Happy Feet

So.. if all the fossil fuel consumers in the world burned wood instead there would be no carbon footprint or greenhouse effect problem. The world would be.. carbon neutral...

Just trying to follow your logic.

It's getting boring now. You continue to confuse renewable resources with the act of generating CO2 gas. They are on different sides of the equation. Just because you use a renewable source doesn't mean you get a free pass on creating emissions. Again, the atmosphere doesn't alter the rules of physics related to the greenhouse effect because CO2 comes from wood or fossil fuels. It's all CO2 to it.

It might help to substitute the term carbon footprint with CO2 footprint, which is what the term actually refers to. Then it is easier to see that arguing burning wood is CO2 neutral because it is renewable is false. Of course its not. Just like fossil fuels in may be a little or a lot, depending on how much you burn. Your action does not become neutral until you cause that amount of CO2 to be resequestered. You cant claim neutrality for your action just because your fuel source is renewable.

The tree stuff is just too nuts to bother with.

cyccommute 

This isn't navel gazing. I've seen energy plantations. I've worked on energy plantation crops. I've studied utilization of energy plantation crops for decades...literally. If you identify an energy plantation crop as being one kind of crop when that crop isn't utilized for energy crops, the error is on your part, not mine. There were some early studies utilizing cottonwood and black cottonwood but neither were found to have the characteristics that are desired in energy crops. I've worked with both.

Hybrid poplars are derived from aspen because it grows faster, straighter and with less branching.

First I take offense at you saying that I'm doing some kind of ad hominem. I have not attacked you personally. I don't agree with your arguments and I have pointed out where you have gone wrong in your thinking but I have not attacked you personally. I avoid ad hominems as much as possible.

An "appeal to authority" isn't a fallacy if the person is something of an authority on the subject. I happen to have many, many years of experience in the field of biomass and renewable energy...even before global warming was a thing. Bioenergy use is the definition of carbon neutral. If you produce a crop, utilize the crop for energy and produce another crop, that closes the loop and the whole process becomes carbon neutral as long as the carbon in balances with the carbon out. If the process has a negative balance, then the process is carbon negative and, if carbon markets are ever developed, that is how they will have carbon credits to sell.

And whose doing ad hominems now? Not that it fits in this discussion but the supposed ease of fixing steel is why people buy steel. I have some experience in how "easy" it isn't to fix steel and how easily an aluminum frame can be fixed. Should I just sit back and shut up when people bring up this old chestnut endlessly. Have you had to have frames from either material fixed? Both? Until you have, you can't say either way.

Indeed, let's test the veracity of your argument. If you could burn a whole rainforest while simultaneously replacing it with an equivalent amount of biomass then, yes, it would be less harmful than a lump of coal that is dug from more than the very surface layers. The carbon released by the rainforest would be absorbed by the other biomass and the carbon cycle balance would be restored. This is the process that occurred for hundreds of millions of years before some clever monkeys discovered that there were stones that burned about 5000 to 10,000 years ago. There was probably excess carbon released by erosion of coal seams, coal seam fires and volcanic eruptions but the carbon cycle can absorb those small perturbations relatively easily.

When those clever monkeys found out that there was liquid that burned under the ground and started to bring it up in large quantities, they introduced too much carbon for the cycle to absorb. Burning wood in vast quantities wouldn't as much of a problem because even if there were global fires, the new plants would absorb the excess.

The problem here is that you don't seem to understand the processes involved. Carbon that is sequestered on Earth is sequestered in two forms. There is the carbon in the biomass that are living organism (plants and animals)or recently living organisms. If the carbon doesn't get buried and/or decays rapidly, it gets recycled rapidly into the carbon cycle and isn't "sequestered" so much as reutililzed.

Carbon that gets locked up by burying plant material (mostly) or trapped as calcium carbonate goes into a longer term storage that is sequestered. That's why we call the carbon "fossil fuels". It has been out of the system for long enough that the system can't absorb it any longer. It is excess to the amount of carbon currently in the cycle.

