Scotland cuts down 16M trees to build wind farms?
- Thread starter Ashful
- Start date
-
Active since 1995, Hearth.com is THE place on the internet for free information and advice about wood stoves, pellet stoves and other energy saving equipment.
We strive to provide opinions, articles, discussions and history related to Hearth Products and in a more general sense, energy issues.
We promote the EFFICIENT, RESPONSIBLE, CLEAN and SAFE use of all fuels, whether renewable or fossil.
- Status
Sure does, at least at first glance. It's certainly not helping the beauty or serenity of the landscape, tourism dollars, or wildlife. But I'm hoping someone is interested in doing the actual math on carbon trade-off. It involves more than just the trees themselves, but the wholesale change of the entire ecosystem they support.
17million whats a couple of million here or there.the tree huggers must be jumping of the cliffs of dover 
Here's the quick take.... the farm has a nameplate capacity of 8 GW. Assume 40% capacity factor or 3000 hrs/yr. That works our 24 TWh of electricity per year, or 24 billion kWh. In the US, 1 kWh emits about 0.3 kg CO2e, so that would correspond to 8 billion kg CO2e/yr or 8 million metric tonnes CO2e per year in reduced emissions, conservatively. (In reality, it would displace higher CO2 intensity generation.)
For 20 year service life, that is 160 million metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided, conservatively.
As for the trees, if they were chipped and landfilled, they would emit no CO2. If the forest were mature, it would not sequester any CO2 during its life.
If the trees are being burned, and not regrown, then they presumably release a couple MT of CO2e per tree, so 30 megatons total?
Looks like windfarm comes out ahead. and I'd just bury the trees.
For 20 year service life, that is 160 million metric tons of CO2 emissions avoided, conservatively.
As for the trees, if they were chipped and landfilled, they would emit no CO2. If the forest were mature, it would not sequester any CO2 during its life.
If the trees are being burned, and not regrown, then they presumably release a couple MT of CO2e per tree, so 30 megatons total?
Looks like windfarm comes out ahead. and I'd just bury the trees.
there having similar problem here,they want to build plants to make electric car batteries in quebec. enviromental cases don't want it .going to have to make a choice here destroy eco systems to save the planet or destroy eco system and leave as is.i love it
So what you're saying is, “Just get on with habitat destruction! To hell with those trees and animals that call it home!” That’s wild to me. I understand that getting rid of that much carbon is a good thing but at what point do we have to say that clear cutting entire forests for windfarms is bad for the overall health and ecosystems of the planet?
Could you help me understand how a mature forest doesn’t sequester C02 when plants and trees absorb C02 and release O2? It’s currently a big problem with farmers in Brazil clear cutting the Amazon, which is if I’m not mistaken, one of the largest CO2 absorbers on the planet absorbing almost 25% of the world’s CO2.
Could you help me understand how a mature forest doesn’t sequester C02 when plants and trees absorb C02 and release O2? It’s currently a big problem with farmers in Brazil clear cutting the Amazon, which is if I’m not mistaken, one of the largest CO2 absorbers on the planet absorbing almost 25% of the world’s CO2.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
Landfilled organic debris is a huge source of greenhouse gases....
In Africa, on the contrary, they designed the "Great Green Wall" a band of trees, against desertification
education.nationalgeographic.org
The Great Green Wall
The Great Green Wall initiative uses an integrated approach to restore a diversity of ecosystems in the North African landscape.
education.nationalgeographic.org
AsylumResident
Feeling the Heat
This is just wild. On it's face, I believe this to be a horrible idea for many reasons. I am definitely not an extremist for the environment, but I do believe in being responsible. I don't see how this is responsible.
The point being missed here is NUMBERS. If we have to kill 100 trees to save a million, then that is a no brainer. But without quantitation, the folks will say 'Killing 100 trees BAD'.
The land area of the earth is millions of square miles, and a square mile I would bet could hold a million (smallish) trees. So, climate change ha the potential to kill millions of millions of trees (e.g. by beetle kill). If we cut down a million trees to prevent that, is that a bad thing or a good thing?
The orginal webisite doesn't look 'fair and unbiased' to me. It looks like a wind hate aggregation site run by a bunch of amateurs. So the 16 million trees figure sounds like an estimate or a guess. I want to see more sources.
The land area of the earth is millions of square miles, and a square mile I would bet could hold a million (smallish) trees. So, climate change ha the potential to kill millions of millions of trees (e.g. by beetle kill). If we cut down a million trees to prevent that, is that a bad thing or a good thing?
The orginal webisite doesn't look 'fair and unbiased' to me. It looks like a wind hate aggregation site run by a bunch of amateurs. So the 16 million trees figure sounds like an estimate or a guess. I want to see more sources.
