No more wood burning... Gone with the newer cleaner fuel Coal.

[Dune]

Burning wood is no more or less carbon neutral than burning coal or oil. Any burning of wood releases carbon into the atmosphere at a far greater rate than it was sequestered. If you burn downed wood, you release carbon faster than natural decay would have. If you burn trees that were cut down, not only are you releasing carbon more quickly than the tree absorbed it, but you have also kept future growth of that tree from sequestering more carbon. Not to mention the carbon release from the fuels used in the cutting, processing, and transportation of the wood.

Just pick a mature tree and consider how many days it will take you to burn it. How does that stack up against the 40 years the tree spent absorbing carbon?

Oil and coal are merely old plant remains. New coal and oil deposits are being formed today. It is just a matter of timescale.

Not true! Burning wood releases CO2 and some CO. Decaying wood releases Methane, a greenhouse gas with six times the greenhouse effect of CO2.

 

[stanb999]

To the environmentalists... Get a smaller carbon foot print. Then get me a shout.
I drive a small car 35+, live in a fixed up(insulated r30 in the walls r 50 in the ceiling), new windows, doors etc... 170 years old home, produce 90% of my food on farm, shop very little and none of it includes plastic pumpkins. How's that 3500 mile salad and those strawberries for New Years? Your food is the bulk of your carbon foot print. Well plus your city living. ;-)

To the others. This isn't dirty coal. It burns as clean as natural gas really. It kinda surprised me how clean it is.

 

[Dune]

I used to eat freshwater fish. Too much mercury in it now. Even much of the saltwater species, those at the top of the food chain such as tuna and swordfish contain so much mercury that once a month is max. The mercury comes from burning coal. Do want you want, but don't call it clean, because it is not.
You have no idea how much of our own food each of us produces or buys from localy grown sources.
By the way, 35 mpg is hardly great mileage these days. Many, many vehicles do much better than that.




Burning wood...the local fuel wherever you live.

 

[Stephen in SoKY]

Speaking for my situation only, in a relatively few years wood heat will simply not be an alternative. I somehow doubt I'm the only person here who's getting older or who's health is declining. At some point I'll simply not be physically able to work up wood. That will leave me 3 options: Propane, electric or coal. I haven't looked into the environmental concerns of the three because frankly my home heating contributes so little to environmental problems that it isn't even a concern to me. If I ran a power plant maybe, but a 3200 square feet house doesn't make an enviromental impact that's even measurable in the worldwide carbon footprint. I've never burned wood because it's "Green". I burn wood because it's cheap & I like cheap. With propane or electric I'm at he mercy of others as to cost. With coal I can lock in several years of heating expense now, with no concern of increases during that time. Also, I like burning things as I assume everyone here does, coal will still allow me that option. Although it's less than half the price, and local, I've virtully eliminated Bituminous coal as my research does indicate that bit coal is dirtier & perhaps emits more crap than Anthracite, so I guess in small way I am considering the environment over cost.

 

[branchburner]

Well said, Stan. One's choice of heating fuel, although directly releasing carbon, is hardly the measure of an individual's carbon footprint. As willing participants of modern American living, to avoid being hypocrites on the carbon issue we would have to renounce virtually all of our comforts, conveniences, and even many so-called necessities. We would have to renounce many of the accomplishments of previous generations that were their gifts to us. We can't isolate the current moment from the context of history. What I call "my carbon footprint" is just a fraction of the accumulated debt for my luxurious "everyday" life.

Our lifestyles, modest or not, have become dependent on energy-intensive materials and services at every level. It is up to the American individual to weigh the costs and benefits, and take whatever action he feels is right. Billions of Chinese, Indian and Russian individuals will be doing the same. It is likely many of their actions will reflect a pursuit of a higher standard of living that barely approaches the one we Americans take for granted.

 

[Dune]

Speaking for my situation only, in a relatively few years wood heat will simply not be an alternative. I somehow doubt I'm the only person here who's getting older or who's health is declining. At some point I'll simply not be physically able to work up wood. That will leave me 3 options: Propane, electric or coal. I haven't looked into the environmental concerns of the three because frankly my home heating contributes so little to environmental problems that it isn't even a concern to me. If I ran a power plant maybe, but a 3200 square feet house doesn't make an enviromental impact that's even measurable in the worldwide carbon footprint. I've never burned wood because it's "Green". I burn wood because it's cheap & I like cheap. With propane or electric I'm at he mercy of others as to cost. With coal I can lock in several years of heating expense now, with no concern of increases during that time. Also, I like burning things as I assume everyone here does, coal will still allow me that option. Although it's less than half the price, and local, I've virtully eliminated Bituminous coal as my research does indicate that bit coal is dirtier & perhaps emits more crap than Anthracite, so I guess in small way I am considering the environment over cost.

