Biomass: How clean is energy from waste and plants really?
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- čas přidán 24. 06. 2024
- Clean energy from re-growing resources and waste. Biomass sounds like a perfect alternative power source. Globally, at least 5% of energy come from biomass. But what does it mean if we use organic matter for fuel or electricity?
Credits:
Reporter: Nicole Ris
Editor: David Jacobi
Supervising Editor: Kiyo Dörer & Joanna Gottschalk
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What we can do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
#PlanetA #Biomass #Sustainability
Read More:
Land competition between fuel and food: www.sciencedaily.com/releases...
Biomass industry threatens European forests: www.fern.org/fileadmin/upload...
Quantifying biomass-related forest growth: iopscience.iop.org/article/10...
Total methane emission rates and losses from 23 biogas plants: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31447...
A global renewable energy status report (2020): www.ren21.net/wp-content/uplo...
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 Anaerobic Digestion
03:10 Biofuels
05:00 Traditional Use of Biomass
05:30 Wood Pellets
09:55 Conclusion
8 Billion people pooping daily, you would think that’s scalable enough
Absolutely. Set aside the number of global population, simply think about the benefits of using waste as a source of energy. Killing two birds with one stone
Human poop is rich in nutrients not šo much in carbon. That's why sludge from sewage treatment plants is used as fertiliser in agriculture. Just have to take care of chemicals we pour in sewer and pharmaceuticals that it contains.
@You Tube Humans are successful yet endangered? That does not compute.
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Wood should only be burnt for energy in households in winter.
Burning pelletized wood to make electricity to transport to houses to turn back into heat is an efficiency nightmare.
10kg of dry wood heats a family home for 1 winters day using a modern stove in a modern house, can't even get near double that number in the way it is done on a industrial scale.
Not only are "wood pellets" inefficient, the wood is harvested in areas where low income people live, destroying the tree canopy for those who can afford wood burners.
Destroying forests has been happening in the USA south to feed UK homes, and the processing plants run 24/7 making extremely loud noise as well as creating water pollution.
Agree. Locally sourced wood in an efficient stove is by far the most sustainable heating system.
Modern heat heat pumps can have efficiency around 500% because they are really just transporting energy from the outside to the inside. So even if the power plant has an efficiency of 50% the net result of electric heating is still better than burning locally in a stove.
Just stick with nuclear energy.
@@anotherelvis depends on context. In really cold winters there's very little heat to move in from outside and you're stuck with electrical heating element doing almost all the work.
If you have to grow something new then it doesn't seem like a good idea. Getting biogas from waste like trash destined for landfills, wastewater treatment, and manures seem like a no-brainer.
We could grow more seaweed. I mean it’s actually important
@@KRYMauL You are right. Seaweed and algae might be the exception as both can be used to absorb the excess nutrient runoff from the agricultural industry as well as act as carbon sinks.
@@BorisRenshiz It can also make a good salad.
Already done. Germany uses all the waste there is. They're burning forests and crops now because of their irrational aversion to nuclear energy.
Getting biogas from waste like trash will just incentivise the companies to produce more trash that is compatible with waste in the energy sector instead of recycling.
Human poop can be fermented into biofuel too. There'a a great video providing proof of concept at a wastewater plant in Illinois, USA. The video is titled *"How one utility powers its entire plant from wastewater."*
Poop from farm animals is also easy to collect.
Ya ur right!
It can also be enhanced by using the HTC process which is being commercialised by SOMAX and this process is was well explained in a video made by undecided with Matt Ferrell.
Solar and wind have huge disadvantage that they take up a lot of space which in itself a huge source of carbon emissions. If we use HTC and biofuel, then we can reuse old coal and gas plants which were shut down for renewables. Even if rooftop solar and wind can be used, they don't work well in apartments or high rises as the energy consumption is really high. So most new developments are mostly low density automobile centric sprawl which is terrible for pollution, city finances, society and health. Instead of that we mostly need space efficient renewables in mixed use, walkable, high density and public transit oriented development to solve climate change.
I don't mean that solar and wind are not good, but we need more non intermittent sources soon.
Also the residues from wood construction and furniture can also be considered for HTC process as it doesn't make much pollutions as only small percentage of the wood production is used for energy.
The idea of using human poop is the most sensible. Human excrement is in extremely high supply, especially in urban areas.
you can make biodiesel from sewege.. it has been done here.
I DO think we can use garden clippings like grass, twigs etc , turn those into pellets for easier transport and use those for bio energy/winter heating.
I saw a cool video about a guy who heated his home via the hear generated in a compost heap.
@@sarcasmo57 compost for heating is complicated - it's a living biological system requiring tuning and monitoring to get predictable output.
Household collection and processing uses a lot of energy.
@@michaeloreilly657 yes, which is why i would set it up per street or neighbourhood. Either collect only or use too.
