I feel like this might go the other direction once the lockdowns end and once people realize a huge chunk of their "green" energy labeled as biomass is actually just burning down trees.
Even if you use the fast growing forests used for paper in places like Oregon, there is still petroleum used in planting, cutting and fertilizing biofuel forests. In many ways, it's even worse for the environment than just burning the oil directly.
Baring some massive breakthrough in fusion, society as a whole needs to consume less energy, purchase less stuff and make durable goods that last a lot longer (a cellphone should last 8 years, not 3). Mass consumption is going to kill our environment a lot faster than energy consumption or CO2 emissions. CO2 pales in comparison to the ecological devastation in Chinese factory cities, the large amount of plastic particulates/trash in our oceans and completely unsustainable economic doctrine of infinite growth.
The end of your comment makes some sense. The beginning is a puzzle. Who's using biomass? It's <1.5% of energy generation in the US -- you're pretty special and living in an unusual place if you get any substantial energy from that source.
Actually it is tax neutral, not carbon neutral. The kicker here is (i cant find the source anymore) at least in Germany agriculture is energy intensive. It seems one energy unit of crop need one energie unit of (tax excempted) fossil fuel (for the machineries).
So basically you are pumping fuel into a black box, and out comes bioful (which has tax breaks as well, if I remember correctly)
> CO2 pales in comparison to the ecological devastation in Chinese factory cities, the large amount of plastic particulates/trash in our oceans and completely unsustainable economic doctrine of infinite growth.
No... not remotely. While these things you mention are a big threat, and truly terrible disasters themselves, they pale in comparison to the planet changing disaster that is Climate Change.
Only napkin math. The typical sources of climate change denial don't see biomass as a threat (Because it is tiny, growing slowly, and augments fossil fuels, not replaces them), so they don't fund any research to attack it.
The proponents of it probably know that its numbers don't look great, so they don't push for research that thoroughly audits it.
It's also difficult to thoroughly audit the carbon costs of a complex supply chain that has to move tens and hundreds of millions tonnes of lumber - when the costs greatly vary based on how the lumber was sourced.
Even if you use the fast growing forests used for paper in places like Oregon, there is still petroleum used in planting, cutting and fertilizing biofuel forests. In many ways, it's even worse for the environment than just burning the oil directly.
Baring some massive breakthrough in fusion, society as a whole needs to consume less energy, purchase less stuff and make durable goods that last a lot longer (a cellphone should last 8 years, not 3). Mass consumption is going to kill our environment a lot faster than energy consumption or CO2 emissions. CO2 pales in comparison to the ecological devastation in Chinese factory cities, the large amount of plastic particulates/trash in our oceans and completely unsustainable economic doctrine of infinite growth.