While we can't totally differentiate the carbon in a carbon dioxide molecule that comes from fossil fuel or from wood, that doesn't mean that burning either is just as bad. We wouldn't be in the place we are with climate change if we only burned biomass fuels.

Finally, considering biomass as fuel because it is carbon neutral is not only understanding the science but it is good science. It is what the whole concept of renewable biomass derived fuels is based upon.

You've pretty much described exactly what I've been saying all along but haven't made the logical leap that is necessary to understanding the idea. It's not about just sequestering the carbon. You could remove it from the air by some process and bury it if the goal was to only sequester it. That is one idea but it will be incredible costly to do so.

The whole idea of a high carbon usage company planting biomass as an energy crop is so that someone else (or even the original company) will use the biomass as fuel rather than dig up fossil fuels out of the ground. "Carbon neutral" doesn't mean utilizing zero carbon. No process does that. It means not utilizing fossil carbon, either by not using the material yourself or getting someone else to not use fossil carbon.

Really? Perhaps you should look up the definition of "ad hominem" since you are the one who brought it up.

Happy Feet

Wow...

I am reminded that the need to be right is a powerful and intoxicating emotion and think I need to say I've said my piece and let it lay there.
However, it's just incredible that you have just agreed with my point, made again and again, without realizing it:

As far as carbon footprint goes. It's a term that describes greenhouse gas emissions (CO2) released into the atmosphere. Doesn't relate to the source. To close the loop and be carbon neutral, a wood burning stove user would have to plant as many trees to trap CO2 as they create by burning. Otherwise, it's not neutral...

That's just the way it is. That's why businesses can buy "carbon offsets" to reduce their footprint without reducing their output...

Companies plant biomass simply because it is one way to sequester CO2 and by doing so they can balance their output and create a smaller carbon footprint. If they do enough they become carbon neutral...

If your process releases CO2 gas it creates a footprint. If you run a cleaner process you reduce that footprint. If you cause CO2 gas to be resequestered you offset that footprint. Sequester enough CO2 equal to that which you produce and you are CO2 neutral and, if you use a process that does not emit CO2 you are also carbon neutral. Fit any fuel into that concept and it's the same...

Your action does not become neutral until you cause that amount of CO2 to be resequestered.

I will not tell the tree you called it ugly as that is just mean and I'm not sure it isn't an Ent that might crush me...

cyccommute 

As long as the carbon equation was balanced, yes. Carbon out equals carbon in is a balanced chemical equation and is what carbon neutrality is based upon. If Joe harvests a pound of carbon which Sam uses for his process while Frank plants enough plants to absorb that pound of carbon, then the whole cycle is carbon neutral.

There would be no greenhouse gas problem because there isn't excess carbon to trap heat. The carbon in would equal the carbon out.

On the other hand, if Joe digs up coal with the equivalent pound of carbon and Sam uses it for his process without any kind of offset, there is now excess carbon in the system. We've been doing that for the last 5000 to 10,000 years and really been doing it for the last 150 years.

You may be gettin bored but I will continue to patiently explain it to you as long as you like. I'm not confusing renewables with the act of generating carbon dioxide. You, however, seem to not grasping how the carbon cycle works and what the impacts of the renewable vs fossil carbon are to the atmosphere.

Let's go back up to our friends Joe, Sam and Frank. In the first case, if they are all involved in a balance carbon cycle, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere remains steady. There is no excess and there is no greenhouse problem. There is a "greenhouse effect" but we want that. In fact we depend on it. Without a slight greenhouse effect, the planet would reflect too much heat and the planet would freeze. Since you are a greenhouse manager, you should understand this. Remove all the window from your greenhouse and what happens to the plants?

In the second case, there is excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some plants are going to naturally absorb some of it...a bit of excess plant growth inevitable...but not all of it is going to be absorbed. The excess is going to start trapping heat. What happens when your greenhouse starts heating up and you don't do something to cool it?

