Canadian Federal Politics Thread v5

[opendoor]

It sort of depends what logs they were using. If they logged a forest for pellets, that's one thing. But if a forest was logged for lumber and they took the leftover logs that sawmills wouldn't buy for, that's another matter. People who sell firewood in BC often do a similar thing. A logging company clear cuts an area and leaves the junk trees, and then rather than burning them or letting them rot (both of which releases carbon), they let businesses come in and chop up the wood for firewood.

I mean, simple economics would dictate that these were probably not high-quality logs. No one's going to use good trees for pellets when you could sell the logs for lumber at 5-10x the price.

[b1crunch]

Originally Posted by opendoor

It sort of depends what logs they were using. If they logged a forest for pellets, that's one thing. But if a forest was logged for lumber and they took the leftover logs that sawmills wouldn't buy for, that's another matter. People who sell firewood in BC often do a similar thing. A logging company clear cuts an area and leaves the junk trees, and then rather than burning them or letting them rot (both of which releases carbon), they let businesses come in and chop up the wood for firewood.

I mean, simple economics would dictate that these were probably not high-quality logs. No one's going to use good trees for pellets when you could sell the logs for lumber at 5-10x the price.

Be careful. Using this much common sense can be dangerous.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by Azure

Gotta love going green. Must not care THAT much about the environment.



https://www.bbc.com/news/science-env...t-63089348.amp

Sorry. Are you saying (1) using wood by-product is bad, or (2) a company lying about using wood by-product is bad.

And if it's a company lying about it, is that really 'going Green?

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Sorry. Are you saying (1) using wood by-product is bad, or (2) a company lying about using wood by-product is bad.



And if it's a company lying about it, is that really 'going Green?

Trees are green, therefore burning them for energy is by definition "green energy".

[Azure]

Originally Posted by opendoor

It sort of depends what logs they were using. If they logged a forest for pellets, that's one thing. But if a forest was logged for lumber and they took the leftover logs that sawmills wouldn't buy for, that's another matter. People who sell firewood in BC often do a similar thing. A logging company clear cuts an area and leaves the junk trees, and then rather than burning them or letting them rot (both of which releases carbon), they let businesses come in and chop up the wood for firewood.

I mean, simple economics would dictate that these were probably not high-quality logs. No one's going to use good trees for pellets when you could sell the logs for lumber at 5-10x the price.

Canada has a massive wood waste industry that doesn't involve 'burning' it for fuel.

Simple economics would dictate that we should perhaps support that industry and not send our 'waste' overseas to make wood pallets which has to be incredibly carbon intensive.

But I guess that wouldn't qualify as a 'common sense' approach.

Locally sourced firewood is not comparable to cutting down forests and shipping them overseas for fuel sources. If the UK wants to burn wood pallets, they should grow their own.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Sorry. Are you saying (1) using wood by-product is bad, or (2) a company lying about using wood by-product is bad.

And if it's a company lying about it, is that really 'going Green?

Burning wood pallets for power needs is terrible for the environment in terms of carbon emissions. Worse than natural gas, and perhaps even coal from the quick search I did.

While biomass is billed as renewable, burning wood pellets releases more carbon dioxide than burning natural gas, experts said; in addition to the actual burning, carbon dioxide is released during harvesting, drying, debarking, pelletizing and transportation. “You’re emitting more carbon from the power plant than you would be if you were burning fossil fuels,” said Timothy D. Searchinger, a senior research scholar at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. There are additional carbon costs as well, such as the fuel spent shipping pellets across the ocean.

https://nationalpress.org/topic/are-...rse-than-coal/

Again, every country has products that can use wood waste that do not involve 'burning' them. Those industries should be supported as the waste is kept as a carbon store for many years.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by opendoor

It sort of depends what logs they were using. If they logged a forest for pellets, that's one thing. But if a forest was logged for lumber and they took the leftover logs that sawmills wouldn't buy for, that's another matter. People who sell firewood in BC often do a similar thing. A logging company clear cuts an area and leaves the junk trees, and then rather than burning them or letting them rot (both of which releases carbon), they let businesses come in and chop up the wood for firewood.

I mean, simple economics would dictate that these were probably not high-quality logs. No one's going to use good trees for pellets when you could sell the logs for lumber at 5-10x the price.

I dunno, after reading this ...

"The greenwashing of the pellet industry needs to stop," Bob Simpson, the mayor of Quesnel, a town in B.C.'s Interior whose fortunes rise and fall with the forestry sector, told The Fifth Estate.

More than 500 scientists and economists also wrote a letter demanding an end to those subsidies, calling burning wood a "false solution" to the climate crisis, and saying "trees are more valuable alive than dead, both for climate and for biodiversity." Drax was recently dropped from the S&P's green energy index.

"Now that we understand so much more, we can't any longer think 'Oh well, that means [burning wood pellets is] better than coal … better than gas.' The reality is that we know it's not," he said.

"We've just got to say, 'We got it wrong.' "

Brack said scientific studies show that burning wood produces more carbon emissions than coal.