It would be cool but it has to be economically viable for a solution to emerge and industrialize. Collecting all these residues to have a sufficient quantity is a challenge (and not necessarily super green if you take into account the transport).
You should make a video about district heating. It's an old "boring" technology, but it is great because you don't wast energy converting to electricity and back again to heat. Energy can come from: waste incineration, geothermal, biomass, data centers or centralized heat pumps.
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Have to add two corrections:
1) 8:35 "older trees store more carbon"
Yes, obviously. Trees get bigger, have more wood mass, store more carbon. But young trees absorb carbon at higher rates because they grow faster. Fully grown forests reach an equilibrium and don't absorb much extra co2 as older trees succumb to pests, diseases and decay releasing co2. Harvesting wood to make long life products (buildings, furniture etc.) stores the carbon and rest (branches, sawdust) can be used for fuel
2)10:20 "burning wood releases co2, but woodchips could be used to produce biomass"
That makes 0 sense. Both fuels - wood and methane - release GHGs when burnt.
Spot on
very valid points. I guess the difference is the efficiency with which you convert the combustion energy per tCO2 emitted. So the idea is to get as much energy from the same amount of CO2 released as possible. I am not an expert, but are methane buring devices more efficient than wood burning ones?
But those GHGs would've been in the atmosphere anyways if u didn't utilise them
@@Paul-hu7xx just the same as branches that would rot away in the forest if you wouldn't chip them up
Older trees actually tend to gain biomass faster as well with a few exceptions most trees don't have an actual adult size where they stop growing bigger. So no, they really do store more carbon on average. You do want to harvest them before they die, but that takes a relatively well planned form of forest management that isn't necessarily common practice.
Instead of wood pellets, we can use rice husk pellets. In Tanzania rice husks are unused wastes
3:38 actually cars/engines can run on even higher concentration of ethanol like E85 or even pure ethanol when they are correctly setup or had some minor modifications to the fuel system to account for the lower energy density.
Cutting forests down, really? Are you kidding me? We have so much organic waste in the system we could be using and we’re cutting down forests?
Depends on which generation of biofuels it is. The second generation is based on residues, such as food waste, and is much less in the energy mix than 1st generation produced from energy crops that are grown specifically for biofuels.
Yes, but the reality is often different. For example, for pellets, the biomass sector communicates abundantly on the fact that they are only sawmill residues, whereas several investigations have shown that most of them come from deforestation. And similarly, for biogas, more and more of it is produced from dedicated crops.
There is also waste wood from the furniture industry.
Except that isn't how BIOMASS actually works in practice.
In practice what really happens is they completely wipe out whole Forest and burn the trees for energy.
Which Deforestation is the most terrible thing for the ecosystem. It destroys animal habitats and lowers the absorption of CO2 and oxygen production on the Planet.
I mean I am so baffled that they're able to convince these climate change people that wiping out whole forest and burning them for wood is good for the planet.
It's insanity!
In Finland, the majority of bioenergy comes from the recovery boilers in pulp mills. The material being burned is lignin, a polymer that makes up a sizeable portion of wood bulk but cannot be used for pulp like cellulose. It is separated from the cellulose chemically and burned with the recovery chemicals put back to the process. Considering that we want to move away from plastic and many of the replacement candidates are cellulosic or otherwise made from wood this seems like a very sensible way of making bioenergy, and even in very large quantities.
I think biomass are more of a waste disposal method than a source of energy
yeh if you just let the organic waste rot it will turn to methane , the big probrem is trasporting the trash to a prossesing if the truck is drive is too long , and also if the trash is all mixed
Some European countries burn lots of wood pellets. Despite all the problems it is a simple alternative to energy storage, because we can burn wood when the wind is absent. Furthermore it can be combined with district heating.
I am in Boston-we have a heat pump for our home but use a pellet stove for freezing days since the pump struggles. I hoped that the pellets were made from industry extra sawdust. Now I will need to research the brands’ sources.
Do people use biomass energy in your country?
Please talk about Ecosia they are a search engine that plants trees
probably
No idea but probably not.
Ys Here In India🇮🇳...
A lot of my neighbourer Use it.
But for Gas purpose... although they keep LPG as backup as in winter the Gas produced is considerably low then in summer.
Yes, there are many biomass energy facilities nearby where I live in the northwest. One important distinction not made in the video; right now the western United States has an abundance of overgrown forests that NEED to be selectively cut in order to reduce their fire hazard in the face of climate change. That wood can then be burnt for energy at a high temperature in the absence of oxygen and voila: Biochar.
Hemp burns cleaner than regular wood pellets, Hemp used to be common. Hemp can be converted to pellets, biogas, biofuels and more. Hemp energy is a viable energy crop, 10 tons of biomass per acre, different parts of the plant have different uses can make energy food clothes building materials. Can't do that with waste and hemp is superior. Hemp should be farmed like other food crops nobody gets high off hemp, create a sustainable cycle of plants healing the environment in energy production, hemp can be grown in non arable land and convert to arable land, hemp was used to help clean soil at Chernobyl!