Stephen, my father burns coal. He is 80. I don't thinck he will even be able to haul his one bucket of coal a day for much longer. You do what you have to do, and you can certainly, within limits do what you want to do. But the OP trying to call coal clean is total B.S. and he needed to be called on it.

 

[Dune]

To the others. This isn't dirty coal. It burns as clean as natural gas really. It kinda surprised me how clean it is.

So when you captured a sample of coal exhaust and ran it through your mass sphectrometer, how di it actualy compare to natural gas, in terms of products of combustion released into the atmosphere?

 

[Lumber-Jack]

Back in the day, I once had a neighbor who use to routinely burn chunks of carpet and god knows what else in his wood burning fireplace. I think he thought of his fireplace as his own personal garbage incinerator. I'm glad people don't stand for that sort of thing anymore.
Burning coal in a modern, efficient, approved burning appliance is a far cry from that sort of old nonsense, all the best to you in your coal burning endeavors Stan.

I wish more people around here would burn coal, then there would be more wood left for me ;-P

 

[Planeweird]

Although I can see the common sense of age and economics in one's personal decision making process, the notion that your "individual carbon footprint" is just a "drop in the bucket" doesn't mean much. It's that attitude, perpetuated by millions of individuals, who's cumulative "drops in the bucket" eventually fill it to overflowing.

And just because a person may not live on a farm or off the grid, doesn't mean their conservation practices don't count. Every SINGLE act counts toward the whole. Period.
So, to say that one is being a hypocrite if they basically don't become Amish or the like, is in my opinion, merely a cop-out.

 

[dougstove]

Hi;
Interesting thread, but alot of misconceptions:
-food supply is generally only a small fraction of a North American's carbon footprint, about 15-20% (that said, I still shop locally for other reasons)

-fossil fuel C was accumulated very slowly over a very long time; in any given year only a tiny fraction of photosynthetic production is stored as fossil fuels; most is re-released through respiration within a few years. Put another way, it took about 1,000,000,000 years to 'save' fossil fuels that are equivalent to only about 100 years of current biosphere uptake (and re-release).
So burning fossil fuels is rapidly returning 'old' C to the atmosphere, from a stable form that accumulated very slowly and held it out of the atmosphere for hundreds of millions of years.

-in contrast, a growing forest accumulates C in wood quite quickly, and as other threads have discussed, 5-10 acres can generate enough fixed C each year to heat a house steadily. If the wood is harvested and burned from the woodlot at the same rate at which the woodlot (as a whole) takes up C, the wood heat is nearly carbon neutral (except for the releases from the fossil fuels used to cut, transport and process the wood). It is not reasonable to make the comparison on the basis of a burning a single tree that took 50 years to grow, unless the woodlot only contains 1 tree.

-decomposition of wood releases primarily CO2 under most circumstances, unless the area is flooded or the wood is under water. But on a carbon basis, methane releases are about 24X as potent a greenhouse gas as CO2. So if even a small fraction of the decomposing wood C is released as methane (4% or greater), it could be better to burn it fully to CO2.

-I agree with other posters opposing the argument that any one household is insignificant. Cumulative individual decisions do have big cumulative effects. If the population of the earth was 500,000,000, individual decisions might be negligible. But at 6,400,000,000 and rising, our collective decisions have big impacts. There are not enough productive acres on earth to support current North American habits on an ongoing basis; the global woodlot is being overharvested and topgraded.

I have no personal financial or professional axe to grind here, but watching the CO2 meters in my lab rise each year, and recalibrating our CO2-related experiments annually, is a disturbing activity.

 

[Dune]

Thanks Doug. I didn't have the time or patience for a detailed argument this morning and I am glad you stepped up.

 

[Planeweird]

Thanks Doug. I didn't have the time or patience for a detailed argument this morning and I am glad you stepped up.

