NH_Wood said:
Yup, burning the wood will release the same CO2 as if the tree were to decay,
I've read/heard this claim enough times to suspect it is, like many truisms, not true. Indeed, it is not:
(broken link removed to http://cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/news/473)
"Large amounts of carbon are stored in the trees and an even greater amount�80% of the total carbon in the boreal forest�is actually in the soils, stored as dead organic matter that results from decomposition." Simply put, not all the CO2 stored in a tree is released by biological decomposition. All of the CO2 is released by burning it, though. See also (broken link removed)
Burning wood for heat is said to be carbon neutral in virtue of the fact that the CO2 released is CO2 that was stored over the lilfe of the tree. True enough, but this is also true of fossil fuels -- the only difference is the time scale of the initial carbon sequestration.
It is also valuable to distinguish between a practice being 'carbon neutral' and a practice being mitigated by 'carbon offsetting'. Simply because a practice is mitigated by carbon offsetting (which is what I take to be happening when I cut a tree for fuel and allow another tree or trees to grow up in its place) does not make it carbon neutral. If this is carbon neutral, then so is burning fuel oil, NG or LPG as long as one plants trees. That is to say: if carbon offsets make a practice carbon neutral, then the whole issue of carbon neutrality reduces to carbon offsetting, and so (from the point of view of carbon neutrality),
any fuel-use practice is as good as any other, so long as you plant enough trees.
Interesting question, Fast4wood.