@@b_uppy OK, so no till hemp it is.
And let's not forget the hemp flowers.
Hemp is a gift from the gods, practical in every way
As soon as you truck wood pellets any serious distance, you've generated more GHG than you save. Organic waste to energy only makes sense if it's done locally. As soon as you ship it overseas, you've shot yourself in the foot.
youre shoting your foot when your burning something to heat your home or even to generate energy
I wouldn't be so sure - marine shipping is incredibly efficient.
@@chris-2496 You're missing the degree of waste here. As soon as you truck organic waste 5 km or so, you've used more energy than you will get back from it. Organic waste needs to be processed really close to its source.
@@brightmal Trucking takes about 1.1 to 1.5 MJ/tonne-km WTW according to logistics data I get for company environmental calculations.
Wood pellets are about 16500 MJ/tonne.
So you could truck the pellets the distance of almost earth's diameter before exhausting their energy potential. Of course some energy is also spent producing them and ovens are not 100 efficient, wtw does not include energy embedded in the truck to make it etc. but still its nowhere near 5 km you mention. Food waste can range from 2000 to 7000 MJ/t.
@@chris-2496 And yet I've heard references to other studies that suggest that as soon as you truck waste more than 5 km before turning it into energy, you've taken out any margin in the process. Either way, finding an intelligent way to turn biomass into energy and other valuable products is best done as close as possible to the source.
I actually just read the Biomass section in the Drawdown book! They had an interesting distinction for Biomass: we should focus on feedstock which needs to be planted once and then harvested for several years before they require another planting.
This is why fuel from stuff like corn and trees (which has to be planted once for every harvest) has actually been found to be worse for the environment in recent studies!
I felt like this gave me a really solid understanding for when I vote in the future.
@@b_uppy actually, coppicing is one of the exact practices that the book was supporting because it can still have a high yield without having to revert to planting a new tree every harvest.
Which goes back to my original point. It’s important to look at biomass energy proposals and see what feedstock they’re planning to use. If it’s something that gets planted once and harvested many times then that’s on the better side. If it’s something that gets planted once and harvested once, then that’s typically a net negative for the environment.
@@b_uppy the book is titled “Drawdown” as I mention in my original comment. The data comes from a large group of scientists but the editor for the book was Paul Hawken.
In it, they analyze the top 100 possible solutions for climate change and provide a prediction of how they will see that solution utilized between now and 2050. Along with how many Gigatons of CO2 we can expect that solution to avoid and how much money implementing that solution will cost or save us.
They expect Biomass Energy to save us 7.5GtCo2 by 2050 while saving us $100 Billion. But they do also mention that they expect it to start being phased out after 2050 as the issues with other tech which it is helping bridge start being solved.
@@b_uppy Just here to misunderstand and strawman everything huh?
Trees have low drymatter yield per hectare per year, I think they should consider using perennial plants that have high yield. I do pilot project reseaech on one of biomass plants that could produce up to 60 Metric tonnes per hectare per year with almost no till.
you mean stuff like bamboo,chinese tall grass etc? yeah, same problem with it taking space for growing food..
By the definition of biomass energy, doesn't this include FOSSIL FUELS? Oil, coal and gas were once living matter that captured CO2 from the atmosphere. The only difference is that it happened much longer ago, and so this biomass has had more time (and physical pressure under which it was trapped) to change into the various forms that are demonised (by some people, at least) today. Or am I missing something?
Hey, you copy and pasted this question across videos, lol.
But the key difference is biomass doesn't release dormant carbon into the carbon cycle.
Fossil fuels are trapped carbon that don't effect the ecosystem until we untrap it. biomass allows us to use carbon that's already active in the system.
Cool, but could the richer countries not compromise poorer countries food production capacity? My region in Poland that has the most fertile soils and is completely flat making it super easy to farm became over the past 2 decades a monoculture for biofuels instead of a producer of great quality wheat and root vegetables.
That is really unfortunate. Using high-quality agricultural land for energy crops is definitely not the way. The biomass should be made of remainings and exploitations of areas of low current economic interest to produce long-term high value and sustain environmental objectives for both the producers and consumers.
Kinda I suppose. It honestly depends how you do it. For example here in the us ethanol is pretty big, however once the ethanol is extracted the remaining processed grain is used as animal feed. In the case of this type of biomass, the waste can be used as fertilizer. I wouldn’t say it’s a much a flaw in the concept as much as in the management.
In some places cities are near deserts, may be the sewer water of those cities could be used to plant something in the deserts to produce biofuels
Cars running biodiesel suffer from 15-20% higher fuel consumption. Well documented issue in Sweden
Seems not the end of the world. I always feared for sulfur in that oil. Guess not.
It’s takes well thought out planning, then commitment. Not these wild swings, trying to hit a home run all the time.