I'll agree that the atmosphere doesn't know where the carbon is coming from but the only way to absorb it is to grow more biomass which will naturally occur up to a point. To get rid of it, you'll need to lock it away...bury it...and make sure it doesn't come to the surface again. That's been occurring for millions of years until we came along.

It doesn't matter if you call it carbon dioxide or carbon. We call it "carbon" and a "carbon footprint" as a shorthand for carbon dioxide because typing "carbon dioxide" or using CO2 gets old. It means the same to everyone. We know the processes and it makes no difference what you call it.

The point of renewable energy is to be "carbon neutral" or much closer to "carbon neutral" than fossil fuel is. That's why renewable energy crops are used as an offset to fossil fuel usage. The crops aren't meant to be grown and then buried. They are meant to be grown and then utilized instead of fossil fuels. The idea is that the resequestration of the carbon is that it's done quickly so it is neutral. Renewables do get a pass on carbon emission because of this shorter turnaround.

hueyhoolihan

i doubt whether anybody fully understands how our atmosphere protects us and how that protection can be destroyed. but i will venture a guess that, like any animal, we can suffer, catastrophically, from an over abundance of waste products due to over population. and if unchecked, will.

willibrord

+1

Happy Feet

No argument here. That's why I attempted to point out that what happens in a small closed setting like the natural cycle of burning and sequestering wood carbon without human interference isn't the same animal when 7.5 billion people use it as a primary fuel source, as we do currently to negative effect with "bad" fossil fuels. You couldn't meet the demand or sequester the result without creating drought (irrigation) and famine (replacing food crops). Those are already real problems with just a minute demand for fuel crops. Imagine the issues when every plane, train, car, ship, factory, electrical grid, home etc... all require material. Certainly, on that scale, not neutral.

But back to twig burning stoves.

Anyone else a Cub or Boy Scout? One of the fun activities we did with our cubs was to get them to make twig burning stoves out of coffee cans and then field test them on a camping trip. Besides boiling water in a pot we sprayed the top with Pam and cooked eggs on the lids. That was lot's of fun but I do recall the cans becoming quite sooty.

tmac100

Ents rule.
Bilbo suggests, and I agree.

OTOH, in (maybe) 50 years none of us will be giving diddly about this discussion. BUT that is a long-term issue that we (all) will address.

Onward....

willibrord

Interesting that the largest portion of the renewable energy in Europe is biomass of one sort or another. Not so in the United States where it is a much smaller percentage of renewables.

I saw a bike computer that calculates your carbon offset. I wonder how much you have to ride to make up for your other carbon sins. Could you be truly carbon neutral by riding your (carbon) bike and using a twig stove?

Happy Feet

Yes, but in Europe they are also looking at other solutions as well like solar, wind, geothermal and tidal which, if hooked up to the electrical grid, can power a lot of infrastructure without generating CO2 at all. Then attempts at sequestering can help reduce the overabundance of atmospheric gasses instead of just trying to slow growth or hold things at par.

I know you are joking about the sin part but it's an interesting thing to think about in terms of what an individual can do as regards to their own behavior. Where you can cut back or change and where you want to splurge a little. I've talked a lot about terminology but I don't go around telling other people what they should do. I only think it's important to use the right terms so one can be clearer about making whatever decisions one chooses.

Frankly, I'm a bit of an existentialist in this regard as I don't know if what we do as individuals will really matter in the greater scheme of things but feel what we do is important to us as individuals.

The real matrix spoon bender comes when you realize, after looking for carbon neutral solutions to camp stoves, that you don't need to cook food on the road at all.

KD5NRH

Against the rules now; no homemade stoves.

At this rate, I give it another decade or two before it look like some kind of scene from Wall-E, where all Scout activities must be done indoors with climate control, and they only get to watch films about hiking and camping.

Rowan

Frankly Stuart, your energies would be much, much better spent lobbying your politicians, and in particular sending all this material to Washington, addressed to the POTUS. Your lecturing of one Canadian in particular, and the rest of us whose countries still are part of the Paris Accord, is getting really, really, really tiresome this time.

shipwreck

Since this thread needs to be burned down anyway, what the hell. I have seen several of my deep red state representatives at work, and they were barely functionally literate. The information provided by cyccommute and more is available to our elected officials, but unfortunately does not fit into the nascent(or not so)theocratic/environmental protection rollback dialog festering here.

