Old Iron and New Carbon- Continued
Sunday, March 4th, 2007
The unused part of the tree just decomposes, with the respiration of the saprophytes (I love big words!) recombining the same amount of O2 released by the solar energy storage from the trees’ photosynthesis with the carbon in the wood, netting a zero CO2 gain for the atmosphere, with some of that postponed as long as the houses with the hardwood floors and couches stand. So burning the waste wood in our wood furnace just speeds the release of the same CO2 which would have returned to the atmosphere anyway as the tree rotted. The energy now available to heat my house, by the way, is some portion of the sunshine stored as the trees made cellulose. A solar-heated house!
So, if you live in an economically depressed carbon-rich area like us, heat with wood, and save the planet. All of this doesn’t even touch on the physical benefits from working up a load of wood. Maybe I’ll act the pedant on that some other time. I gotta go load the wood stove.