[Stoves] Off-topic news: Biomass power is not climate-neutral

Tue Jan 3 09:04:10 CST 2017

Oh, dear. Just because a tree is releasing CO2 absorbed earlier makes it
carbon neutral?

Then all trees could be harvested, burnt, and that would still be carbon
neutral. I don't think IPCC allows that -- its inventorying methods require
that such "land use change" be reported separately.

****
Another way of putting the question (and I think this is implied by the
current methods) is whether the CO2 released will in future be absorbed by
another tree.

But that raises a different problem -- this re-absorption may take years
and that it may happen somewhere else. Assuming that the Drax carbon
emissions from biomass burning were to be re-absorbed in the US forests
where the pellets came from is quite a stretch.

And if you don't assume that, you leave the field open to any carbon from
biomass combusted anywhere being re-absorbed in a new tree anywhere.

Since CO2 from wood combustion in a power plant is no different from CO2
from my breaths or cremation or CO2 from a power plant, it is plausible to
argue that CO2 from Chinese coal-fired power plant is what gets absorbed in
the net expansion of boreal forests in Canada and Europe.

Aha! But then we have the dilemma of changing the albedo effect. (Reforestation
Doesn’t Fight Climate Change Unless It’s Done Right
<https://thinkprogress.org/planting-trees-climate-change-solution-3e5b6979561f#.jok1faoia>,
Natasha Geiling, ThinkProgress, 31 August 2016).

Perhaps it's better to trim boreal forests, convert into charcoal, and
export to Nigeria, Ethiopia, DRC.

Albedo effect, apart, bioenergy capture has another problem - "“But if you
are going to do BECCS, you are going to have to grow an awful lot of trees
and the impact on land use may have very significant effects on food
security,” (Reflecting sunlight into space has terrifying consequences, say
scientists
<https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/26/geoengineering-could-offer-solution-last-resort-climate-change>,
Damien Carrington, Guardian (UK)  26 November 2014)

In short, the CO2 accounting business is riddled with confusion.

****

Deliberate confusion for political purposes. The methods of GHG accounting
are NOT value-free; they (including the choice to use 100-year GWPs instead
of 20- or 50-year GWPs) are intentionally biased. (I was marginally
involved with this 30-odd years ago.)

The most serious objection to the purported "carbon neutrality" of
"biomass" is that depending on combustion technology, the emissions of
non-CO2 GHGs - methane, which is counted under Kyoto cooking of numbers,
and NMVOCs, CO, which Kyoto does not permit -- are more potent than CO2.

If  you add in black carbon, the non-CO2 damage is significantly higher.

More so if you use 20-year GWP (my preference for the developing
countries).

The combined GHG loads from biomass direct thermal use around the world -
when counting all GHGs and black carbon (I can cook up some estimates) -
are in the range of all CO2 from Indian coal-fired power plants, maybe even
all CO2 from Chinese coal-fired power plants.

So, global warming is due to inefficient biomass use, as much as it is from
India-China coal-fired power plants.

Surprised?

Some sages said 16+ years ago, "If one is going to put carbon in the
atmosphere anyway, CO2 is the least harmful species from climate or health
point of view."

The policy implications of this observation are profound.

To begin with, biomass is not GHG-neutral. Period.

Nikhil

---------
(US +1) 202-568-5831

On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 4:35 PM, Frank Shields <franke at cruzio.com> wrote:

> Nikhil,
>
> I’m thinking the energy used to make the pellets and transport are from
> fossil fuel. The CO2 released during combustion is from a tree that once
> took it out of the air. And during combustion is now releasing it back into
> the air - carbon neutral.
>
>
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
> Frank
> Frank Shields
> Gabilan Laboratory
> Keith Day Company, Inc.
> 1091 Madison Lane
> Salinas, CA  93907
> (831) 246-0417 cell
> (831) 771-0126 office
> fShields at keithdaycompany.com
>
>
>
> franke at cruzio.com
>
>
>
> On Jan 2, 2017, at 12:35 PM, Traveller <miata98 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is about US wood being exported to the Drax station in England.
>
> "The growing transatlantic trade is being financed with billions of
> dollars in European climate subsidies
> <http://reports.climatecentral.org/pulp-fiction/1/> because of a
> regulatory loophole that allows wood energy to count as if it’s as clean as
> solar or wind energy, when in reality it’s often worse for the climate than
> burning coal. Only the pollution released when wood pellets are produced
> and transported is counted on climate ledgers. Actual pollution from the
> smokestack — by far the greatest source of carbon pollution from wood
> energy — is overlooked."
>
> E.U. loophole counts wood energy as “carbon neutral.” It’s not.
> <http://grist.org/article/e-u-loophole-counts-wood-energy-as-carbon-neutral-its-not/> John
> Upton, Grist, 1 January 2017
>
> Why wasn't such loophole applied to cookstoves project, I wonder.
>
> Bean-counters for the poor, unite!
>
> Nikhil
>
> ---------
> (US +1) 202-568-5831 <(202)%20568-5831>
>
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