this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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That was basically the impression that I got. Depending on the wheres and hows, growing wood as fuel can degrade the ecosystem and make it more difficult to continue to grow it there, but that's more a question of "sustainability" of a particular practice than the renewability of the resource itself. The problems with burning wood for fuel are many:
Whatever the problem, "we can just cut down more trees" is not the solution. There is enough deforested land in the world, and letting native forests grow back is one of the simplest and most effective ways to stabilise the climate. Forests are worth so much more than their wood.
I wonder if ag waste or help is a better idea. that should be carbon neutral while also providing power during still wind nights
In the transition to more sustainable agriculture, I think that there could be a place for burning biomass on the local level. For example, some sugar cane plantations use the fibre left over after juicing as biofuel for the evaporation process. I imagine that using coconut fibre for energy production would also work (to power machinery for processing oil and so forth).
But in a sustainable agricultural system (i.e. agroforestry and tree-based systems) there wouldn't be "waste" in the first place; all organic material would be recycled back into the land in order to maintain soil fertility, just like what happens in a forest (minus the small amount lost to natural erosion processes and migrating animals and such). The ultimate goal of sustainable agriculture must be keeping the organic matter in (or on top of) the soil and in living tissues. Otherwise, the system will require inputs from outside in order to replenish fertility, which in turn will require transportation, well-organised distribution networks, humans or machines working to produce the additional agriculture inputs... all of which also consumes energy, which requires more biomass, and around and around we go.
What if you burn it and then bury the ashes?
That would ensure that the rain doesn't carry away the minerals, but again, the organic component of the wood/vegetation would be lost to the atmosphere.
You also need to rotate crops or you slowly reduce yield to nothing over time. Is farm-grown food not renewable? 🤪
Some have made this argument. Certainly agriculture as its currently practiced depletes the earth’s productive capacity. Does that make it not renewable? Depends on how you define this word.