are not for you.

I was just wondering what the market would do with more wood, whether it would replace carbon usage or not. And whether you have more individual burners or a few biomass power plants, it bolsters my argument for "national forests as carbon sequestration vehicles."

[ggeezz]

It's still a recurring cost as opposed to one-time costs for things like solar panels. I'm also not sure that averaging a 60mi roundtrip is reasonable with large-scale adoption.

I'm not suggesting large-scale adoption. There's not that much wood and the best wood goes to high-end applications like furniture. The next grade goes to construction. You burn what's left over or what you cut yourself.

This is a solution for perhaps 10% of the population. You have to live far enough north, close enough to wood sources, and in a rural area. If you meet that criteria this is 3 times better than anything else available. If you can cut your own wood it's 10 times better.

If you don't meet the criteria this simply will not work for you. But it's looking like our energy future is a hodge-podge of different sources.