Agreed

 

[velvetfoot]

Ooooooo... carbon dioxide is evil.
This thread has now been envirolized to ash can status.

On another note more germane to the original post, when I lived in Reading, PA in the ='70's I saw an anthrocite boiler in action at my wife's uncle's house. I recall there was a coal bin and an auger that automatically fed the boiler, which looked just like any other boiler I had seen. I was told that the ashes had to be emptied periodically but that was it. I was impressed at the time.

 

[Hogwildz]

Surprised no one brought up the subject of the cinders left over from burnt coal. In many municipalities it cannot just be dumped somewhere on the property.
It is far more caustic then wood ash. But My opinion is, anything is better than oil. Cinders are great for icy roads in the winter.
Top each his own. Do what is right for you. Arguing over one is better than the other is like sitting in a room full of yentas.
Sooner or later, the government will hose us all anyways.

 

[Planeweird]

Ooooooo... carbon dioxide is evil.
This thread has now been envirolized to ash can status.

On another note more germane to the original post, when I lived in Reading, PA in the ='70's I saw an anthrocite boiler in action at my wife's uncle's house. I recall there was a coal bin and an auger that automatically fed the boiler, which looked just like any other boiler I had seen. I was told that the ashes had to be emptied periodically but that was it. I was impressed at the time.

You obviously failed science class huh? Or perhaps you believe god would never let anything bad happen to mankind? Yes, I know I'm being snarky, but really? Come on....how can you NOT understand science?

 

[Planeweird]

Surprised no one brought up the subject of the cinders left over from burnt coal. In many municipalities it cannot just be dumped somewhere on the property.
It is far more caustic then wood ash. But My opinion is, anything is better than oil. Cinders are great for icy roads in the winter.
Top each his own. Do what is right for you. Arguing over one is better than the other is like sitting in a room full of yentas.
Sooner or later, the government will hose us all anyways.

You're right. Not to mention coal produces up to 10 times as much ash.
And here's part of an article from this very site regarding ash:

Differences in Ashes

If the ashes are from wood, they make an excellent addition for gardens because they are high in potassium, calcium, sodium, magnesium, and phosphorus. In areas where there is high rainfall, the soils there are typically high in acid. Wood ash can actually help decrease that acid level. Dry areas, however, tend to be more alkaline in nature. Wood ash in dry areas can exacerbate that problem. Since regions will vary, it’s best to have your soil tested through a local extension agent or garden center to see if wood ash can be helpful to your soil prior to applying.

image
If the ashes are from burning coal, then you must be more aware of proper removal for many reasons. First, you will have much more ash to remove versus wood. Second, coal ash is not beneficial to a garden because its potassium and phosphorus content are very low compared to wood. Third, coal ash also contains a great deal of other elements, such as cobalt, boron, and arsenic among others, which are toxic to plants, animals, and people. You must be careful when burning coal because ash can trap unburned carbon which means that more unburned fuel is tossed away with coal ash versus wood. What else can you do with the ashes once removed from the appliance? In more rural areas, people will place them on their driveway to help overcome a slick surface during winter. With coal ashes, you may do the same, but coal ashes can affect springtime vegetation as it washes away during the late winter. After a period of time when you feel that there are no longer any potentially “live” coals, you should bag and dispose of coal ashes at a transfer station or the local landfill.

 

[rdust]

Not sure what all the fuse is about, isn't it December 21, 2012 when the world is ending, a new age begins or transitioning to a new world age happens? :lol: I'm sure we'll make it till then regardless of our carbon footprint! :lol:

 

[Planeweird]

Not sure what all the fuse is about, isn't it December 21, 2012 when the world is ending, a new age begins or transitioning to a new world age happens? :lol: I'm sure we'll make it till then regardless of our carbon footprint! :lol:

Nah, I'm going up in the mothership before that happens.

 

[rowerwet]

considering the failure of global warming models to cover what is really happening since '99 or so, and the history of "science" and the predictions made by scientists (did anyone else read the links given earlier in this thread? Engineering magazines had the solar cycle pegged as the biggest cause of world temps way back in the early '80s) I will continue to think the biggest threats to the world is radical Islam, radical socialism/fascism, and radical atheism.
When I move to PA (I plan to in the future) I will give coal a good look as a fuel source. Does anyone make an out door coal boiler?