Here in Finland wood is widely used in wintertime to supplement other heating methods in suburban and rural areas - not as the main heating method.
Problems with wood are: having it available (takes land and time), cutting it and transporting it (takes energy and work), and its particle emissions. These factors cause it to not be suitable as a main energy source.
In a sense wood is similar to heat pumps, which have also become popular in suburban and rural Finland to reduce heating costs.
Free energy is finaly here!But the Oil coporations life depends on covering this up,Get the blueprints for a free energy motor at LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM ,Be a part of the energy revolution!
Burning wood is fine (if you have the fossil fuel to cut and gather it), but it won't provide transportation, fertilizer, plastics etc. Keeping warm will be the least of our problems, although most hi density urban structures will be destroyed (by frozen then leaking pipes) after one hard freeze without natural gas.
Like all resources we could over utilize or overharvest wood resources. Depleting the soils etc. I converted in 2008 to 85% wood heat of my home. Has been great. Utilized a correctly sized catalytic stove. Purchased wood from a guy who harvests standing dead trees from our local state forests. Even with lower fuel oil prices still saving money this year.
It can't be more then mathematics right? How much land is available, how much wood does it anualy produces? And how much do you need? There's absolutely no way we can produce enough biomass to burn for the entire world poulation. But when fosil fuels are gone, when materails to build wind and solar and other alternative energy plants are also gone (since we can not recycle 100% and mine forever) we MUST live on 100% wood. It can take a 100 or a 1000 years, but that day will come...
I believe modern pellet stoves burn much cleaner than traditional firewood stoves. Pelletizing wood changes its structure and makes it burn better. Pellets made from switchgrass burn cleanly too, because grasses have a low ash content when they go brown in winter (they have withdrawn their minerals into their root systems).
However, a superinsulated building needs little heat to stay warm. Just the heat of bodies and household electricity use is usually enough.
People will be looking more at biomass, because they won't have a choice. The DOE did a study that estimated the U.S. could scrape together about a billion tons of cellulosic biomass a year. Steven Chu who is now the Energy Secretary has some great video lectures on YouTube about this.
Trees are not as productive as grasses at converting solar energy into biomass. That's why you see giant herds of grazing animals on grasslands, but not nearly the same concentration of animals in forests.
We don't need to keep our buildings warm, we only need to keep our bodies warm. It's not that hard. Just wear more clothes. And keep a fat cat on your lap. The fatter the better.
Sorry to go on, someone used the S word (sustainable) which gets me going.
The only good use of burnt wood is converting it to charcoal. And then only if it was buried or spread on the land, I think you could call it carbon sequesting. Even then we would have to convert every tree that the planet could do without to charcoal for maybe the next 2,000 years . That is how big the problem is. Another 2 degrees global warming and we are toast. Watch Prof Guy McPherson on YT
Great Britain (UK) started running out of fire wood back in 1600 (ish) that is when they started burning black rock (coal). We use/burn something like the equivalent of 400 years worth of total planetary growth (wood, grass, humans, etc) via fossil fuels each year. If we all died off tomorrow the environment will still heat up to the point that we would die off anyway, as we have done irreversible damage to the environment these past 2- 300 years
we had a chance back when there were only a billion of us, but to keep all 6.7 billion of us warm and fed using wood is kind of like believing Obama has something to change or hope for. We are entering a dog eat dog survival of the fittest world, having smoke coming from your chimney might just be the signal others are looking for to come and take what you are cooking.
Also look at the Related Videos on the side bar, notice the machinery being used to process the fire wood. This morning I drove about 15 miles with my 2 chainsaws to help 2 friends cut fire wood, we also had a truck, another van, and another chainsaw.
Look at National Geographic with the African woman collecting fire wood, they can only process branches that they can snap with their bare hands. This would be next to useless keeping a Mcmansion warm, if you could find a woodlot in the middle of the concrete and tarmac wilderness most people in the USA live in.
To purchase and set up a wood stove with a wet back in New Zealand costs about 12 to 15 weeks full time wages. And you guessed it, uses a s...tload of fossil fuel to manufacture.
A hundred years ago when the world' s population was around 2 billion I would have said that using wood for energy would be feasible.
I am not so optimistic that over 6 billion people would consume timber at a sustainable rate ... particularly is wood is also used for power generation and biofuels.
Firstly... I love the hat. Where can I buy one? No joke. I want one.
Second, anything that is truly a sustainable source of energy on a reasonable time scale is a sensible source of energy IF we are actually concerned with supplying "sustainable" energy long term.
Other things will have to be considered though. Population count comes to mind...
Great video and those options should be explored. I wonder how valuable grass and brush could be for fuel as well. I wonder if you could turn municipal yard waste into pellets that can be burned in a pellet stove.
Some really aggressive robust and powerful plants like Tansy might be useful for this as well. Too bad I'm a city boy or I'd run some experiments.
Chris, not only is this a compelling video worthy of ANY political arena, it's also perhaps your most scientific one ever.
I was on a Peak Oil message board 6 months ago where a few people dismissed you as lightweight and silly. But I must say the past 20 videos you've done have been heavy-hitting and thought-provoking. My theory is this change of tone started after your interview with James Howard Kunstler. Whatever the reason, please stay on THIS track here of thought-provoking and serious.
i must say, in my defense, that there are a thousand topics to explore within peak oil, as you know. my hope is to continue to weave through the multitudinous issues ranging from the scientific to the emotional aspects. not all will gain support from everyone and everything will have its time. JHK did not influence a more serious tone - it was already there - into these videos, they only needed time to unravel at their own pace.
Here in Finland wood is widely used in wintertime to supplement other heating methods in suburban and rural areas - not as the main heating method.
Problems with wood are: having it available (takes land and time), cutting it and transporting it (takes energy and work), and its particle emissions. These factors cause it to not be suitable as a main energy source.
In a sense wood is similar to heat pumps, which have also become popular in suburban and rural Finland to reduce heating costs.
hyhhy 1 year ago
Free energy is finaly here!But the Oil coporations life depends on covering this up,Get the blueprints for a free energy motor at LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM ,Be a part of the energy revolution!
hungarylnnjsd 1 year ago
Burning wood is fine (if you have the fossil fuel to cut and gather it), but it won't provide transportation, fertilizer, plastics etc. Keeping warm will be the least of our problems, although most hi density urban structures will be destroyed (by frozen then leaking pipes) after one hard freeze without natural gas.
kylestube 3 years ago
Like all resources we could over utilize or overharvest wood resources. Depleting the soils etc. I converted in 2008 to 85% wood heat of my home. Has been great. Utilized a correctly sized catalytic stove. Purchased wood from a guy who harvests standing dead trees from our local state forests. Even with lower fuel oil prices still saving money this year.
carstars 3 years ago
It can't be more then mathematics right? How much land is available, how much wood does it anualy produces? And how much do you need? There's absolutely no way we can produce enough biomass to burn for the entire world poulation. But when fosil fuels are gone, when materails to build wind and solar and other alternative energy plants are also gone (since we can not recycle 100% and mine forever) we MUST live on 100% wood. It can take a 100 or a 1000 years, but that day will come...
Mikannika 3 years ago
I believe modern pellet stoves burn much cleaner than traditional firewood stoves. Pelletizing wood changes its structure and makes it burn better. Pellets made from switchgrass burn cleanly too, because grasses have a low ash content when they go brown in winter (they have withdrawn their minerals into their root systems).
However, a superinsulated building needs little heat to stay warm. Just the heat of bodies and household electricity use is usually enough.
Teratornis 3 years ago
People will be looking more at biomass, because they won't have a choice. The DOE did a study that estimated the U.S. could scrape together about a billion tons of cellulosic biomass a year. Steven Chu who is now the Energy Secretary has some great video lectures on YouTube about this.
Trees are not as productive as grasses at converting solar energy into biomass. That's why you see giant herds of grazing animals on grasslands, but not nearly the same concentration of animals in forests.
Teratornis 3 years ago
We don't need to keep our buildings warm, we only need to keep our bodies warm. It's not that hard. Just wear more clothes. And keep a fat cat on your lap. The fatter the better.
