Environment & Energy

OKIsItJustMe

(19,938 posts) Wed Jun 12, 2013, 04:57 PM Jun 2013

Wood not so green a biofuel…logging may have greater impact on carbon emissions than previously tho…

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-06/dc-wns061113.php

Public release date: 11-Jun-2013

Contact: John Cramer
john.d.cramer@dartmouth.edu
603-646-9130
Dartmouth College

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Wood not so green a biofuel[/font]

[font size=4]New Dartmouth-led study finds logging may have greater impact on carbon emissions than previously thought[/font]

[font size=3]Using wood for energy is considered cleaner than fossil fuels, but a Dartmouth College-led study finds that logging may release large amounts of carbon stored in deep forest soils. The results appear in the journal Global Change Biology-Bioenergy: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcbb.12044/abstract

Global atmospheric studies often don't consider carbon in deep (or mineral) soil because it is thought to be stable and unaffected by timber harvesting. But the Dartmouth findings show deep soil can play an important role in carbon emissions in clear-cutting and other intensive forest management practices. The findings suggest that calls for an increased reliance on forest biomass be re-evaluated and that forest carbon analyses are incomplete unless they include deep soil, which stores more than 50 percent of the carbon in forest soils.

"Our paper suggests the carbon in the mineral soil may change more rapidly, and result in increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide, as a result of disturbances such as logging," said Dartmouth Professor Andrew Friedland, a co-author. "Our paper suggests that increased reliance on wood may have the unintended effect of increasing the transfer of carbon from the mineral soil to the atmosphere. So the intended goal of reducing carbon in the atmosphere may not be met."

The federal government is looking to wood, wind, solar, hydropower and other renewable energy sources to address concerns about climate change and energy security. Woody biomass, which includes trees grown on plantations, managed natural forests and logging waste, makes up about 75 percent of global biofuel production. Mineral soil carbon responses can vary highly depending on harvesting intensity, surface disturbance and soil type.

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Wood not so green a biofuel…logging may have greater impact on carbon emissions than previously tho… (Original Post) OKIsItJustMe Jun 2013 OP

I am someone who burns wood every week - truedelphi Jun 2013 #1

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)

1. I am someone who burns wood every week -

Reply to OKIsItJustMe (Original post)

Wed Jun 12, 2013, 05:05 PM

Jun 2013

As if I didn't, it would lie out in the woods, and add a lot of tonnage to whatever wildlife fires might hit this summer.

I am not cutting down trees, I am hauling in the huge branches already fallen. (Some as big as five year old sapling.) If my landlord would agree to the expense of cutting down some of the huge dead trees on the property, (some over 60 feet high,) my efforts would be more meaningful, but he is not into putting out the money.

Having said that, I deplore the de-forestation. It made me sad this week to see that Rolling Stone editors fingered marijuana growers for their destruction of our woodlands, without mentioning the massive loss of habitat to wildlife that occurs every day of the week, when land owners tear apart the forests, and orchards to put in yet another overly-pesticided, toxic creation called a "vineyard." People in big cities think that wine is cool; they never realize how many of our bird species, and reptile and animal friends are suffering and even going extinct, while California's rain forest is being leveled, and our water is being polluted, for the sake of Chardonnay!

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