Here in Brazil, sugarcane not only makes sugar but also produces clean energy such as ethanol fuel for cars and with biomass more raw material is extracted to make more fuel. Biomass is also used in energy generators for all.
1. Wood pallets can be easily replaced with the help of pellets made from agricultural waste or hydrochar and biochars.
2. Agri food or plants can be replaced by algae, seaweed, agricultural waste, hemp grown on cintaminated land, etc
Additionally, these sources can be used to create biogas and ethanol which can replace Natural gas and petrol or diesel respectively.
Also, if we want to make the process of making the process of obtaining ethanol from algae even better, we can use algae that grow on industrial waste and seaweeds that grow on salt water. This means they are cleaning the water which can be then used for drinking or agriculture or reused in the industrial process.
Alternatively, we can grow the hemp or mushrooms on land, which is contaminated, and hence, no other trees or crops or grasses can be grown on these lands. These lands include land that are infected due to even the worst types of pollution, like oil leaks and minning activities.
I was working on this back in 1995. The plant that I was working on doing this and more. That system, which I still have the the tech documentation, did what you talked about but far more.
Oh, BTW, the system is 100% closed. No emissions, self reliant on the inputs to generate the electricity and methane to generate the heat.
Catch up!
Hi, I will be looking on doing a closed loop system for my future farm installation. Does your solution resemble the one in the documentary The need to grow? I would be interested to know more.
Why have sewer biosolids been left off the list of biomass energy sources? Hydrothermal Carbonization facilities connected to municipal sewer treatment plants would be a great renewable power resource that would actually be taking care of a serious hazardous waste issue at the same time.
Use Algae, azolla, water hyacinth, water lettuce all fast growing water plants, all grow biomass rapidly, which beyond fuel, could also be harvested for other industrial products like starch for use in packaging and adhesives, so corn would not need to be grown for starch or fuel.
Tree cutting would be more sustainable if coppicing deciduous trees was used for bio mass production. That way the trees can be cut, but the roots are left in place as the tree regrows. Every spring someone needs to come by for the first few years to cut most of the suckers off the stump, but the one sucker left grows tall quickly, because it has an establised root system. It stores more carbon, because the soil is improved by leaving ithe roots in place. The trees grow big root systems, then the coppiced(cut) tree's roots die back to what the stump needs, it leaves all the carbon from the root die back buried in the soil, while leaving an established tree to grow again.
Yes! and it is even more important when you consider that forest fires are meant to happen every 10-20-50 years. We need a clever/organized management of forests, which takes into account cutting some trees to allow the better growth of the forest overall! why not use these cuts as biomass energy.
The ironic thing about the fictional "cost" of more intelligent energy sources for powering human habitats is that all matter contains energy, the only stigma is the public knowledge of how to appropriately utilize matter and its forms.
That as well as changes that form of economic freedom that would cause to our aged societies. You can't control people who have the knowledge to produce all they need for themselves, for old-world government bodies that require human servitude for production, population control is essential.
[QE]
The easy possibility of complete control and taxation is probably why the EU is so fond of hydrogen, I think.
Yet it also has a great potential for carbon capture and sequestration...though we need to store away more than we emit in these biomass fuel solutions...
we need to be looking at the waste left behind by current forestry and farming operations. Why not the corn stalks and corn husks? Why not the branches from pine trees?
How about fastox? Please do a program on Sierra Energy in California.
Amazing video!
Informative
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Hemp straw pellets can not only be burned as a biomass fuel without polluting the environment, but can also be made into feed pellets with the right amount of additives, which contain some of the nutrients that livestock need and do not produce waste.
I don't know hemp personally but I wonder about the potential of Japanese knotweed plants. They can grow, as we see, on land which is not used for food (they do nitrogen fixation) . It all depends if there is much land not used now. Harvesting, drying, storing is easy, even manually. It can be compressed into pellets, and it doesn't need to be completely dry for that, on the contrary. Most people don't like it but I feel love for the plant. It's such a survivor.
3:10 Why do we focus our interests in inefficient equipment and ways to run it?
Literally the combustion engine, that is used in cars, trucks, wastes more than 60% of fuels initial energy (thats just the engine, not counting the friction and other losses).
Car is not the future if we want a sustainable environmental life.
Exactly! They didn't even mention conversion to hydrogen or ammonia...
This is the best method to defeat oil and gas prices!!!
Why would you use agricultural land for sole biomass energy creation ????
Use cocopeat-by product of coconut as biomass
We could also just reduce meat production since a whopping 77% of agricultural lands are used either for crops for animals or as pastures. That would free up a lot of land for energy producing crops.
We can dream, it won't happen. Although it would be nice.
Use Japanese knotweed since it can grow well anywhere. It should locally be dried on site and then also locally through microwaved torrefaction and compression be turned into a much heavier coal like end product.
