Technically, the carbon came from the air and returns to the air, but taking the pellets from where the tree died and turning them into pellets and transporting them to the furnace costs energy too.
Also all the tree carbon that doesn’t make it into the pellets goes into the air. So the cost is greater than the gain.
If we grew trees and then buried them it could be a form of carbon capture. But we need to get the energy to do that from somewhere.
The key thing about this is that when you build a power plant which burns wood pellets, it takes a whole lot of mature forest, and converts it into CO2; you go from a whole bunch of mature trees to a mix of trees of varying ages. So something like half the carbon in the forest is in the atmosphere for as long as the power plant is in operation.
Better to grow trees to build housing, that’s carbon capture as well and a well built house can keep the same wall studs for a very very long time… Hundreds of years even, more than enough time to grow back the trees required to build it a couple of times.
Yes, wood houses is carbon capture but a trivial amount.
Growing trees to burn them is basically the original solar energy. As with all forms of energy, there are various details about how it is conducted that determines how effective it is or not.
Headlines like “burning trees emits a lot carbon” are as much misinformation as headlines like “burning trees is carbon neutral”. Because the reality is that neither of those statements are correct or even genuine to the issue at hand, even if humans are just looking for a simple answer.
Insanity
Fire that consumes hydrocarbon fuels and oxygen liberates CO2. So yeah. Gasoline, diesel, natural gas, wood chips, all hydrocarbon fuels. NO SUCH THING as ‘green’ wood burning.
If you continue reading they explain what’s meant. They emit CO2 when burned that gets absorbed later. According to the study they cited it takes about 44+ years to re absorb the emitted CO2. The critics actually is, that it I creases CO2 emittion in the short term, which is kinda bad if were already overshooting the 1.5°C agreement.
you’re missing the point a little though… if you plant a tree, let it grow, burn it, it has consumed the co2 that you release from burning it to grown the tree
so if you’re burning a tree, planting a new one, and letting it grow to the maturity of the original tree, that’s… similar-ish
the devil is in the detail because transport and a bunch of other concerns come into play, but it’s not as simple as just burning things because there’s a carbon capture step too
As I said downthread:
The key thing about this is that when you build a power plant which burns wood pellets, it takes a whole lot of mature forest, and converts it into CO2; you go from a whole bunch of mature trees to a mix of trees of varying ages. So something like half the carbon in the forest is in the atmosphere for as long as the power plant is in operation.
Is this not the onion?
No more burning shit, people! We’re moving on from that!