Can we plant trees on a grand scale? Like we needed it to store information on? A forest beats a data center in your neighborhood.
this post was submitted on 13 Apr 2026
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Climate
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Yes, but not at the scale needed to offset the fossil fuel burning that's going on.
Actually making this work means removing land from agricultural production, for example by ending US burning of corn as ethanol blended with gasoline, or by a huge, society-wide rejection of meat-eating.
Proponents of such plants claim that burning wood is a climate-friendly alternative to burning coal, oil or natural gas because any greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning wood are later offset by newly planted, carbon-storing trees.
God I'm so fucking tired of these dumbass liberals. CARBON OFSETS ARE WORTHLESS SCAMS. All the calculations on how much we can emit to stay below 2° rely on existing carbon sinks remaining there. If you want to make offsets valid you have to consider every single source of carbon (animals, volcanos, etc.) and offset that too.
And my ass! Wonder how many offsets I need to buy to make up for chili.
*laugh track*
On a more serious note, is there any size data center that burning it down would put more carbon into the atmosphere than running it?
The problem is t people burning things occasionally.
The problem is single companies burning the output of a hundred thousand people on a daily basis. And cruise ships. Tankers. Oil wells. Planes. Ships. Etc
The commercial and industrial sector like to offload the burden to us to make us feel bad for leaving a light on and having a bonfire but maybe look at a coal power plant and the Las Vegas strip. Or the shipping and plane apps.
Wood pellets are exactly that kind of large industrial operation, with the pellets mostly shipped to power plants
Ah yes of course. I was thinking of home use pellets.
Yeah, so long as the number of home users does not rise, they can be ok. Most of the world getting off fossil fuels can't shift to wood
Not all ships are bad. There is a pretty cool 3 mast sailing ship around here from time to time.
Now I'm grumpy since I haven't had my morning coffee yet, but ...
At this point in my life, I feel approximately zero guilt for my consumption in day-to-day life. The fact that plastic recycling has turned out to be 'guilt-washing' intentionally marketed as effective when it is not, and that the fossil fuel industry is in fact planning to RAMP UP plastic production (to compensate for future lowered fossil fuel for vehicles), and the fact that most pollution (like 70%) is done by industry, not individuals...
Force the externalities back onto the CORPORATIONS. Make them pay for the lifecycle of their products, instead of telling us that we somehow are the problem. Make them pay for clear-cutting by making it so expensive that it's not viable compared to responsible managed forestry, with proper diverse tree-planting instead of monocultures. Fine them into oblivion if they clear an entire hillside, causing erosion and flooding.
Now I'm still going to recycle my plastic like a chump, because I'd feel bad if I didn't, but it won't make a difference. Nor will stopping use of wood pellets, since the vast majority of the damage is done by irresponsible logging by big corporations and our governments who won't lift a finger to stop them.
I'm going to recycle my plastic because my recycle bins are free but the garbage bin isn't.
This is sadly my answer somedays too. I do what I can, but accept that there is much I can't because of the Corporations and Government. If it means I use my horno to cook once a week, or even twice a week? Then so be it.
I feel ya. If I could I totally would have a fireplace or wood burning stove. May not use it all the time but its just so nice. Its a lot like eathing meat. I reduce as I can and would love to get to zero but its hard to let go.
I mean... It makes sense to use saw dust somehow. It's there as a byproduct, and it makes sense to use byproducts as much as possible. But I feel like there's ways we could use saw dust better than burning it. Technically you could call it carbon neutral to burn it thanks to iffy definitions. But you could make it a carbon sink, somehow. It's way past my bedtime atm, so excuse me if alternatives might sound stupid but here we go.
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in compost/soil mixture. It holds water better than a lot of materials, as a mix, you might even be able to grow something in soil that would normally be considered too sandy/dry.
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a mixture in plastics, so as not to use as much plastic, and although I'm sure there would be side effects, but it could be perfect for a few specific uses.
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swamp/mangrove protection. Ok by now I'm pulling this out of my ass. Like I said, it's far past my bedtime. But with loose soil, I feel like mixing in some saw dust would act as a binder, and slow erosion.
So I'm not a scientist or anything, but there has to be a better use of saw dust than fucking binding it and burning it. On one level, at least they're using it... I guess? But even being landfill, at least it would be a carbon sink, even if just a minor one.
The problem is that you can't supply power plants at any scale using waste sawdust. They clearcut to make pellets to feed the power plants
Oh shit, that's way worse! I thought they were using recycled saw dust! WTF?!? How could anyone think that's a good idea?!?
I'm a woodworker. I have a small hobby shop on the back of my property, looks like a garden shed from the outside, I produce 8 or 10 barrels of sawdust a year. That's probably enough to heat my house through the winter. It all goes to the dump. Here's why:
There's nobody who wants to work with me. There are places that make fuel pellets at industrial scale in my area, they want nothing to do with a guy bringing them 2 or 3 rubbermaid trash cans full of sawdust a few times a year, they want regularly scheduled semi truck delivery. There are farmers that have more modest sized hammer mills and extruders necessary for the job, but they don't want to take the time to run a tool for some guy. I could buy the tools myself, for several times what it cost to heat my house with gas for a year.
So who produces sawdust or other fine wood chips at industrial scale? Sawmills, but they often use their own sawdust to make particle board. Furniture factories maybe? The few remaining that don't mostly use particle board?
Edit to add: There is a source of kinda free wood matter: Branches. The structural or furniture lumber industries don't use limb wood; it's too unstable. Trunks grow roughly parallel to gravity, branches grow more or less perpendicular, so they have a tendency to warp when milled, plus they're smaller and just not worth trying to saw into boards. So they tend to get ground up for wood chips or paper pulp or whatever would be convenient to the business.
The basic answer is that when the power plant is far from the clearcuts, they can pretend it's being fed using waste sawdust. Been a big issue with the UK importing from North America.
Wow, that is depressing.
isn't it used in the compressed wood stuff?
If they are bad, why shouldn't be I as well?
I know, that's not right. Just feels a bit hopeless sometimes knowing the big corps still churn out bad stuff while we are told to be so eco-conscious...
Because by showing that living a better way is possible, you can help shift how society as a whole operates. It's not the only thing, but part of the story.