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UK Hits Clean Energy Milestone: 50% of Electricity From Low Carbon Sources (theguardian.com)
Half of the UK's electricity came from wind turbines, solar panels, wood burning and nuclear reactors between July and September, in a milestone first. From a report on The Guardian: Official figures published on Thursday show low carbon power, which has been supported by the government to meet climate change targets, accounted for 50% of electricity generation in the UK in the third quarter, up from 45.3% the year before. The rise was largely driven by new windfarms and solar farms being connected to the grid, and several major coal power stations closing.
Wood burning can be considered clean in this context because the CO2 that is released was captured from the air in the first place.
So no additional CO2 is released when burning wood.
Um, no. According to the article the main driver was Natural Gas and Nuclear. Solar/Wind barely budged. Another mdsolar deceptive article.
The problem is that the coal/oil reserves underground came from tens of thousands of years (if not longer) sequestration process. We burn through it in a fraction of that time. So in the long-term it may return to equilibrium, but in the short term we are putting a shit ton more CO2 in the air than would be there otherwise.
Firewood comes from treesthat take decades to grow (if not longer) . We burn through it in a fraction of that time.
Even then you are assuming that new trees are planted to replace the old ones; in the UK where I am they are not. As it happens I have a large garden by UK standards, about an acre with 25-30 large trees. Three blew down in a storm two years ago; these were ~ 30 ft trees, ~ 15" diameter trunks. I do have a wood burning stove and I have already burned their wood. At the rate trees grow you would need several acres of woodland for every house to achieve a steady state just for heating. Most houses have nothing like that, not even mine, and certainly not in the UK.
The difference being that burning wood is burning carbon that is still actively part of the carbon cycle, whereas burning coal and oil releases CO2 that was removed from the carbon cycle millions of years ago, and in fact is releasing millions of years worth of sequestered CO2 in the space of a few centuries.
Conversely, this is why claims of "greening up" due to higher CO2 PPM in the atmosphere isn't solving the increased emissions problem; simply because the vast majority of plants release the CO2 they've captured relatively quickly after they have absorbed it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sigh. Of all the moronic talking points the pro-fossil fuel crowd bring up, this is somehow the dumbest and most infuriating. Dumbest because human civilization didn't exist 80 million years ago, and in fact only arose during the climate conditions found in the last 10,000 years or so, and infuriating because once you've adopted this idiotic statement, you've basically admitted we're fucking things up very badly, but are just trying to spin it as a positive "You see, the dinosaurs liked it!!!!"
I'm going to be charitable and suggest you're just doing a bit of trolling, and aren't in fact one of the most retarded human beings alive.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If I burn X amount of coal or gasoline, leading to one metric ton of CO2 entering the atmosphere, and then plant enough trees to recapture one metric ton of CO2... that is no less carbon neutral than the above.
Sure, if you did plant enough trees. But in fact globally forest extent is shrinking and nobody is talking about offsetting coal with re-forestation. That's because coal wouldn't be economically competitive if you had to pay for the cost of offsetting the pollution it emits. It's barely hanging on as is.
You can argue for anything if you imagined that we did things that (a) we aren't doing and (b) we aren't doing because they aren't economically practical.
Timescales don't matter.
Economists and financial analysts would beg to differ. So would chemists, physicists, ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Time is literally the most important factor there is in just about every calculation we make. There's a big difference between a 4% ROI in a month and a 4% ROI in a decade. There's a big difference between a 4 degree warming in a century and a 4 degree warming in ten thousand years.
It used to be believed that gas equilibrium with the oceans would prevent any increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. That's why the anthropogenic greenhouse effect, which was proposed in the 1890s, wasn't believed by most scientists prior to the International Geophysical Year in 1958. In that year the oceanographer Roger Revelle demonstrated that the rate at which the oceans could absorb CO2 was physically limited. In other words the timescale of natural carbon sequestration was too long to prevent an increase in atmospheric CO2.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Please, for the love of god, would you ppl QUIT DOING SOLAR FARMS. Building this over land is about as stupid as it gets. Do it over parking lots or roofs. Those sites convert light into heat. Lands convert light into sugars. If you are worried about AGW, then you need to reduce the FUCKING HEAT. If you are not worried about it, then quit subsidizing solar.
Fucking idiots.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.