The use of wood pellets for heating can be sustainable. But it is not necessary. Joel Mesut explains why.
Stephen: Why are wood pellets considered sustainable? Fossil fuels used to be organic matter (trees) and hundreds of thousands of years ago they also contained carbon dioxide.2 restricted. I would be interested to know why there is such a difference.
Joel Mesot: How to keep our rooms warm this winter is a very popular topic in many homes right now. And how we can achieve this sustainably in the future is one of the greatest challenges of our time.
In fact, the different fuels that provide us with heat – and energy in general – have important things in common. Coal, natural gas, oil, and wood, but also our food, are ultimately available to us because plants do photosynthesis. They convert solar energy into chemical energy by converting carbon dioxide2 “Build” high-energy organic compounds. When these substances are burned, part of the chemical energy is released again, and with it carbon dioxide is temporarily stored2. This is due to the atmosphere.
The main difference between the different energy carriers is the time scales we are talking about. For the compounds we use today as fossil fuels, the time of photosynthesis was not hundreds of thousands of years ago, but mostly hundreds of millions of years ago – before the extinction of the dinosaurs. Part of the biomass created during this time has been transformed into oil and gas over millions of years under high pressure and high temperatures. In contrast, the age of the oldest trees is a blink of an eye.
These very different time scales also mean that we are practically on a one-way street when it comes to fossil fuels. There is no feasible way in which we can start new oil fields. But we can reforest and manage forests appropriately and integrate wood into a circular economy. Because when it comes to producing wood pellets and other forms of firewood, we can influence a lot.
The natural question is where does the wood come from. Does it come from Swiss forests or imported? Was it derived from logs, or was it a by-product – or did it ideally come from suitably recycled wood formerly used as a building material? And are the forests sustainably managed, as required by law in Switzerland? Or does it come from the removal of destroyed forest?
Therefore, burning wood for heating is not always sustainable and climate neutral. But it can be, under the conditions described above. Above all, wood is much more than just a source of energy – just think of the immaterial values of our forests, their recreational value, or wood as a natural building material. Current research attempts to do justice to these different dimensions of wood, with life cycle analyzes and circular economy analyses. We can use this knowledge to make the right adjustments so that the use of wood is as efficient and sustainable as possible.
Many thanks to Professor Stephanie Helvig and Professor Harald Bogmann of ETH Zurich for their valuable contributions.
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