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(2020 article) How to Make Biomass Energy Sustainable Again — Low Tech Magazine
(solar.lowtechmagazine.com)
this post was submitted on 31 Jan 2024
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chapotraphouse
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@[email protected] you're presumably joking about the feasibility of getting some of the energy wasted on food & plastic back out again.
But this is a good article on how renewable hydrocarbons can be used for energy. Of course, modern energy use would probably exceed the forage capacity or new growth wood.
What energy is wasted? The energy is still there, it's just a bit annoying to burn (lots of big waxy molecules) so this is a method that breaks it down chemically and makes it easier to burn.
Biomass as fuel is a solution looking for a problem, and trades soil health for nothing compared to electrification. Dumping biomass in deep anoxic lakes might at least reduce the quantity of GHG emitted as opposed to being 'neutral'. Get some solar panels and wind generators and get hydrogen with hydrolysis (and then turn that into whatever you want), or nuclear (Hello China).
Biomass was our main fuel for 95% of the history of civilization. These days we have engines that can produce both energy and charcoal, which you can sequester and enrich the land just by tilling it into the soil.
The way capitalism currently does it is by clear-cutting forests, pelleting the wood, and shipping it halfway round the world as a low-quality substitute in coal plants. If we were to localize it and decrease our energy demand by 90% (mostly by living closer to each other, riding bikes and trains, and not being disgustingly wasteful), we would be able to use solar/wind/hydro for much of our power and biomass from pollards to fill in the gaps for base load.
There would be a lot more biomass to collect if we didn't just completely lay waste to forests yeah holy shit. The ecological civilization/sponge city stuff where fauna and flora is returned to urban spaces along with creating better more navigable people oriented spaces... 🤩 it's dreamy