"If you burn wood in the presence of oxygen, it generates more carbon dioxide per unit of energy generated than if you burn almost all types of coal."

In the heart of one of B.C.'s most forest-dependent regions, Simpson said he understands the allure of potential pellet industry investment for hard-hit logging towns. But he said there's better uses for the province's timber, whether it's bioplastics or engineered wood products like fibreboard, and it just takes creative thinking and government leadership.

"You can take wood waste in the bush and wood waste in the mills and you can turn them into really high-value products that still store the carbon in them," Simpson said.

"Pull the subsidies, stop the silly math of disappearing the greenhouse-gas emissions today from this. It becomes self-evident that it's not an industry that we should be supporting."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/wood-...ergy-1.6606921

I'm not at all convinced wood pellets are a good use of trees.

[Azure]

There is also a lot of evidence that the companies doing the harvesting just end up cutting down large swaths of forests including good & bad trees while claiming 'oh we just clean up the bad stuff.'

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Azure

There is also a lot of evidence that the companies doing the harvesting just end up cutting down large swaths of forests including good & bad trees while claiming 'oh we just clean up the bad stuff.'

I haven't worked in the forest products industry since moving to Calgary in 07, but would be shocked to learn that otherwise merchantable timber was being ground into pellets as opposed to making dimensional lumber, pulp or paper.

[Fuzz]

Stand.earth used photos and satellite imagery of trucks, rail cars and log piles to conclude Pinnacle is using whole logs to make pellets at its Meadowbank facility in Strathnavor, 75 kilometres south of Prince George.

Pinnacle is upgrading its Strathnavor facility, along with others in B.C., to increase production capacity — including by investing in more chippers that can process whole logs to reduce reliance on sawmill residuals, the investigation found.

https://thenarwhal.ca/climate-bc-mil...ort-documents/

Perhaps it's time for some surprise audits from government to see exactly what they are using. Though I'm not sure there is anything they could be charged with? Just public perception?

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by DoubleK

I haven't worked in the forest products industry since moving to Calgary in 07, but would be shocked to learn that otherwise merchantable timber was being ground into pellets as opposed to making dimensional lumber, pulp or paper.

Let alone being shipped to the UK

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by edslunch

Let alone being shipped to the UK

Amen to that. The company I was working for couldn't export birch sawlogs to a mill in Minnesota 90 miles away because it was across the border.

[b1crunch]

Originally Posted by Azure

Canada has a massive wood waste industry that doesn't involve 'burning' it for fuel.

Simple economics would dictate that we should perhaps support that industry and not send our 'waste' overseas to make wood pallets which has to be incredibly carbon intensive.

But I guess that wouldn't qualify as a 'common sense' approach.

Locally sourced firewood is not comparable to cutting down forests and shipping them overseas for fuel sources. If the UK wants to burn wood pallets, they should grow their own.

Right, but opendoor was discussing what is LIKELY happening by using 'simple economics', and you are arguing what SHOULD happen. Those are two different things, and there can be 'common sense' approaches in both situations.

Your line of thinking suggests that a government should step in and regulate the industry to some respect. That's fine.

I guess my question is: What percentage of global carbon emissions are from burning not-so-ethically sourced wood pellets from Canada? It's likely so small that we shouldn't do anything about this problem, because it doesn't have a big enough impact on the total output. Wouldn't you agree?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://thenarwhal.ca/climate-bc-mil...ort-documents/

Perhaps it's time for some surprise audits from government to see exactly what they are using. Though I'm not sure there is anything they could be charged with? Just public perception?

I'd imagine they are being issued specific permits for what they are allowed to cut down, which should result in fines if they are going beyond what is stated.

Its not hard to find more articles like the one you posted where someone goes and does some research and gets satellite information and is 'shocked' to find out that more is being harvested than should be allowed.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by Azure

I'd imagine they are being issued specific permits for what they are allowed to cut down, which should result in fines if they are going beyond what is stated.

Its not hard to find more articles like the one you posted where someone goes and does some research and gets satellite information and is 'shocked' to find out that more is being harvested than should be allowed.

Industry trying to bend the rules in order to make more profit? The hell you say?

[Azure]

Originally Posted by b1crunch

Right, but opendoor was discussing what is LIKELY happening by using 'simple economics', and you are arguing what SHOULD happen. Those are two different things, and there can be 'common sense' approaches in both situations.

Your line of thinking suggests that a government should step in and regulate the industry to some respect. That's fine.

I guess my question is: What percentage of global carbon emissions are from burning not-so-ethically sourced wood pellets from Canada? It's likely so small that we shouldn't do anything about this problem, because it doesn't have a big enough impact on the total output. Wouldn't you agree?

Exports of wood pellets are increasing, and in 2016 increased by 46% over 2015. Wood pellets are a type of biomass fuel often produced from forestry waste such as wood shavings, bark, and sawdust. In addition to creating value from a waste product, wood pellets can be renewable,Footnote 1 are easy to transport, and are more efficient to combust than wood.

