IES SIERRA DE CARRASCOY

CFGS: Energías Renovables

Módulo: Inglés técnico

Biomass is carbon-neutral,
Right?

B iomass contains stored energy from the sun. Plants absorb energy from the
sun in a process called photosynthesis. When the biomass is burned, the chemical energy in
the biomass is released as heat. Biomass can be burned directly or converted to liquid
biofuels or biogas that can be burned as fuels.
According to the video, biomass is technically a “renewable” energy source, since
trees can be replanted after harvested. And some lawmakers have argued that because trees
store carbon as they grow, replacement forests will gradually remove the carbon dioxide
emitted when the previous trees were burned for energy, making the whole process carbon
neutral. That is, not emitting net emissions into the atmosphere.
But there are some serious flaws in that argument, many scientists suggest. One of
the biggest issues is the matter of time.
Burning biomass for energy releases large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere
all at once. But depending on the type of tree, forests can take decades or even a century to
extract the same amount of carbon back out of the air.
Most of the wood grown and harvested in the United States for energy purposes is
actually sent to the European Union, where biomass is currently treated as a carbon neutral
energy source. The processing the biomass for energy use (for example, converting trees
into wood pellets) and shipping it overseas only increase to the total emissions produced by
the industry.
William Schlesinger, biogeochemist and former president of the Cary Institute of
Ecosystem Studies, was one of the last to evaluate this problem and published in the
journal Science that “recent evidence shows that the use of wood as fuel is likely to
generate net emissions of CO2”.
Not only forests are deforested for later burning, but animal life is annihilated.
All this, so that we, the human beings, can continue with our current life model,
supposedly developed.
A more climate-friendly approach would be to simply preserve or add to existing
forests without exploiting them, a process that would improve the nation’s natural carbon
sinks, and focus instead on truly carbon-neutral sources of energy, like wind and solar.
Wouldn't it be more sensible to rethink the current life model?

Autor: Julián Cánovas García. Página 1 de 1