Biomass energy should only be generated with waste products (food waste, animal waste, etc).
Taking forrest floor sillage and yard waste to make wood alcohol and using the left over silage to make pellets for wood stove would make zero percent co2 admissions.
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The 1B€ project in the UK is indeed burning biomass but combined with a carbon capture facility. The idea is to become carbon negative, so even if burning biomass is not 0 carbon, such a project is still better than burning coal…
*if all the cut down trees are replanted
Collecting food waste in the US and other organic garbage for biomass production should be plentiful and help clean up the environment . But researchers are all scattered with many different experienents and no core focus to fully support one energy source.
Nice doc.
Forgot to mention animal poop for gas
Isn't there a problem using the left over biomass as fertilizer? Due to PFAS contamination?
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"Most spaces is used for food crops" - why not vertical farms then? You could even dig below ground and grow mushrooms while having crops and algea above. Protein, minerals, vitamins all at once.
No hemp bio-fuel mentioned at all? Wonder why?
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Can you please make a video on human waste uses
Undecided with Matt Ferrell did a video -- Turning Human Waste into Renewable Energy
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Bamboo is the best thing for the biofuels...it grows quickly
Yes, love it, we pick out the best bamboo stalks for furniture and the rest of the batch is biomass.
Food v/s fuel battle.
Ideally this waste should be composted to make soil more fertile, so we can cut down on man produced fertilisers. They cause lot of CO2.
it's not a zero sum game. if you grow a hectare or forest and burn it for fuel, your are probably going to store more co2 then you emit if you continue to replant it
It's a time game. The energy needs must be covered not by the total amount of co2 absorbed until the tree reaches maturity, but by the regrown forest's annual co2 absorption. Let's say you cut 1 hectare of forests per year, you will have to maintain a considerably higher surface.
People apply the same for investments, but apparently not for environmental purposes. If you invest 1000 euros and get 8% per year, you can get a fraction of that and spend it while maintaining portfolio growth. While there is social value in owning a considerable amount of money, unfortunately, the social value of owning forests that are well maintained is not there yet.
Small forest owners don't have the resources to properly maintain and take care of the forests and receive significant economic benefits. The corporations work on maximizing their profits without regard to environmental impact.
It's stupid to grow for burning. Grow trees - use most for long life cycle products (buildings materials, firniture) to continue storing carbon and burn the rest
I think that it’s unlikely one would ever recover the costs of using trees for biofuel. It’s not just the CO2 emissions from the trees being burned that need to be made up for. There are the emissions from harvesting the timber, transportation to the mill that makes the pellets, transportation to the energy plant that burns them, and accounting for the emissions of the vehicles, machinery, and buildings involved in the process as a share of their lifetime work (small but not zero). The CO2 not being captured by the trees after they have been cut down, or the difference between what the old trees and the new tress capture, should also be entered into the calculation. For even a very fast growing species of tree it will be at least sixty years before the new trees might start to match the carbon capture of the old trees per year.
The companies are told to plant between two to four trees for every tree taken because they know not every tree planted will survive. Often these companies are told to plant replacements, not look after them so there is a terrible survival rate. Now imagine what it will be like in 10, 20, or 30 years with climate change making it even more difficult for these trees to survive. It will be with luck that the same number of trees will make it to maturity.
@@capitalinventor4823 There is no one single solution that will result in a net zero transition. The alternative to stopping cutting and replanting trees for heating purposes is to continue using coal. On top of that, we cannot just stop cutting trees as they are one of the renewable resources used for more than one purpose.
There are poorer economies where an option could be planting and maintaining efficient forests, but in a way to maintain biodiversity and sustain economic development on a scale that is sustainable.
Having high-capacity electricity infrastructure everywhere to support electric heating and cooking is not realistic now and in the future. It is a solution which only the powerful economies can invest and spend money.
Building a zero-emission future is a complex task and it all depends on what is the purpose of this. When we start the exploitation of an area think about if we would love to live in that area and if that area will help us develop
The way I see is that we need to focus our attention on planning economic development projects with regard to the esthetics of it. If you create well-paid jobs that provide enough income to develop the local economy organically.
Not everyone wants to be a millionaire. Most people want to be able to sustain themselves and their families and are willing to work for it as long as they can afford it.
Jobs in energy production, industry, agriculture and global services (powered by it) can be viable even with maintaining high standards of living. We can have high salaries in the cities, and we can provide decent ones in underdeveloped communities too.
Biomass from forest exploitation, done right, can be an income provider for otherwise (no)low-income areas. Biomass from agriculture remains and from waste management as well.
We just have to provide the infrastructure and educate the consumers (including corporations) that paying more for sustainability is worth it in the long run.
A lot of jobs and value can be created from building and maintaining the necessary infrastructure and I am not speaking only of roads, rail or energy distribution, but the sustainability infrastructure.
@@capitalinventor4823 that's true but there is such as thing as net negative carbon tree harvesting.
and since it takes decades for a first to become the most effective carbon sink, harvesting trees in a net negative way can actually accelerate the carbon storage of the forest if it's starting from un forested lands for eg like the ones in Britain where the forests were cut down
and cutting the trees and transporting them doesn't emit anything with electric cars. but even if it's not it will still be net negative since a truck would have to use 1000L of fuel to transport a tree weighing 1T, and since the trees only worth a few hundred$ and 1000L of fuel costs over $1000 that's never going to happen
your argument is like the same as people who say you can't have a 100pc renewable grid because there are times it's not active
then just spread it out over areas. qld and sa are 2000km apart in Australia for eg so if there's wind in qld and not sa you can just move that energy around. and in the 5pc of the time there's no wind you can just use batteries or gas and still have 90pc less emissions than coal, which is enough. save with trees. There will always be more carbon sinks than trees ready for harvesting. a ratio of 10to1
Locally sourced wood in an efficient stove is by far the most sustainable heating system.
The loopholes in law allows greenwashing to happen and these loopholes can and should be removed quickly.
Okay I am confused. Don't Neely planted trees absorb more CO2 than older ones? Yes the older ones have more CO2 sequestered but new ones absorb much more? Wasn't that established before? Someone please help
No. Because one used big tree already produces more CO2 than small growing tree absorbs. It will level ~ 30 years age.
Cutting down old but good trees does not make a sense. Clearcutting forrest does not make a sense. Planting millions of same trees does not make a sense, it will render country sterile without any animals.
Selectively cutting down trees make a sense, if they are ill or broken. Diversification of forrest make a sense. You not only need to plant a tree, you need to look at them for atleast 10 years.
The issue lies in respiration. Like animals, trees are living things that breath and when they breath they release CO2 back into the atmosphere. Wood is where trees actually lock up that carbon, but trees actually take a while creating the rings of wood around their stems. So to put it another way, picture the wood on a tree(or even some other plants) and that is exactly the amount of CO2 it has absorbed. If it's all green and flimsy then it's not really absorbing anything as all the plant did was convert the CO2 into sugar.
If the older tree that was cut, was turned into a piece of furniture, then planting a new tree would be a good balance. But when you burn that wood, it's releasing the same amount of CO2 it has sequestered for decades.
So what you actually have to equate is the amount released from burning of that old wood, to that of the amount sequestered by the new sapling that replace it.
Meaning more CO2 is being released extremely quickly than what tha sapling can sequester in decades
Yeah, I'm also confused by this as previous studies said young forests capture more. And that would make sense since they are generating wood mass quicker, except for first years probably.
Old forests store a lot of CO2 in the soil. Much more then the young trees capture in its wood. That's why when you cut old trees, even if you don't burn them, you release carbon from the soil that is not sustained by the live root trees.
Save Our Planet
Energy from biomass is a subsidy scam. I wonder if the person/committee that classified it as renewable got some kind of a kickback from energy companies.
We burn about 15 m³ of birch firewood per year. Mostly for heating the house but also for domestic hot water in the summer. Here in Slovenia forest cover 60% of land and continue to grow as remote and hard to access field stop being used for farming. The firewood we use is mostly economical waste as only the good logs get transported to sawmills and turned to planks. It is cheaper to simply sell twisted logs and branches to locals then to transport it somewhere and sell it for the same price. As a heating source it's much cheaper than any fossil fuel and about as much as a heat pump energy. It comes down to responsible forestry. After all if you simply let a tree die and rot in the forest the same energy is used up by bacteria and the CO² and CH⁴ just get released into the atmosphere. The bigger problem is that people use wet logs in old wood boilers that emmit a lot of dust particles. There are small villages around my area that have worst air pollution in the winter than any major city in Europe. It happens due to inversion and all the smoke from the boilers stay in the valley instead of getting higher in the atmosphere. Wood smoke is also very sticky and will make your clothes smell really bad in the winter. My conclusion, it's a good source because it is local and cheap, but should only be burned in modern wood gassification boilers that can get up to 90% efficiency and emit like 99% less dust particles.
I agree 100%
What about hemp?
What about uranium, plutonium, thorium and deuterium? Split (and fuse!) atoms, not wood. Please don't forget the nuclear option.
We have a video in production about nuclear fusion so stayed tuned to this channel 🙂
We just need more government incentives for bio-gas to utilize the existing natural gas grid.
So what you're saying is it's not viable
Biomethan can be produced for 6-8 Cent/kWh. Compared with the actual natural gas prices in Europe it very comeptitice, without any subsidies.
@@meerkathero6032 Yes of course for now.
Bio-gas is great, but most countries do not have enough manure to replace natural gas completely. Denmark is currently as 20%, but we have more swine than people.
