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But what are the alternatives ? If a tree dies and rots in the forest t
Yeah, I get the impression that the main problem with the Point Tupper
monster is its size. A smaller operation might have fit in quite nicely.
Of course, the NewPage surprise added to the mess, but mess it is, and I
hope the government ad the operators can ramp back its biomass consumption
to a more sensible, sustainable scale.
Fingers crossed for a mild winter, with minimum demand for firewood! All
this tells me we still need to take solar heat and other renewable sources
more seriously.
-----Original Message-----
From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [mailto:naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca]
On Behalf Of Stephen Shaw
Sent: December 24, 2015 11:59 AM
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Subject: RE: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
Ed Darby? Abraham Darby I around 1709 modified the blast furnace that had
already been evolving for over a millenium, to consume coke instead of
charcoal as the source of carbon that formed the carbon monoxide used to
reduce raw iron oxide to pig iron, the starting point for other iron
products. Charcoal gave a purer iron product, but making coke from coal
proved much cheaper than making charcoal from harvested trees, by then a
scarce commodity. For both charcoal and coke, a main byproduct was/is CO2
gas from the finally oxidised carbon, released into the atmosphere. The
cheaper Darby coke method, later improved, caught on rapidly: a gnomic irony
of this is that while saving some of the CO2-consuming much diminished
forests from approaching extinction, it led rapidly to much greater iron
production via burning fossil carbon that underpinned the Industrial
Revolution in Britain, which in turn led to ever increasing CO2 emissions,
eventually worldwide.
On a lesser point not covered by reporter Aaron Beswick's article in the C-H
that Dave referred to, if you had tried to get a few cords of 16" cut
firewood for your wood stove in early 2015, as we did, you would have found
that initially, none of the local suppliers around Halifax could get any
logs, because they believed that such wood that had been harvested was
nearly all going directly to Point Tupper biomass monster, because that had
been built too large for the available supply of so-called 'waste' wood and
bark. Central planning at its very best. Our supplier eventually got some
logs from New Brunswick, but the price went up considerably.
Steve
________________________________________
From: naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca [naturens-owner@chebucto.ns.ca] on
behalf of David & Alison Webster [dwebster@glinx.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 7:12 PM
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
Hi Nick & All, Dec 23, 2015
I have only few minutes so will deal with the "gnomic" question first
and return later to the rest.
It was a new word to me so I had to consult a dictionary which referred
me to sententious= Aphoristic, pithy, given to the use of maxims; (of
persons) = fond of pompous moralizing; maxim= A general truth drawn from
science or experience.
I think we should both plead guilty to the "gnomic" charge and be
flattered. As for the "pompous moralizing"; I am frequently inclined to
quote the King James Bible but then remember: "Be not righteous over much,
neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself ?";
Ecclesiastes 7:16; and decide not to.
Merry Christmas All & A Happy New Year
----- Original Message -----
From: Nicholas Hill<mailto:fernhillns@gmail.com>
To: naturens@chebucto.ns.ca<mailto:naturens@chebucto.ns.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, December 23, 2015 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: [NatureNS] Red Herring & Forestry
A friend recently accused me of being "gnomic", and ill-educated lout as i
am, i took issue at being called a gnome, but moving into this here case at
hand, I think the gnomes have it: "And warning that use of biomass is not
green is perhaps already an effective way to indirectly kill trees." Not
exactly gnomic but not entirely designed for clarity and explicitness. Then
we have: "And if not now, then without doubt in the future." This non
sentence leaves us without a doubt in the future waiting with and like Godot
for some Christmas clarety.
Seriously, I see Dave's point and Jamie's. England found a way through
Edward Darby to stop using beech trees for coking to make steel; Darby
figured out how to substitute coal for wood and thank god because England
had run out of most decent sized trees and was charcoaling most of its
forests. David is right that the first quotation is an overstatement but
Jamie's point was most welcome in today's Herald. We not only are running
the risk of losing good forest but we are running down our forest soils so
that tree regrowth is poor, forest composition is weedy, wildlife suffers,
and the carbon balance (ie. that less carbon dioxide is being emitted than
would be if we allowed forests to grow and used conventional fossil fuels in
the most efficient manner) is questionable. We want to move away from
"Green" that is not sustainable for wildlife and I would put biomass and
large scale hydroelectric both in that unsustainable class.
Good on David and Jamie, the environmental critic and the advocate.
Merry Christmas guys
Nick
On Wed, Dec 23, 2015 at 2:56 PM, David & Alison Webster
<dwebster@glinx.com<mailto:dwebster@glinx.com>> wrote:
Dear All, Dec 23, 2015
There is an article on biomass in today's Chron. Hrld. page A3 "Biomass
may be less than green: report". I could not see how to extract a link to
this article.
The warning was issued some years ago to "Beware of false prophets" and
if this article is at all accurate then Jamie Simpson and Aaron Ward may
qualify to some extent.
These biomass plants leave much to be desired and constructive criticism
will hopefully lead to better context integration in future but saying that
"...the province is not capable of proving that harvesting for biomass is
better for the environment than burning coal." is misleading in the extreme.
First of all it is an example of deplorable prose because superficially
it would appear to say that burning biomass for power is no better for the
environment than burning coal. Unless huge amounts of CO2 are released in
the course of cutting, hauling and preparation for burning then the above
would be false.
But burning of biomass is not mentioned; only harvesting for biomass is
mentioned in that quote. And true enough "harvesting for biomass" uses
energy for no purpose if the biomass is not subsequently burned and would
not help the environment in any way. And the province, being just an area of
land would be unable to prove anything.
Getting back to the heart of this question; when a tree which has fixed
carbon for say 100 years is cut down, it is entirely correct that another
tree of equal size and carbon content does not spring up to replace it in
less than 100 years (unless