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Originally Posted by Fuzz
So if it is worse than coal, why are we using it? Just burn coal.
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A couple of reasons. First, because of this gigantic caveat in those numbers:
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regrowing trees may be able to sequester the same amount of carbon that is released producing and burning wood pellets
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When a forest is cut down for commercial use in BC, it's generally replanted very quickly, and those growing trees start to recapture the carbon that their predecessors released when used for fuel.
Secondly (and this is the bigger issue), trees aren't really a long-term carbon sink like fossil fuels are. If a tree is left in nature, eventually it'll die and rot, releasing its carbon. And any carbon it has stored over its life was already in the environment/atmosphere within relatively recent history. The only way wood is an effective carbon sink is if its harvested and used in durable products, but even then we're probably talking about a century at most, for most wood products/structures.
With fossil fuels on the other hand, when you burn them you're introducing carbon into the atmosphere that hasn't been part of the environment for millions of years. And if you don't burn it and it stays in the ground, it'll never enter the atmosphere.