If burning wood is 'carbon neutral' why isn't burning coal carbon neutral if coal is simply compressed plants?

Answer 1

A tree today absorbs CO2 from todays atmosphere, gets burnt and releases it back resulting in no net change in CO2 so neutral. A tree from 10million years ago absorbed CO2 then and stored it away in the earth to later turn to coal. If we then burn the coal we release that CO2 resulting in a net increase in todays CO2 levels so not neutral.

Answer 2

Coal is only wood and vegetation that has been keep at a high pressure and temperature for a long time. The difference is only the time interval between growing the tree and releasing the CO2, it has taken up in it's life, back to the atmosphere. Coal and wood are simply capturing CO2 from the atmosphere and holding out of the way so it won't cause any damage. This is like the carbon capture schemes for combustion power stations that are proposed as a solution to the problem of CO2, but aren't really any sort of solution. Bear in mind that cutting a tree down stops it taking up CO2 and converting it to O2 through photosynthesis, so it is a bit of a double-whammy, you release the CO2 back to the atmosphere and also stop converting any more CO2 back to O2.

Answer 3

Burning wood isn't carbon neutral, unless you undertake another activity that reduces the carbon in the atmosphere to the same extent, e.g. by planting trees. It's exactly the same for coal, oil, natural gas etc. The fuel source is irrelevant, it's the activity to offset the carbon dioxide that counts. If you burn wood, you are making space for something else to grow in the same space, should you choose to plant it there. The same cannot be said for the other fuel sources previously mentioned.

Answer 4

I'm not sure you can say burning wood is carbon neutral unless you plan on having is fall right at your wood pile and be cut up and split by hand.

Also if your base line for CO2 in the air is a date like 1990 then most trees you would use for wood would have growing for some time and storing carbon from CO2 in the air prior to 1990.

Answer 5

Time scale:
Plants and trees change Carbon dioxide into cellulose in the relatively short time they live. Coppicing trees for fuel has a short rotation, one can lop branches very few years. If the rate of burn matches the rate of growth, it is "carbon neutral"

Coal is generated over throusands of years of compression of old wood and plant matter. We are burning billions of tons every year, but it is not being regenerated.

Answer 6

U got it right . It is all part of the oxygen recycle system . The plants tale in CO2 and gives back the O2 very quickly and holds on to the C. The plants die and leaves fall off and wash down the rivers to the delta where it will deteriorate into gas,oil and after a long time to coal. This is the earth's natural recycle system so we will never run out of gas,oil or coal as long as plants live. The environmentalist want u to believe that it is only the trees but even the algae does it.

Answer 7

Coal is a fossil fuel. As such, it formed from wood that was sequestered millions of years ago. Carbon availability in the environment is mostly governed by the CARBON CYCLE.

In the carbon cycle metabolism or burning of carbon containing compounds results in the production of CO2. This CO2 is then utilized by green plants by way of Photosynthesis. As a by-product Oxygen is produced. These complementary processes exist in equilibrium.

The carbon that is in coal and other fossil fuels was sequestered away from the equlibrium millions of years ago as coal or petroleum. By burning these fuels humans release this"extra" carbon into the environment mostly as gaseous CO2. This is why the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is rapidly increasing.

If you burn wood you release carbon that was taken up by the plant in the recent past (usually less than 200-yrs) and this is carbon that is in the equilibrium of the carbon cycle.