Yes, on the surface it sounds like some pretty poor planning, though the numbers reported for trees cleared are for the last 23 years. FWIW, they also report that the private wind farm companies are disturbing or digging up a reported hundreds of thousands of acres of peat bogs too.
I always thought of Scotland as pretty barren country for the most part, so these 'stats' surprised me. Looking it up, I see it should be noted that in the past 100 yrs. Scotland reports increasing forested land from around 5% to 18.5%. That's still way below the average for the rest of Europe but at least they are working on it.
www.gov.scot
I always thought of Scotland as pretty barren country for the most part, so these 'stats' surprised me. Looking it up, I see it should be noted that in the past 100 yrs. Scotland reports increasing forested land from around 5% to 18.5%. That's still way below the average for the rest of Europe but at least they are working on it.
Scotland's Forestry Strategy 2019–2029
Scottish Government's forestry strategy setting out a long-term framework for the expansion and sustainable management of Scotland's forests and woodland.
www.gov.scot
I would want a lot more details on the definition of trees. The US cuts down 25 to 30 million Christmas trees every year for a couple of weeks use. They might be 10 years old and grown as a crop but they are still trees. I have a couple of industrial windfarms near me in Northern NH and western Maine on ridgelines and the only trees that are cut are for the rather extensive road network they need to build to install and maintain them and space at the base to erect them. The ridgelines are dense fir and spruce with occasional dwarf birch. In a 10 foot patch there could easily be 400 small trees growing, so building those roads kills a lot of very small trees. The soils on ridgeline tends to be minimal at best and weather extremes means the there is not a lot of biomass sequestered. Take a look on google earth and the roads are just a minor portion of the wind farm with the majority of the forest intact. Its does create "edge" habitat, which many types of wildlife need. Go in the woods adjacent to these clearings 100 yards and downslope and you would not even know the roads are there, downslope is where the big old trees tend to grow.
EbS-P
Minister of Fire
once you realize that what your complaining about is finally getting done, you have to figure out something else to complain about
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
The point being missed is also:
one does not HAVE to kill millions (or "many") trees to generate renewable energy.
Especially in Scotland, where tree coverage is already not great - i.e. there is sufficient open area to build this without having to cut down so many trees.
Moreover, even if it is still advantageous for the environment to do so, it is better if one can avoid doing so.
I think ecosystem arguments are even more important, given the cut up pieces of nature in many countries. The less natural areas there are, the more impactful it is to cut one more piece out of the low-coverage patchwork of natural areas.
That may not be obvious to folks living in the US, but it is a BIG thing in Europe.
So no, it's not a no brainer. Avoiding damage to nature *even if that damage is defensible in terms of a (environmental benefit) return on investment being positive* is worth it these days.
I quite fundamentally disagree with your attitude regarding the worthiness of protecting natural areas.
You were wrong about the "Burying trees" (methane) and about the value of existing natural areas.
the only thing wrong with the replanting is you end up with a craapload of evergreens,no mixing of trees.or as the hotytoty call it biodiversity
So no one ever answered my question about all of the CO2 that forests use up and replace with O2, so that point still stands.
Mature hardwood forests take 100 years minimum to grow, with a full healthy forest taking hundreds of years.
This whole idea of destroying natural spaces for “progress and development ” has never and will never sit right with me. My home of state of New Jersey is called the garden state. Many farms are now building grounds for massive warehouses and forests are being clear cut for poorly built way overpriced housing. It is the most overcrowded state in the country and will soon be known as the endless suburban sprawl state.
Mature hardwood forests take 100 years minimum to grow, with a full healthy forest taking hundreds of years.
This whole idea of destroying natural spaces for “progress and development ” has never and will never sit right with me. My home of state of New Jersey is called the garden state. Many farms are now building grounds for massive warehouses and forests are being clear cut for poorly built way overpriced housing. It is the most overcrowded state in the country and will soon be known as the endless suburban sprawl state.
stoveliker
Minister of Fire
Decaying wood does release CO2, and it also releases methane which is far worse of a green house gas
Research on carbon release from decomposition of wood and paper products
www.dpi.nsw.gov.au
I'm happy to be wrong, but I was planning on collecting and burning the methane. I have seen people proposing this. Or charcoaling them and burying the charcoal.
AsylumResident
Feeling the Heat
Listen...ultimately none of this conversation matters. None of the numbers or science or facts matter. One of our wonderfully insightful and amazingly intelligent House of Representatives members, affectionately know as A.O.C., said in 2019 that we only have 12 years left before the world burns. So it doesn't matter. That clock has been ticking. We're down to 7 years now.
news.yahoo.com
Ocasio Cortez: ‘The World is Going to End In Twelve Years If We Don’t Address Climate Change’
“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?’” Ocasio-Cortez told interviewer Tanehisi Coates at an...
Last edited:
- Status
