Can a wood burning fire be consider as a green alternative ? I'm confused, I was checking out comparative fuel cost on the The Solid Fuel Technology Institute website and it would appear that wood logs cost the least and have the lowest carbon emissions per kW.
Optimistically - burning wood is carbon neutral.
It can even be carbon positive with the right woodburning stove, as the methane (a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) that would otherwise be released to the atmosphere from rotting timber is burnt in the stove.
Practically there are aspects like transportation etc, so the carbon impact is smaller than other fuels but not zero.
Oh - and you can get 2 lots of warmth out of them. One lot when you chop them, and another from burning them;-)
£60,000+ each, so it must have something.
It seems based on that burning cheap quick growing local wood introduces a zero footprint cycle. The growing wood locks away a quantity of co2. Burning the same wood releases the co2, and around you go.
I am not sure about the validity of the model whoever. :(
That works if you use a stone axe to fell the trees, and carry them home on your back. If on the other hand you use a chain saw and a lorry then fossil fuels start being used !
AWEM
|!Can a wood burning fire be consider as a green alternative ? I'm |!confused, I was checking out comparative fuel cost on the The Solid |!Fuel Technology Institute website and it would appear that wood logs |!cost the least and have the lowest carbon emissions per kW. |! |!
Excuse my ignorance Dave but what is a SIL ?
|!On May 14, 8:17 pm, Dave Fawthrop |! wrote: |!> On 14 May 2007 10:56:06 -0700, carloponti wrote: |!>
|!> >
|!> Carbon neutrality/Greenness have absolutely *no* relationship to Cost. |!> My SIL gets logs for free from tree surgeons for the asking. |!> -- |!Excuse my ignorance Dave but what is a SIL ?
Son In Law.
How are the wood burners fed? If they are hopper fed, who fills the hopper?
I ask as a re-retired school site supervisor who had too much work thrust on him :-(
Dave
And empties the ash...
Not quite sure I agree with the figures on the soliftec site. Who gets standard rate lecky at 4.7p/unit these days? I'm on one of the cheapest tarriffs I could find at 7.19p/unit. Oil; my records going back to Jul
2005 peak at 35p/l not 37p/l.Anyone care to explain how and why burning wood produces so much less carbon per useful kW than all the other fuels?
bar chart. The thing is the CO2 they emit was recently absorbed from the atmosphere as the original plant grew, and I assume that's been omitted. If you believe in carbon footprints, then it is only CO2 which was absorbed from the atmosphere many thousands of years ago which is significant. Cycling CO2 around in a few years is not.
Not very much.
Ah that answers my question about why the carbon emmisions where so low for wood. I can live with that. But they really ought to explain it a bit more clearly, I suspect most people think that CO2 is bad end of story, in my view it's not that simple. We could burn just as much "oil" as we burn now provided that the source of that "oil" was from a renewable source.
Thats my view but we also have to do something about re-fixing the fossil C02 that has been released in the last few hundred years.
Wood use can be carbon negative as increased demand for wood can lead to conservation, replanting etc. This increases the amount of fixed carbon which otherwise would have been in the atmosphere as CO2. Iron making was originally wood fired and conservation/replacement was well thought out - it's usually in places where timber is not valued that de-forestation takes place. So steel tool production can be carbon negative too Throw in horse/water/wind/human/sun power, water transport by canal or sail, wood based transport by cart/carriage, wood fuelled steam engines, more use of timber in buildings, and you have a busy industrial life which would be quite sustainable without fossil fuels. We would also have a delightfully forested environment to support the demand for wood. We'd probably have to go veggie as meat is very wasteful of land, but we could catch the odd bit of game in the new forests.
cheers Jacob
at a populuation about 1/10th of what it is now, and at a level of civilization that no self respecting aborigine would touch with a long wooden spear..
Indeed. The habit of eating meat, rather than plants, is obviously so detrimental to the species that no culture that has adopted it has ever expanded or risen to a dominant position in the world.
Dream on. TNP>
|!On 14 May 2007 23:38:16 GMT, Andrew Gabriel wrote: |! |!> It's a bit misleading. They emit much more CO2 than is shown in that |!> bar chart. The thing is the CO2 they emit was recently absorbed from |!> the atmosphere as the original plant grew, and I assume that's been |!> omitted. |! |!Ah that answers my question about why the carbon emmisions where so low |!for wood. I can live with that. But they really ought to explain it a bit |!more clearly, I suspect most people think that CO2 is bad end of story, in |!my view it's not that simple. We could burn just as much "oil" as we burn |!now provided that the source of that "oil" was from a renewable source.
Only CO2 from fossil fuels causes global warming. Anything where the carbon is recycled over a few years/tens of years, like logs, and bio-diesel does not have any substantial effect
|!Thats my view but we also have to do something about re-fixing the fossil |!C02 that has been released in the last few hundred years.
Can not be done :-( there is too much CO2, many millions of tons, in the atmosphere to even attempt it. I live on top of the Barnsley Seam of coal, seven foot of best quality coal. Put "Barnsley Seam" into Wikipedia and you will find 25 collieries which mined it. Think about getting that underground again. I have not mentioned all the other coal seams and oil fields.
Would take a lot of nuclear power stations to generate the energy to turn the CO2 back into coal...;-)
Only if you want it doing quickly. I think the mistake we're making is not planning long term enough for whatever re-evolves after we've killed this part of the planet off and ourselves. If we buried lots of wood and plants in the right places would they form coal of the future?
Probably methane intead, by and large..
No doubt the worlds eiosystem will evolve High CO2 loving, high temperature low rainfall type stuff in a few million years and restore the balance.
Probably some species of giant mangrove will replace humanity in Bangladesh.
Whilst the elite inhabit the sunny slopes of antarctica, dreming of world domination..
Actually there are a number of natural processes that can take up excess CO2 - for instance peat bog formation can take CO2 out of circulation (as long as you don't drain and burn them!). Biological processes in the ocean can take out CO2 (grow plankton - plankton dies - plankton sinks to sea floor). Perhaps more significantly CO2 dissolves in cold seawaters, so eventually, if we stop over-producing CO2 things will recover. Unfortunately the rate of dissoloution in the oceans is slower than the rate of man-made production. Worse because C)2 dissolves best in cool waters there is less dissoloution as the world warms...
Andy
Easy. The carbon that is released as CO2 has been "recently" captured from the atmosphere by the growing tree (so it doesn't really count)
*[see below]. The only remain footprint is the fossil fuel used to cut, process, and transport the fuel - this is comparitively small.Of course, if you burn a large chunk of Brazilian rain-forest without replanting, that is /not/ carbon neutral.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.