A tip though, for those of you in countries who are still in the Paris Accord. Addressing any individual in the US as if they may be in some way accountable for the current political shift is unfair. Just as you are probably not personally responsible for your countries remaining part of it, the person you may be talking to is very possibly not even indirectly responsible for the POTUS's decision. Thats like a school child taunting another over something their family did.

Rowan

Sorry, but you are way off base with your assertions. Obviously, to the rest of the world, the POTUS is an elected official. It seems that not enough of the left-of-middle people voted for his opposition. Were you one who was so confident that Clinton would be elected that you didn't bother casting a vote?

At least in countries that elect their officials under the Westminster system, we are able to vote in and out entire governments, including the country's leader, at every election... which may be held every four years (or six for half the Senate) or more often. And there are considerable checks and balances to will harness an ambitious leader from leading his or her country into ruin.

Happy Feet

Im just wondering what the nascent theocratic environmental rollback dialogue festering here is?

Oh.. I see now. You're talking about the US. Thought the here was this forum

And fwiw, I dont think Stuart is dumb, just that he seems to have a need to try and make others appear so to make himself look smart. Arguing about cottonwoods was a good example. Anyone can google "Using cottonwood trees for biofuel" and see many scholarly publications where the scientists use both common parlance and specific binomial nomenclature. If they can publish using the term "cottonwood" over and over without censure I would hope people discussing them on a bike forum can too.

Same with discussing carbon impact. While the subject is complex, the general termonology isn't and one should be able to have a basic discussion using common terminology, otherwise.. how is it expected that the common man will understand the subject and make meaningful choices.

It's not what is being said half the time but how it is being said.

shipwreck

I'll keep my answer to that simple. No. I was one of those trying hard to get others not to throw a vote away on some third party, as this one was not an election to mess with.

And this is a good example of what I was getting at. Make no assumptions like that. Some of us are demoralized enough that it is hard to continue working against the wind of our system without being judged like that.
Congrats on having a great system that protects you from what we have here now. Savor it. I hope you keep it.

willibrord

Stuart is a good guy and can't be blamed for the failings of the Potemkin President. He knows a lot about renewable energy and biomass. I find it interesting that Europe has embraced biomass power much more than here. We have more forests, what do we do with the waste products that could be turned into Energy? No wonder The EU has reduced its carbon footprint so much more than we have.

Bulette

I am fond of the wood-burning camp stoves. They are effective at heating some water, and fuel has been available at more campsites than not; even when there are not enough twigs, the stove securely holds a small trangia-like alcohol burner.

Most importantly to me however, the stove doubles as a campfire. I don't need a $5 bundle of "kiln-dried firewood", I don't have to fill an entire fire ring, just so I can sit 10 ft back from my fire. Instead, I keep my little twig burner going for an hour or so after dinner, roast my marshmallow and keep my hands warm and comfy too.

My twig stove is a real drop in the bucket compared to the wood-burning going on at any car-campground on a Friday night. I've often thought, how great a bonfire we could have in these campgrounds, if only the ten or so families camping out would just throw all their campwood together in one good-old-fashioned boy-scout bonfire!

willibrord

I saw a twig stove online that had a USB port for charging your phone. Talk about renewable energy!

KD5NRH

You don't need to ride a bike or open your fly to urinate, either, but telling others they shouldn't or should do things because you know better than they do what's best is pretty much how most wars in history got started.

Happy Feet

What you quoted and what you said have no relationship to each other. But what I said was within the context of a discussion with another member on June 1. You replied right after that on June 2. Now, 9 days later you dredge up the thread again to attempt to be argumentative?