... if you are not lacking required minerals, it makes no sense in most scenarios to grow anything to then just burn it instead of using solar cells (waste is just waste, so it would be produced anyway, a different story). Plants use solar power, part of which is wasted on growth and absorption, the rest is stored so you can burn it. Then you transport that mass (need energy for that) and burn it, leaking even more energy in the process. Then you might produce heat, which is ok, but if you produce electricity, you need to convert it back, so there is one more source of loss. If you use solar cells, you get greater efficiency per m2, use none of it on mass, lose almost nothing on the transport and then just have to deal with the waste of the final transformation. Those two (biomass and solar cells) can not compete in efficiency.
If you are talking about burning the biomass, it really makes no sense. But if, instead, you choose to biodigest it, its a whole different story.
why not use free energy ?
Disney already have a digestion power plant which is how they dispose of all of their food waste so their food waste now provides a significant percentage of the total power one of their parks uses! :)
Somebody has to take up collection and combustion of crop stubs in northern India?
Could not the cutting if plants be planned for five years, do that alternate plantation could be in advance to reduce adverse impact!!!
All that biomass can also be composted and returned into the fields they came from. That's one of the solution to remove chemicals fertilizers in our fields and keep the in good health.
Biomass is too valuable to be turned into gaz !
Not long term no. By removing any product from the field you’re taking nutrients with it. Example being corn, there’s a pound of nitrogen in each bushel, so 200 bushel per acre corn will remove around 200 pounds of nitrogen per acre each year, regardless of what you do with the rest. I’m also not sure why you’re so convinced that chemical fertilizers are some big evil thing here. They’re a necessary and useful tool that done right cause no harm to us.
Time to buy a delorean
Let's use ecosia 👍🌱🌳🌱🌲😁
Very interesting but I just couldn't listen to her breathing into the mic after 2 mins of it
why don´t clean the forest ground and use all the biomass to make pellets instead of cutting the trees?
because that is where all the life of the forest exists.
Fallen dead wood is ok but leaves need to rot to feed the tree next year
organic waste is plenty. I dare say limitless.
Just wasted 11 mins I would never get back thanks DW 😉
Dw plantet A needs to talk about Ecosia they are a search engine that plants trees
But its also a far inferior search engine than google to be honest. At the end you will help more if you just donate $5 a year to tree planting organization.
@@SchwertKruemel how is it inferior?
@@ScheveSneeuwSchuifSchep it’s using bing for search results. Google just has far better algorithms getting you your desired result faster. There is a reason almost nobody is using bing.
@@SchwertKruemel sadly true
There's documentary on their main channel which talks about ecosia and other such initiatives. I got to know about ecosia from their only.
They should cut down trees in areas with high risks of wildfires. It is so sad to watch billions of trees burn each year for nothing, while they could be burnt to produce electricity, and allow us to burn less coal and gas thanks to it.
Something to keep in mind is that a lot of plant and animal species rely on wildfires for their survival niche.
@@CjqNslXUcM Having taken Environmental Science in college I'm gonna go ahead and mention here that those plants relying on "wildfires" really will do well in any situation where a bulk of the forest is gone. The pines for instance rely on "wildfires" because they kill the bigger wider trees and pines grow faster so those wider trees can't block out their light anymore. You get the same results with a wild fire as you would with a clear cut with the sole problem that the machines used to cut down these trees are also crushing the seeds/seedlings which would normally pop up after the wildfire finishes. Since humans are actually doing that step themselves already by planting 4 seedlings for every tree cut down... It is actually better to artificially cut down a forest that would of been a forest fire. The real problem here is the damage to biodiversity, because having endless forests of pines is a sad world.
😎
How can you call it "circular" when most of the energy will be infused into cars?
Deforestation ..😢😢😢
Biomass must be from Biowaste and not from agriculture crops. The organic waste which lands up into landfills daily across the globe must be fed to these Bioenergy plants. Its like hitting 2 birds in 1 stone. Solar and Wind energy is good but nobody is talking about hardware waste it generates leading to landfill issues. Also solar and wind is not 24*7 available for harnessing. We humans must also talk about lowering our consumptions, our greed so that nature can breathe. Love from India.
Btw What does Biogas or Biodiesel Release? Its Co2😑 and also Leaked Methane.
How this can be Green solution?
The biomass from waste will turn into methane and CO2 anyway when it decays. But methane is 80 times more warming than CO2. Since only aerobic decomposition produces CO2, that means you have to have expansive aerobic composting piles to avoid it from getting aerobic and producing methane.
However, if it's composted aerobically in a controlled digestor where the methane is stored without leaking, then burning that methane or the distilled ethanol will produce will make sure that, only CO2 which is 80 times less warming than methane is released.
So basically, instead of letting the methane from natural decomposition be released, by storing and burning it into CO2, 80 times less warming happens
@@aleenaprasannan2146 Methane is 8 times. Not 80 times to start with.
If you are saying we can Release Co2 then Coal is best solution too!
Can we start using coal?
Co2 is not clean. It absorbs heat. Giving out Co2 is not green!
By natural, we can allow Waste like plants inside some depth of soil so it become Coal and Carbon is stored inside it.
I don't see both Methane or Co2 is better solution.
Rather Solar or Hydrogen Nuclear Fusion is better!!!
@@scienceisreligion5618 So are you saying that no biodegradable waste should be used to generate power and all the methane from that waste should only be released into atmosphere? How is the methane going directly to the atmosphere from your garbage and sewage dumps better than storing all those methane and slowly releasing it as 80, not 8, 80 times less potent CO2? You think your waste is just going to disappear when Thanthos snaps his finger? Your waste is going to produce either CO2 or methane anyway, and using biogas will make sure that only the 80 times lesser of the evil is produced.
When evaluating a gas' warming potential, it's residence time is also considered. And methane is thus indeed 80 time more warming than CO2...how? Because Co2 can be sequestered by trees and methane cannot, thus is stays in the atmosphere much longer and warms the planet 80 times more....I really don't know where you got that 8 times though...
Coal is neither renewable, not is the mining of it less environmentally disastrous than just collecting garbage and neither does burning coal only release CO2...there is a lot more unwanted stuff released from burning coal, which required much more resources and expenditure if you don't want the resulting particulate pollution and lung cancer.
And nobody said CO2 is clean a neither a green energy source.
Utilization of biogas methane is primarily a green and sustainable waste processing method, than a large scale energy power plant....fuel or energy is just a marketable byproduct that can make the processing unit more cost efficient.
If you want an even cleaner greener option for your biodegradable waste disposal, you'll just have to stop creating anymore decomposable waste, aka don't eat, stop doing anything, get yourself embalmed so you won't decompose and create methane
@@aleenaprasannan2146 my bad. Its 25-84 times.
Yes. Coal produces Sulphur issue but There are Chambers that absorb Sulphur and make only Co2 to go outside.
Co2 is The big issue here which makes lot of Heat absorbtion in Quantity wise. Next is Methane although Methane has high absorbing level.
Both Co2 and Methane are Culprits for Climate change. Not just Methane.
And to take down Methane.. Burning your waste Methane to Co2 is not Right process.
Our waste to be buried under ground and make them not to let Methane to Release much so does Co2.
We shouldnt leave both Co2 and Methane in Atmosphere.
Thats not going to Solve Carbon Neutrality.
Else People will drive Petrol cars and dont change them to Electric cars.
You can even Ask "Blue Hydrogen" to use as Blue Hydrogen gives out Co2 but they Bury Co2.. but What people prefer is GREEN HYDROGEN. Thats what people wants than Blue hydrogen.
Those Waste can be kept underground below Soil so it becomes Future Coal in 1000yrs.
But I dont see Biogas as Solution.
Bio gas is not Renewable not Green solution.
Gee - tree huggers trying to save the world make it worse - Dog bites Man
Just wait till we add hundreds of thousands of electric vehicles.
If you're interested in electric vehicles, check out our video, "Can you recycle an old EV battery?" 👉 czcams.com/video/PbOBmnZRpZ4/video.html
Our reporter looks at the complicated scenerio of electric-powered private vehicles. 🔌 🚘
Use your pup and waste food to make a heater the next winter in Europe. We are going to need all that bacterial hot transformation process (55 degrees centigrades). This way we can pup on Putin gas meanwhile we stay warm. Also we can use the methane to cook. Check CZcams, there are plenty of videos. Start now... Hurry up
At this point Germans should worry more that they even have energy rather then if its clean.
biomass is closer to supplying the demand than solar and wind and does less harm to the environment. you have to clear land for solar farms. wind turbines cause bird strikes.
You've got to clear the forest to plant energy crops
@@lorenzoventura7701 you can use organic waste for it.
@@aaronlair5360
You will have to produce more waste than you actually can, if you only want to make a small dent in the current stream of fossil fuels
3:45 "Biodiesel is made by combining animal fats.."
why not use human fats ? there a hundreds or even thousand of people who would line up if they can get their fats removed..
the company pay for their surgery and make profit from the energy sector while the customer get a healthier body.. maybe~
All that biomass is all from ed
DW with their delusions again
Unpleasant voice over, due to exagerated voice dropping at sentence ends.
Seems counter-intuitive. A bit of a scam. The "digester" that creates "compost" is what nature does naturally, returning the nutrients to the soil, except this seems to extract the gasses and burns them? leaving not much of value. Crops as fuel is just asinine. This doesn't make much sense, considering the need or use of, fertilizer, water, pesticides, feed, transportation of all those...
Hey you could make fertilizer and soil, otherwise known as biomass lol. Wow.
This is really a bad idea just keep researching better solutions please.
Sorry not sustainable.
Why is she speaking like She is in Great pain and pretending to be fine?? ಠಿ_ಠ
Amazing video!