Teratornis 3 years ago
Sorry to go on, someone used the S word (sustainable) which gets me going.
The only good use of burnt wood is converting it to charcoal. And then only if it was buried or spread on the land, I think you could call it carbon sequesting. Even then we would have to convert every tree that the planet could do without to charcoal for maybe the next 2,000 years . That is how big the problem is. Another 2 degrees global warming and we are toast. Watch Prof Guy McPherson on YT
oilcrash1 3 years ago
Great Britain (UK) started running out of fire wood back in 1600 (ish) that is when they started burning black rock (coal). We use/burn something like the equivalent of 400 years worth of total planetary growth (wood, grass, humans, etc) via fossil fuels each year. If we all died off tomorrow the environment will still heat up to the point that we would die off anyway, as we have done irreversible damage to the environment these past 2- 300 years
oilcrash1 3 years ago
we had a chance back when there were only a billion of us, but to keep all 6.7 billion of us warm and fed using wood is kind of like believing Obama has something to change or hope for. We are entering a dog eat dog survival of the fittest world, having smoke coming from your chimney might just be the signal others are looking for to come and take what you are cooking.
oilcrash1 3 years ago
Also look at the Related Videos on the side bar, notice the machinery being used to process the fire wood. This morning I drove about 15 miles with my 2 chainsaws to help 2 friends cut fire wood, we also had a truck, another van, and another chainsaw.
oilcrash1 3 years ago
Look at National Geographic with the African woman collecting fire wood, they can only process branches that they can snap with their bare hands. This would be next to useless keeping a Mcmansion warm, if you could find a woodlot in the middle of the concrete and tarmac wilderness most people in the USA live in.
To purchase and set up a wood stove with a wet back in New Zealand costs about 12 to 15 weeks full time wages. And you guessed it, uses a s...tload of fossil fuel to manufacture.
oilcrash1 3 years ago
I consider wood as carbon neutral
Carlstens 3 years ago
Excellent presentation and thought provoking.
iMBBonlyone 3 years ago
Kris,
Very thoughtful and impressive. Keep up the good work! Nice modeling of the dialoging we all need to do.
tdunn789 3 years ago
really good video
jchahine 3 years ago
A hundred years ago when the world' s population was around 2 billion I would have said that using wood for energy would be feasible.
I am not so optimistic that over 6 billion people would consume timber at a sustainable rate ... particularly is wood is also used for power generation and biofuels.
bustermk2 3 years ago
kris,
Firstly... I love the hat. Where can I buy one? No joke. I want one.
Second, anything that is truly a sustainable source of energy on a reasonable time scale is a sensible source of energy IF we are actually concerned with supplying "sustainable" energy long term.
Other things will have to be considered though. Population count comes to mind...
What say you?
sweetcrude 3 years ago
Great video and those options should be explored. I wonder how valuable grass and brush could be for fuel as well. I wonder if you could turn municipal yard waste into pellets that can be burned in a pellet stove.
Some really aggressive robust and powerful plants like Tansy might be useful for this as well. Too bad I'm a city boy or I'd run some experiments.
vention4wh 3 years ago
Chris, not only is this a compelling video worthy of ANY political arena, it's also perhaps your most scientific one ever.
I was on a Peak Oil message board 6 months ago where a few people dismissed you as lightweight and silly. But I must say the past 20 videos you've done have been heavy-hitting and thought-provoking. My theory is this change of tone started after your interview with James Howard Kunstler. Whatever the reason, please stay on THIS track here of thought-provoking and serious.
InnocentByproduct 3 years ago
thanks innocentByproduct ! -
i must say, in my defense, that there are a thousand topics to explore within peak oil, as you know. my hope is to continue to weave through the multitudinous issues ranging from the scientific to the emotional aspects. not all will gain support from everyone and everything will have its time. JHK did not influence a more serious tone - it was already there - into these videos, they only needed time to unravel at their own pace.
kriscanshow 3 years ago
Awesome!
Just keep crankin' 'em out! :)
InnocentByproduct 3 years ago