by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The idea of using wood for fuel might not be new, but, according to Government, we need to burn more to take full advantage of the environmental benefits.
Who would have thought it that the British government wakes up to such revolutionary ideas as using wood and the world to the environmental benefits of burning (waste) wood.
Environment minister Joan Ruddock is pushing the potential of burning waste wood in an effort to divert the degradable material from landfill and make the most of its embodied energy.
The significant carbon and energy benefits of recovering energy from waste wood are detailed in a new information report on the sector that surveys the activities of producers, aggregators and users of waste wood.
Recycling and energy markets for clean, virgin wood have been growing in recent years but waste wood has been a largely overlooked resource.
While every homesteader in the USA and the UK has been talking about burning waste lumber for years for heating and cooking the rest of the world is just waking up, it would appear, to the fact that we throw a great resource into the landfill, namely waste wood.
However, before we burn those old pallets and (other) building lumber offcuts we should also have a look as to whether the same wood could not first be used for other products before, finally, after finishing its life, being burned in homes and power stations. In the latter instance, and the power stations is something the UK government is talking about, we all know, the ideal places where to use such waste lumber is in micro power plats, and ideally CHP units.
According to Government statistics up to 10 million tonnes of waste wood is being produced in the UK each year, most of which goes to landfill. That is a lot of wood. I wonder how many cords or cubic meters of virgin wood that equates to.
Ms Ruddock, Minister for Climate Change and Waste, said: "It has been estimated that recovering energy from 2 million tonnes of waste wood could generate 2600GWh electricity and save 1.15 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, with greater benefits available by recovering heat as well as power.
"This is a huge potential resource that is being wasted."
Government acknowledges that the majority of waste wood is likely to be treated, painted or otherwise contaminated but argues that with more combined heat and power plants which meet the requirements of EU directives on the burning of contaminated waste, there is a huge potential for this waste stream.
Well, sure the wood will be treated, and probably pressure treated even, but under good heat most of those compounds burn off rather harmlessly. Why is no one actually mentioning this fact? Care needs to be taken, and we are all aware of that, I am sure, of wood that has been creosoted (and I mean where real creosote has been used) or waste wood of the likes of telegraph poles and wooden railroad ties. Both are dipped in boiling tar as mean of preserving them and the tar in such wood when being burned can cause real problems, as I can attest to, having had a chimney fire from burning railroad ties. Luckily the chimney was a metal one in a trailer home and was one of the double lined ones. No damage done and in fact in that case the heat clean-burned the chimney.
© M Smith (Veshengro), June 2008
Burning more wood for the greater good
