Which Causes More Pollution?

[CobyRupert]

Good question!
As said above you have to define pollution. Carbon footprint? Atmospheric only? Particulate?
On one hand when you chip them you're not (immediately) releasing the carbon into the atmosphere like your are with a fire. The carbon is still stored in the wood, you're just putting that stick into a state where decomposition will occur sooner. However, you are adding carbon to the atmosphere/environment that was brought from underground to make that diesel (and all the carbon it took to get that gallon of diesel to you.)
Pine brings up an interesting point on decomposing producing CH4, perhaps making an argument that decomposing is more harmful (creates more greenhouse gases) than burning?
What might be missing from this discussion is how much of the carbon (or methane) from decomposing stays in the soil vs. how much goes into the atmosphere and balancing that against the amount of diesel used? :confused3:
Seems to me that bringing up lakes of oil from an underground storage to burn on the surface (i.e. adding carbon to the system) would be worse in the long run then the terrestrial (zero sum) circular systems of transformation (burning or letting it rot). (-This is where someone mentions volcanoes and sea vents.)
:2cents:
Doesn't the whole system hinge on sea plankton?

 

[MossRoad]

Nah. What's really scary is the frozen methane deposits on the ocean floors. Those babies let loose and we're all doomed! :hot:

 

[motownbrowne]

Look at it this way...

If you burn the branches or let them rot on the ground, you're still going to release just as much carbon into the atmosphere, just one way takes a lot longer, but exact same carbon effect. However, you can plant some trees, Pecans perhaps?:laughing: and make up for it pretty quick, as the trees will suck up carbon each year as they grow. Its kind of neutral. Tree sucks carbon from the air and stores it in the wood. Burn tree, it goes back to the atmosphere. Plant, it stores, over and over.

If you chip it with a fossil fuel powered implement, you are still going to get a pile of chips with the exact same amount of carbon in it as before it was chipped, and then you have the chips to dispose of by either burning them or letting them rot, which still releases the same amount of carbon into the atmosphere, PLUS the carbon from the fossil fuel that you burned, which would never have been released, had it been left in the ground, trapped forever.

So, the answer seems to be... burn them whole and plant some more trees, don't chip them.

But... If you bury or compost the chips, the carbon binds to nitrogen and becomes fixed. Then it's not being released. Or... You could make bio-char, wherein you burn off the volatile compounds from the wood and get it to the charcoal phase and then cut off all the oxygen. The resulting charcoal doesn't release its carbon for centuries, if ever. Composting could be an option here, but the biochar would probably require a more complicated procedure than desired to burn twigs on a large scale.

 

[houstonscott]

Go suck on that exhaust pipe and see how that clean air works for ya! :laughing:

Wow, can't take it?, try eating a bag of wood chips see how works for ya! : laughing. HS

 

[KennyG]

FWIW...
CO2 (Carbon dioxide) which is mostly what enters the atmosphere when you burn organic material is actually 20 times less harmful (as a greenhouse gas) than CH4 (Methane)...which is what enters the atmosphere when organic materials decay on their own...

Actually there are two kinds of composting. If you have a "heap" that is loosely packed and turned over frequently, it will decompose producing mostly CO2 because there is plenty of oxygen (aerobic). If it's densely packed and cut off from air (think of your average garbage dump) then the decomposition is anaerobic and you will get a lot of methane because of the lack of oxygen.

 

[Utopia Texas]

OP here again. My younger brother who has spent many hundreds of hours behind a wood chipper also added to the conversation that a pile of branches the size of a one story house might take 2 men days to run through a tractor driven chipper that has to run at full PTO speed. It would add up to a good amount of diesel fuel or gasoline depending on the size of the chipper. Our trailer mounted gasoline chipper is 22 HP and the diesel tractor driven chipper is 75 HP. Burning is obviously cheaper as far as labor and time and maybe better for the environment than burning fossil fuels for days on end by way of a engine.

 

[MossRoad]

OP here again. My younger brother who has spent many hundreds of hours behind a wood chipper also added to the conversation that a pile of branches the size of a one story house might take 2 men days to run through a tractor driven chipper that has to run at full PTO speed. It would add up to a good amount of diesel fuel or gasoline depending on the size of the chipper. Our trailer mounted gasoline chipper is 22 HP and the diesel tractor driven chipper is 75 HP. Burning is obviously cheaper as far as labor and time and maybe better for the environment than burning fossil fuels for days on end by way of a engine.

Exactly. Burn them. Its easier on the environment in the long run and easier on your wallet in the short run... win-win.

 

[houstonscott]

Global Sea Ice Breaks Record High For The Day – Antarctic Sea Ice Also Breaks Record High For the Day | Climate Depot

Carbon dioxide emissions help tropical rainforests grow faster: Study shows trees absorb more greenhouse gas than expected | Daily Mail Online

HS

 

[oldpilgrim]

Nature makes lightning. Lightning makes thousands of fires all over the world, daily. Fires make 'pollution' in the air.

If nature makes the lightning that makes the fires that make the 'pollution', how can it be called 'pollution'? Its part of the natural order of things.

On the other hand, nature makes the oil, which we then make into diesel fuel or gasoline, which we then burn and make the pollution...real pollution as it's not part of the natural order of things.

 

[Utopia Texas]

I wish your logic worked in all cases. I have friends who live in Tennessee coal country and they have told me of coal veins from deep caves that run up near the surface that have been burning/smoldering for hundreds if not thousands of years supposedly started by lightening. So is the coal burning by a act of nature not pollution because it is part of the natural order of things, and coal burned by man at electrical generating plants pollution? :confused3: