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Gilashot t1_ixq3x0y wrote

Reply to comment by teachlikeascientist in Best heating oil company to use? We need kerosene but can't afford $7/ gallon at the company we called. New to this type of heating and kinda struggling to figure this out. Company says minimum of 100 gallon order. Our tank is 275g . 275x7= omg in gonna freeze to death. by [deleted]

It’s not. The EPA wrongly made a narrow statement stating that’s it’s neutral, but everyone from the Smithsonian to the Yale School of Forestry will say otherwise.

Biomass is neutral on a long term scale (millennia) but not in human terms.

I’m an arborist and this year cleared 1/2 an acre for a customers firewood use. He’ll burn it all over the next few winters, and that clearing will just be covered by ferns and brambles for a decade. That’s a huge dump of stored carbon going into the atmosphere. How’s that carbon negative?

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mountainofclay t1_ixq8qgi wrote

I’ve read that on average, at least in my climate, that an acre of land will grow a cord of wood per year. I know my land has more trees now than when I bought it. It’s grown faster than I can use it. I realize not everyone has the luxury of owning their own wood lot and not all climates can support that. I also know that if not properly managed it can be depleted. But it seems crazy not to use it though, especially in Vermont which currently has more trees than ever.

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Gilashot t1_ixqeo11 wrote

Good point, and we're getting into interesting numbers here. About 46% of VT electricity comes from hydro. Hydro has it's own issues, but keeping it in the carbon conversation, it's pretty low.

At 17 degrees I'm getting about 12K BTU per kW. 6500 of that comes from non-hydro electricity. So...6500 BTU per kW of "carbon producing" electricity.

I have no idea how much carbon is released to create the 1 kw of electricity, to produce my 6500 BTU. I also don't know how much carbon is released while burning wood to create 6500 BTU. Someone should do a thesis on this.

I'm going to go drive my 6 cylinder 4Runner to Home Depot this morning and buy some insulation to help reduce my carbon footprint from heating my home. Now it's really complicated!

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mountainofclay t1_ixuiyx4 wrote

The amount of carbon released to burn 6500 btu’s is zero if you consider the other side of the equation which is that the tree will be replaced with another tree. That’s what a renewable resource is. Of course you have the gas in the chainsaw and the trucking you need to consider but nothing is free I guess. Finite resource vs. a renewable resource. It’s not perfect but it’s better than sending dollars to Saudi Arabia I guess.

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