No, Mausi...
Hi,
well, I wouldn’t see it that strictly, especially the trees ensure with their fallen leaves that nutrients return to the soil.
So it’s a cycle that sustains itself, isn’t it :confused:
best regards Mausi
Hello Mausi, I don’t mean this badly, but did you really read the entire article carefully?
I’ll share some important sentences from it:
"In the past, pellets were made from wood waste. That was completely fine. However, due to the federal government’s subsidy programs, the demand has risen so sharply that increasingly also forest wood is being used."
Huge excavators are brought into the forest to pull out and utilize even tree stumps. The heavy machinery tramples the fine pores in the soil, which are important for aeration. The soil suffocates, tree roots begin to rot, the trees lose their grip and topple more easily in the next storm. Also, the water storage capacity of the forest soil drops drastically, impacting our groundwater table.
(It’s not just about the damage to the forest itself, to the trees, to the soil, but also that it has effects on the vital groundwater for us. After all, only - how much? Less than 1%, I believe? - of the world is covered/supplied with fresh water. If the groundwater table is manipulated, it means higher costs for communities and ultimately for private individuals/end consumers.)
Half of a tree’s minerals are stored in its crown. In the past, the crowns were left to rot in the forest, returning minerals to the soil. Now the forest soil is bleeding out, and this will have consequences in the next tree generations.
- So, it’s not about the leaves (in deciduous and not coniferous trees), but that previously only the trunk was taken, whereas now the crowns are also chipped/used, and that robs the forest soil of important minerals.
But what many don’t know: The wood chips from which the pellets are made are dried in combined heat and power plants. And many of these are operated with imported palm oil, for which rainforests in Borneo are being cleared.
That one shouldn’t continue to cut down rainforests, as this already has devastating effects on the global climate, should be well known by now, right?
The ash is harmful to health. Because it contains toxic organic compounds, it is also not suitable as fertilizer for the garden. The residues must be disposed of. The heating owner must take care of this themselves. Not a harmless matter, because when emptying the boiler, dust arises quite heavily.
This means: If you already have a pellet stove, you should buy one that can empty itself automatically, i.e., so that you don’t come into contact with the ash yourself or inhale it; or one whose ash can be funneled directly into a bag at the push of a button.
I think I read something like this once in a construction magazine, if I remember correctly.
The chipboard manufacturers compete with private individuals and power plant operators for low-quality wood. Its price is rising now, which is why companies resort to higher-quality wood. But that is actually reserved for paper and furniture production. The process is like a domino effect from the bottom up. The result: wood prices rise overall.
- A few years ago, we had a sharply increased demand for pellets.
Result: pellet prices shot up like crazy.
Since then, they have fallen again (not to previous levels, but at least), but it is foreseeable that prices will rise again, especially since the federal government promotes pellet stoves.
So anyone who, like us hopefully still this year, lives near a forest should contact the local forester and take advantage of wood waste and not used firewood etc.
We will not buy a normal pellet stove, but a combination that can burn not only pellets but also wood chips and/or firewood.
Then we only have to resort to pellets in emergencies.
And the also installed solar thermal system mainly supplies our demand for hot water and thus our underfloor heating (the only heating in the low-energy house, completely sufficient; only on extremely cold days is supplementary firing by the wood stove necessary).
Conclusion: You can’t do everything "perfectly" in terms of the environment and for future generations.
THE perfect solution hardly exists right now—in our latitudes at least. In the desert with lots of sun, it would surely be different.
But at least one can try to approach perfection and not rely on only one heating type.
In the end, that will be not only expensive for oneself because the fuels for it become costly, but also expensive for our children and grandchildren. - To put it drastically (polemically?): Possibly super expensive: because climate changes already cost many their lives today.
Regards
Honigkuchen