Lots to think about

Yes, if this will work, as RickW says with other plants after the trees are gone (such as fast-growing poplars or hemp) it may be an energy stop-gap for the next generation or two. But...it is still a greenhouse gas emmitter.

"There is much wood around that will either rot on the forest floor or in a landfill, said Dauncey of the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association."

Wood that rots on the forest floor is what creates soil and healthy conditions for eco-systems to maintain themselves. Granted, global warming has already given us pine-beetle killed forests in the Interior. This creates a huge forest fire risk for our province. Is this method the answer?

an alternate view

Biofuels can only be a small niche component of the energy mix.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-wiles/forests-new-coal-in-house_b_614034.html

With clean and green mass produced nuclear power heading for less than one cent a kwh there is no place for these very expensive and ecologically dubious power schemes.

IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN

Just imagine if this biofuel were to power cars? Say only 1000 cars. (1000 X $100 Mo X 12 Mo = 1.2 M X 40% tax = $480,000 a year that the government loses. Too too much for them to allow it to happen. Maybe if they could tax the "bark" on our trees They could still take their "bite" out of our wallets

HEMP ETHANOL FUEL, THATS THE WAY TO GO.

Another great article by Andrew and the Tyee. Cheers.

Rick W is right on the money.

Did a paper on value of HEMP in social econoic at SFU almost 30 year ago after 10 years of prior reseach with FN.

FIGURES CAN CREATE A MILLION JOBS ACROSS CANADA, LOTS OF FALLOW LAND TO GROW IT, CANADA BECOME NOT OIL DEPENDENT AND HAVE LOTS LEFT OVERTO SELL TO USA AND MEXICO. FEDS AND PROV GOVS NEEDS TO GET THEIR HEADS OUT OF HOLLYWOOD. WHAT A GOD GIVEN PRODUCT WITH A MILLION USES sitting idle.

Got the highest mark in the class for my essay efforts. Got 95%. Had 5% taken off for telling a fellow classmate and oilman that oil could be repalced and so could he. What a discussion that was. Hey Delbert hope you see this article. I still think your name is funny.

Good for you Rick.....

At least the gasification process is in place
Which means that, when the absurd restrictions around the growing of hemp (etc) for biomass (not to mention the approx. 25,000 other uses to which it can be put), THEN WCWC's questioning of the math used to justify using scrap wood can be put to rest.

I see in Kruger Products annual report that they are processing wood alcohol for fuel.

Tried to contact the operations manager to discuss alternate fuel but the security at KP is unbelieveable.

One wonders what else they make there???

SIG

Growing the biomass and "burning" it is neutral, emission-wise. All it is doing to capuring some small portion of the sunlight and converting it to some form of energy we can use. AND - there are many collateral benefits that can be derived concommitantly.

What will we do?

As much as I consider myself progressive, I find it frustrating when people and/or groups decry our dependency on fossil fuels, then aggressively attack almost every alternative. Nexterra's technology is used outside BC. They have several plants at US universities, turning local wood waste into heat and displacing non-renewable fossil fuels.

I'll concede the carbon emmission arguement may be legitimate, but maybe when we use a technology like this for 25% or more of our woodwaste.

For now, I have little trouble with the concept that the process is carbon-neutral as it is using a biomass, renewable fuel. Offsets are a sticky question and subject to abuse depending on the trading system.

If we need to remake our society from an energy standpoint, let's get on with it!

Hey folks, there were a

Hey folks, there were a couple key points that I think need to be included in this discussion. First of all the overall GHG emissions from burning biomass are more carbon intensive than coal fired power. Biomass is not an efficient source of energy. Given the need to decarbonize our economy in the next few decades why would we invest in any carbon intensive technology? The idea that claims of carbon neutrality come from the idea that we will capture the carbon released by planting new trees. This simply is not based in reality. We are clearing the forests on our planet a the rate of a hectare a second. That's 2 American football fields every second. We are not increasing carbon capture we are reducing it.

Also even if we planted enough trees it takes about 100 years to capture the carbon released. The earths trees cannot capture carbon at a rate anywhere close to fast enough. We need to be carbon neutral by 2050 at the latest not 2110. We would need to start a massive tree planting project world wide and protect most of the worlds remaining forests. We simply are not near doing that.

Also as was highlighted by someone else trees are part of the web of life. Decompossing trees become nurse logs and are the source of soil fertility. Forest left alone are truely carbon neutral. Wood from construction and urban clipping are only enough fuel for niche applications.

As much as using other sources of biomass rather than trees makes better sense we still are left with the carbon issue. just because you grow hemp quickly doesn't mean we can afford to release more and more carbon. Biomass is low grade fuel, that's all there is to it. There are a lot of practical uses for hemp fiber but it's not an energy solution given our current reality.

Burning stuff for energy must be a thing of the past if we are to address the climate crisis. We are in overshoot as a civilization we need absolute reductions in carbon emissions starting immediately.

Ben West
Wilderness Committee

Ben West

http://fuelandfiber.com/Hemp4NRG/Hemp4NRGRV3.htm

The growing of hemp and other plants for energy is carbon neutral, as the plant and its components are only carriers to capture the sun's energy through photosynthesis. As such, the carbon released is only the carbon sequestered during the growing cycle.

