Wood as an auxiliary energy source

Fredrik

I couldn't find any thread about wood as a source of energy, so I decided to start one up.
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Fredrik · Last edited by Fredrik on Sat Apr 21, 2007 3:16 am; edited 1 time in total

Hmm. My opening post was considerably longer than that, but the forum isn't letting me paste the follow-up from a text file I wrote while unable to access this site. Must be some taboo special character I can't pinpoint. Let's try again.

Now, it would be utterly naive to hope for any combination of bioenergy sources to save us after PO. But couldn't we at least use wood (alongside coal, biofuels and other alternatives) to mitigate the post-peak decline - not only for local heating, but also for heating and electricity on the regional level, as well as fuel for vehicles? (Assuming, of course, that wood is available in large scale in a given region or country.)

Last year, Finland produced 20 percent of its energy with wood - consuming only a very modest fraction of its forest reserves, which relatively speaking are not larger than in many other northern countries and regions. Besides, a lot of forest will probably be spared in the future as the demand for paper is reduced globally, so
there might be considerable potential, at least in the northern latitudes.

As a fuel for transport, wood of course gives much less energy per weight and is much more difficult to use to power vehicles than liquid fuels, but it's technically feasible. Buses that ran on wood were used during WW2 at least in my country, and probably elsewhere too. Way worse than normal fuel, but if it can move a vehicle by combustion, still considerably better than horses, whose large-scale return some have predicted.
_________________
"A devastating error is to set up a political system based on [individual] desire... the best dictatorship would be one where the government prevents any economical growth."
"Only scarcity and effort make life worth living."
-Pentti Linkola

benzoil

Wood as an alternative only works for specific people. Namely, those who live in rural areas AND have enough forested land to harvest their own timber AND who's forested land can support fast growing hardwoods.

Lots of cities/towns/villages are banning wood burners because of the smoke/pollution. I suspect that either future wood burner designs will change as a result or people will tell their towns to stuff it.

IIRC, wood has a relatively low energy density compared to coal, which also makes it not well suited to compact living arrangements. If you need 8-10 cords of wood for a winter, it will be difficult to stack that in your city lot backyard or basement.

That said, if you live in the hinterlands, I think wood will be THE way to go. In fact, I think deforestation will be an issue in some places.
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nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 682

thuja

There are some pretty amazing new leaps that have taken place with wood burn gassification furnaces. This reduces the amount of pollution dramatically and also burns the wood much more efficiently. In Scandanavia, some of these furances are constructed on a massive scale and the heat is then pumped in to service entire communities. Pretty ingenious.

Unlike Benzoil, I don't think wood heat will be solely in the purview of ruralistas. I think that it will become a regional issue. It will be easier to heat with wood in the PNW, the North-East and parts of the South than in the desert SW due to proximity to forest land.

You will also get more bang for your buck with wood heat in cities and that is because the heat will be experienced by more people. In the back country, wood heat will be used for a couple people or maybe a family. When times get tough, a whole group of families can share the warmth of a fire in a city.

Whether we like it or not, wood will play a significant role in the future due to the depletion of non-renewable fossil fuels.

kjmclark · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 318

Benzoil's data is a little old. Newer wood stoves burn fairly cleanly, and are only a problem in areas with existing high particulates and usually temperature inversions or poor air flow (mostly valleys with no wind). We heat mostly with our wood stove and burn about a cord and a half of wood per year - in Michigan. Our house is smaller than typical these days, but 8-10 cords of wood is excessive.

The real problem is that many areas aren't good for growing wood. This is a problem mostly in areas with too little rainfall. Of course, the other big drawback is that there are too many people to draw on the wood in an area. That pesky overpopulation problem rears its head again.

So, will wood "save us"? It probably could, combined with solar, if we drastically cut back our energy use. Will wood replace current high energy consumption? No way.

kjmclark · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 09, 2005 Posts: 318

Here's a decent set of tables, showing BTUs of various combustibles. Scroll down to "Conversion Factors - Average Energy Content of Various Fuels". They show coal ranging from 26 million to 16.2 million BTU/ton, and wood ranging from 17 million to 9 million BTU/ton. OTOH, down the page they list lignite as about 7k BTU/lb, which is only 14 million BTU/ton.

And how much energy would be lost sequestering the CO2 from that coal is another question. Wood can be grown and burned sustainably. (Not that humans are good at doing anything sustainably.)

Commanding_Heights · Heavy Crude Joined: Nov 09, 2006 Posts: 140

Heineken

No one has mentioned the labor (and time) involved in heating one's place entirely with wood.

As someone who heats entirely with wood, I can tell you that this is a huge oversight.

Also, Gideon is right: There is an inverse relationship between how fast wood grows and how much heat energy it supplies. That is because the slower wood grows, the denser it is, and vice versa. "Fast-growing" methods (like coppicing) aren't a magic bullet.

Wood can play an energy role in a future world, but it will be a radically different world with far fewer people.

Commanding_Heights · Heavy Crude Joined: Nov 09, 2006 Posts: 140

frankthetank

Not sure if your looking for wood to replace: electricity/heating/transportation, but just on the heating front, if you were to replace all natural gas with wood, it would require the same amt of acreage as all the corn crop (90million acres/give or take). This is just for NG (no electric/oil/etc). I did the math on it a couple weeks ago, i'd have to dig it up. This is for the US and i figured it using a "sustainable" method of harvesting wood. Never going to happen, IMO. People will have to move to a more moderate climate or do without. Go read the book, "Coal: A Human History"... shows how the English used up all the wood around London and then reverted to coal... Wood is great if you have a RELIABLE source (your backyard) and ability to cut and store it. I honestly feel that someday, the trees/forests surrounding my town will disappear in the mad rush to keep the heat going, considering how cold this area gets for 3 months out of the year.
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benzoil

bshirt · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 23, 2006 Posts: 446

Commanding_Heights · Heavy Crude Joined: Nov 09, 2006 Posts: 140

bshirt · Heavy Crude Joined: Dec 23, 2006 Posts: 446