I call "Troll" and say: tsk tsk tsk.

cyccommute 

Your comments are totally uncalled for. As I've said before, I've spent the last 35 years actually doing something about energy usage. My entire career in has been involved in exploring alternative biomass derived energy as a replacement for fossil fuels. I am the holder of several patents on ways to utilize biomass materials as replacements for fossil fuel derived materials and have been the author on a hundred or more papers on various aspects of bio-energy use. The reason I talk like an expert on bio-energy is that I am an expert.

My work...and many, many others' work as well...is the solution to climate change. The science that we do at my work is used by many people to make the argument that climate change is real and, more importantly, we are offering solutions.

As for the Vulgar Talking Yam, I didn't vote for him. I don't support him nor his party nor do I believe that we should be pulling out of the Paris Accord. My state governor, my city mayor and the representives I have in the US Congress are of a similar mind.

3 milllion more people voted for the "left of center" candidate but because we have to do things the hard way, we don't go by straight voting majorities due to, well, slavery. The Vulgar Talking Yam's election was decided by where people voted rather than how many people voted and he won based on about 7000 votes cast in a few districts over Clinton. The majority of Americans who voted didn't want him.

ecnewell 

This thread is like the stove that started it; add a little fuel, and it just burns and burns.

cyccommute 

Easy there, Manyard. The US isn't a total slouch when it comes to alternative energy. Europe has slightly higher renewable energy usage than the US (25% to 13%) but it also has higher nuclear energy usage (30% vs 20%). Nuclear comes with it's on set of problems that have the potential to be worse and far more long lasting than those of fossil fuels. Europe also uses far less natural gas usage (15% vs 27%).

I agree that it's important to use the right terms and that is what I disagree with you on. I have long exposure to renewable energy research and I am using the "right terms". More importantly, I'm using the correct concepts. I have to use these terms all the time when writing papers or talking to other scientists.

For example, you use the term "sequester" as a stand in for "capture". Carbon sequestering is an idea that the carbon from fossil fuels is removed from the air by some process (usually highly expensive and not easily performed) and then placed in long term storage of some kind, usually burying it.

Carbon capture is what bioenergy is all about. Plants are used to capture the carbon from fossil fuels because they do it naturally and, more importantly, cheaply. The biomass...whether it is the twigs, branches, leaves, seeds, etc...is then used to make energy. We've been doing this since before we clever monkeys climbed down out of the trees. But the idea is to capture the carbon and reuse it, not sequester it.

Another example is your use of "cottonwood" as a broad description of genus Populus and how they are used in energy production and energy research. You said above that "cottonwood" is used in papers. It may be if the researcher is utilizing a species of tree that can be called identified as a "cottonwood" but most of the research being done on using poplar trees as energy crops don't use what most people would call "cottonwood". Most of them are a hybrid poplar that may contain some "cottonwood" genetic material but they also contain genetic material from other "poplar" species as well.

You wouldn't call a mule a horse would you? That's what a "hybrid poplar" is. Yes, there was some early research on certain types of "cottonwoods" but it never went much of anywhere as the trees didn't lend themselves to easy cultivation.

My point isn't to necessarily run anyone down but to inform people about something that I happen to know a lot about. If someone asked you to help them fix the "thingy" on their bike and pointed to a derailer, would you tell them that it is a "thingy" or would you tell them what it is?

Unless you are eating everything uncooked or simply not eating at all, some energy goes into processing food that you eat all the time. Whether you do it using a camp stove, have someone in a restaurant do it, or buy ready made packets of food, someone applied energy to it.

The real spoon bending moment comes when you realize that the little stove you use at your campsite...no matter what the fuel...has a smaller carbon foot than any other method of getting food. Restaurant food has stoves and kitchens that have to be kept hot all the time. Processed food takes the energy usage of the restaurant and multiplies it by several times. Keeping a factory hot is much more energy intense.

cyccommute 

Kinda. It's a cool concept but I've seen one in action and talked to the owners. They said that the power output isn't as much as advertized. You could charge a cell phone with it but it would take a long time. They tried it and it took 4 to 8 hours to get a decent charge.

I would suspect that it would be worse for me here in Colorado. Fires don't burn as hot here because of the decreased pressure.