However, yes, the use of waste wood would in fact add to the overall glabal carbon output as it would be "burned" much faster than the absorption cycle could process it.

But, what of the other 24,999 uses for hemp that do not involve carbon release? After all, it is the hemp hurds that are used for energy production, which comprise about 80% of the plant. The rest is much more valuable for any number of "by-products".
http://www.binhaitimes.com/hemp.html

first harvest sewage

methane, from sewage or from rotting wood, is about 17 x the global warming potential of CO2. It makes sense, if our shit is going to give off methane anyway, to process and burn it. China has excellent projects, by the millions, for example.

Getting the methane from rotting wood, as pointed out, takes much much longer.

We need to work out how to do sewage right now. As in Sweden, and a host of other countries whose projects we never seem to hear or read about.

Sustainable is a word loaded often with so much spin. But sewage is definitely something we are not going to run out of.

It is about time...

The next idea that is 50 years overdue for implementation is the use of traffic roundabouts instead of more and more and more traffic lights. They work extremely well in Europe, so why not in Canada?

The reason is that our traffic engineers are all cowards when it comes to trying anything new (meaning new to them, not new to us or the rest of the world).

As for waste wood, the forestry companies burn millions of tons every year in slash piles. It has to be worth hauling it ten miles to be burned in a furnace to produce useful heat.

Burn Baby Burn

Ben has a handle on it and the idea that this
> burning is the only option is absurd. If pressure treated, painted and
> wood heavy with resins were removed by not commingling, this material
> could make it's way into soil creation through composting. Plus, the
> opportunity exists for wood reuse. By always dumbing it down to the
> lowest, quickest, cheapest and most convenient option, this reminds me of
> the animated movie Wall-E. Sloth like fat lazy humans wallowing in a
> reclined position, floating around outer space, after they've destroyed
> Earth. When I first saw this movie, I thought surely we would not slip
> down that slippery slope? But the more I see & hear, the more it seems
> that this is exactly where we are headed. And everything, curbside
> recycling, waste to energy or you name it, when it comes to waste, the
> desire seems to be to jump on some big trucking, transportation
> infrastructure, running lots of machines and dismissing local solutions.
> The Zero Waste movement is clear. No burning! No landfilling. Now go and
> design something that is logical, not easy! Love Canal had experts and
> scientists shoving reports down our throats with claims of "no problemo".
> Will we not learn? Quick, cheap, easy, convenient, big giant projects.
> Some doctors used to endorse cigarette smoking. It is not hard to get some
> "hired gun expert" to endorse anything, as long as they get their piece.
> Deep water oil drilling??Would we not vote caution at this time?

Good point Margot

Once appon a time I wrote a song: " I don't Mind Shit But I hate TV".
Be that as it may. If there is a way to reduce sewage pollution of ground water and rivers and oceans let's do it! Some of the stuff flushed these days is like U235 (for those who imagine nukes to be "Environment friendly" have you ever heard of a nuclear plant being recycled? Or the spent fuel?
OK - I've lost my train of thought but from my song:
"My sister and a fella talked the other day
One said that "Lovin' was the highest way"
The other said "Sex was alright with him but you can't go on without a good B.M."
People think I'm crazy and I just might be
But I don't mind shit and I hate TV!"
I think the chords are EAD

more detail

Interesting article but I would like more detail about the amount of energy produced when wood is burned, how the wood is prepared for burning and what the products are that result from the burning.

The provincial government has said that they support using biomass for fuel. And they say that it is good to leave the dead wood in the forests as it provides fertilizer for plants and maybe more trees. It seems to depend on who they are talking to or what program (or lack there of) they are trying to defend.

And then there's this.......

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/FortisBC+prompts+fish+concerns+with+planned+Nicola+Lake+hydro+project/3203380/story.html

From the article;

Does this make ecological or economic sense to anyone? How about common sense? Is common sense really in such short supply that we are reduced to schemes such as this?
WTF?

On the other hand......

This looks hopeful. Power from water, believe it or not.

http://www.blacklightpower.com/index.shtml

Maybe someone here with a more scientific background (than me) can check this out and tell us if it is feasible.

North of Hope has a point. Leaving carbon in the forest is good

for forest ecology.

The "coarse woody debris" provides habitat for critters and the carbon is recycled by the fungi but it also hinders the replanting process. As always, there are shades of grey in these issues, but there is a place for burning some of the wood to produce energy, rather than burning it in a slash pile. The economics are one thing, but the other issues are laziness and inertia. Burning slash plies is easiest way to get rid of them and besides, that is the way it has always been done.

To change the way forestry is done, we should give a contract to separate businesses to remove the slash; a small, private enterprise would quickly sort through the economics and practicalities and come up with a mutually profitable solution. The same thing applies to beachcombing for stray logs. At present, the logging companies still own their stamped logs, even if they are floating in the ocean or beached. They have first rights after salvage and they pay 50% of the market value to the salvager. All we need to do is to declare an open season on stray logs and they would be gone in 60 days.