Canada produces wood pellets which can be used as a fuel source for electricity generation and heating.Footnote 2 Most Canadian wood pellets are exported to other countries. These exports increased in 2016 in response to growing global demand for biomass-fired electricity generation to replace coal-fired generation. Annual wood pellet exports increased by 73% in the last five years, growing from 1 369 million kilograms (kg) in 2012 to 2 373 million kg in 2016. Canada is now the second largest wood pellet exporter by weight after the United States (U.S.)

https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-an...2015-2016.html

The Chatham/Woodwell authors note that “the mislabeling of woody biomass as a zero-carbon energy source threatens to push government climate change targets further off track.” Their study estimated that wood pellets produced in the U.S. and burned in the U.K. led to 13-16 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in 2019 alone — equal to the emissions of up to 7 million cars.

In a first-of-its kind evaluation, the study estimated that 0.8 to 3.6 million tonnes of CO2 were emitted in the U.S. Southeast in 2019 alone from harvesting, producing and shipping wood pellets — all uncounted by the U.S.

“It’s not an enormous number,” co-author Richard Birdsey of Woodwell, who compiled the U.S. estimates, told Mongabay. “But if you look back at what’s been done already, and consider the growth of the [wood pellet] industry, that amount could be 10 to 50 times higher in the years ahead. Then you have a big impact” with global climate repercussions.

Chatham/Woodwell concluded that if the U.K. counted the actual transatlantic emissions from producing and burning wood pellets in 2019, “this would have added 22% to 27% to the emissions from total U.K. electricity generation, or 2.8% to 3.6% of total U.K. greenhouse gas emissions.”

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/10/fo...sions-studies/

Considering the Biden Administration is offering a lot of funding for the wood pellet industry, I'd expect that number to grow substantially. Canada being the second largest exporter of wood pellets is a major part of the problem.

Also if you read into how these pellet burning companies operate you realize they are heavily subsidized and touted as 'green' by the government and that the same governments have setup the rules so that...

But under current U.N. and many national rules, it’s not necessary to count or report carbon emissions from harvesting and transporting trees to factories; processing them into wood pellets; and transporting those pellets thousands of miles, often by ship, across oceans to power plants — nor the greenhouse gas emissions pumped into the atmosphere from burning pellets.

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/su...e-say-experts/

Gee, I wonder why its classified as being so 'green.'

Instead of burning it for fuel, wood waste should be primarily used for engineered wood products, an extremely fast growing industry in Canada & Europe, and then whatever waste is leftover for that process should be used to heat those facilities and power their equipment. There are many examples of companies across the world in that market doing exactly that.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by b1crunch

Right, but opendoor was discussing what is LIKELY happening by using 'simple economics', and you are arguing what SHOULD happen. Those are two different things, and there can be 'common sense' approaches in both situations.

Your line of thinking suggests that a government should step in and regulate the industry to some respect. That's fine.

I guess my question is: What percentage of global carbon emissions are from burning not-so-ethically sourced wood pellets from Canada? It's likely so small that we shouldn't do anything about this problem, because it doesn't have a big enough impact on the total output. Wouldn't you agree?

Burning wood pellets releases as much or even more carbon dioxide per unit than burning coal.

https://e360.yale.edu/features/wood_..._co2_emissions

But more than a decade of research has shown that wood pellets cause more carbon pollution than coal per unit of energy produced. And while it’s true that over the long term, regrowing trees may be able to sequester the same amount of carbon that is released producing and burning wood pellets, in the short-term, forest biomass is masquerading as a zero-emission energy source — allowing power plant smokestacks to pump out greenhouse gas emissions today and into the future, quickening the pace of global warming.
Unfortunately, the planet doesn’t have decades to recoup the carbon deficit created when forests are cut down and burned. United Nations chief Antonio Guterres recently classified the current climate crisis as “code red for humanity.”

https://news.mongabay.com/2021/11/su...e-say-experts/



https://www.sec.gov/rules/petitions/...n4-741-exb.pdf

So if it is worse than coal, why are we using it? Just burn coal.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

https://thenarwhal.ca/climate-bc-mil...ort-documents/

Perhaps it's time for some surprise audits from government to see exactly what they are using. Though I'm not sure there is anything they could be charged with? Just public perception?

The Narwhal isn't a publication really know for following the facts all that closely. I would read this with a bit of skepticism.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

So if it is worse than coal, why are we using it? Just burn coal.

A couple of reasons. First, because of this gigantic caveat in those numbers:

regrowing trees may be able to sequester the same amount of carbon that is released producing and burning wood pellets

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.

[Paulie Walnuts]

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/other...0bf1be8b94b372

The tag, #mgtow, is an acronym for “Men Going Their Own Way” -- a mostly-online movement comprised of anti-feminists who attempt to cut women completely out of their lives. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the movement overlaps with more aggressive forms of “male supremacy.”

Pierre doing what you would expect from someone like him.