Re: Best alternative to gas patio heaters

[ARWadsworth]

It would be a bigger bonus if you were drinking free beer at the same time.

Adam

[Dave Liquorice]

But when you burn it the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is lower because the tree absorbed it whilst it was growing. In the longer term there is

*no* nett gain in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, you have a cycle, just Like the water cycle.

[dennis]

It increases the peak amount and surely its the peak that matters.

[Dave Liquorice]

How can it increase the peak? Where does that additional carbon come from?

It doesn't increase the peak at the point of burning as the amount of C02 in the atmosphere is *lower* by the amount the tree absorbed when growing.

Burning fossil fuels increases the amount of C02 because it is releasing carbon that was last in the atmosphere millions of years ago not in the last week to 100 years.

There *has* to be a transistion to sustainable fuels and energy sources as the fossil ones *will* run out. Nuclear is an option but what will replace the billions of oil burning internal combustion engines in use around the world?

[dennis]

You are treating it as a closed system which it isn't. Try thinking on a global scale.

So? The effect is the same. One is on a timescale normal people should be able to understand. The other requires thought.

Hydrogen? Assuming we can build enough nuclear plant to generate the hydrogen.

[Andy Burns]

I don't particularly claim to be

yes, it's all a question of /timescale/ as Mary originally said, and you seem to like glossing over.

true, but atmospheric CO2 is only one of many factors, aren't we overdue an ice-age?

[mogga]

I believe they're also looking at BTL having to have energy reports done whether or not they're selling and being made to do the required work.

[John Rumm]

Chicken and egg...

You absorb it first over a few years, and then release it later by burning. The tree needs to be planted, and to grow before you can burn it. Who said anything about planting one to replace it after?

[John Rumm]

I expect the later is closer to the truth though. If you were choosing between two new builds that you like equally, and one had a better energy rating than the other, then perhaps it would influence your decision. For most people I expect they will buy the house they like and at price they can afford and the energy efficiency rating will come way down the list of priorities. It may have an influence on what home improvements you choose to make later perhaps.

[Dave Liquorice]

Well our paddock has around 800 trees on it, planted about 6 years ago when they where about 3 years old...

Trouble is at 1400' and exposed they don't grow very quickly. The roughly

40 year old Silver Birches we have are only about 15' high with trunks around 5" dia. Lower down they'd be 30' high and 12" round.

There is a lot of sustainable forestry going on now, mostly for construction timber. But this doesn't help much with the oil problem, though could for boilers using wood pellet technology.

[dennis]

Thats a good guess.. mine are just about that now.

I have no plans on cutting them down though we need trees around here

[The Natural Philosopher]

Did you see that program last year on John Constable? where someone went around to photograph the scenery he had painted? and discovered that in most cases the views were now obscured by trees?

Tree growth has accelerated since we ceased to use them for firewood and iron smelting and shipbuilding..

[Andy Hall]

So where are the chocolate box pictures for the 22nd century going to come from? I suppose that people will still like horses and carts....

[The Natural Philosopher]

Nah. They will feature quaint old 'motor cars'

[Andy Hall]

Yes of course. These will have been supplying the CO2 to assist the growth of the trees. There'll be tax incentives for people to have

22nd century 4x4s with high output in order to do this.

[Steve Firth]

The Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Hampshire features old photographs of the area in the visitor centre. Today the park offers 20 miles of trackways through forest and it's popular with horse riders, cyclists and walkers.

The photographs show the area about 100 years ago with not a tree in sight and with severe erosion of the hillsides caused by overgrazing.

You're wrong BTW about the causes of deforestation being firewood, smelting and shipbuilding. That's a popular fallacy, but a fallacy all the same. The deforestation was caused by grazing, and the cutting down of forest to create pasture.

Use of timber as a resource means that the forest is maintained, and if anything tends to increase in extent. Several places around here provide firewood in large quantities and the land they have allocated to forest is increasing. And coppicing woodland means that regrowth of harvested wood is relatively rapid. You don't need to kill a tree to take firewood from it.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not always. You can still graze comfortably in 'parkland' but if you go back to the turn of the 19th century there was a complete dearth of oaks suitable for shipbuilding etc. Timber use clears the big trees. Grazing aborts the replacement.

There we do agree. Round here the patches of copses are being developed as - wait for it - pheasant cover for the autumn shoots..there is little commercial forestry of any sort.but enough trees that are across paths etc to keep US in free firewood.

The rest is left to rot, and the woodpecker numbers have shot up as a result..

The avenue of poplars that lines our road, was planted in the war IIRC for pit prop use..sadly the pits are gone but the poplars remain..

Many of the 'endangered species' of bird and the odd other insect, are endangered because we no longer have the horse population we used to..round here in racehorse country, we have a completely different ecosystem..you even get horse mushrooms in the paddocks. A complete rarity elsewhere.

Whether this is all a Good Thing or a Bad Thing is hard to say.

[Owain]

And watercolours of Sizewell and Dounreay.

Owain

[Steve Firth]

That was a shortage of a particular type of oak for a specialised application. Oaks can be gorwn in stands to produce tall trees good for beams and planks, just as we do today. So the vast majority of oak used in fighting ships was as available then as it eve had been.

What was in terrible short supply was oak suitable for the construcion of knees.

The oak needs to have a grain that follows the shape of the knee otherwise it has no strength. The oak for knees came from individual trees of great age, which had grown into contorted shapes or had been trained into the appropriate shape. They were in limited supply, and the problems of supply had little to do with deforestation.

Problems of supply of other timber for war vessels was a consequence of deforestation, not a cause.

[Steve Firth]

Just look at the colours in that sunset.. orange, red, sullen red, glowing red, actinic blue, and mutant green.