Fire: Better Than Coal?

I'm generally of the mind that we have to stop using coal, and that if we're going to radically revamp our energy system, we should just go ahead and set it up to favor clean renewables.

A blog post on Green Inc. has got me scratching my head.

It cites a study conducted in Canada, where the province of Ontario has committed to phasing out coal from its utilities by 2014.

The study found that simply throwing some biomass in with the coal would reduce the lifecycle carbon emissions associated with creating electricity.

So, what is biomass? Well, in this case it's wood. That's right, cutting down trees — so long as they're obtained through sustainable forestry practices — and burning them as wood pellets is less carbon intensive than using coal by about 5 percent.

Five percent may not be much, but the benefit of this scenario is that it requires no upfront changes or investments.

You certainly wouldn't think that cutting down trees would help the environment — particularly in light of new research that shows that trees are speeding up their absorption of the carbon dioxide we're pouring into the atmosphere — but the study did, in fact, consider the entire lifecycle of the two fuels, thereby factoring in the loss of forest cover.

Another interesting twist is that such a plan, used in areas where forestry industries have been struggling, would turn lumberjacks into advocates for green jobs — which, if you've ever talked to an out-of-work lumberjack, would seem about as unlikely as turning a Tea Partier into a supporter of Dennis Kucinich.

What do you think of the idea?

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons