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Burning wood is not ‘renewable energy,’ so why do policymakers pretend it is?
(news.mongabay.com)
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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Nomenclature about clean vs renewable aside, there's some county towns in Australia that'r absolutely disgusting at night in winter from the woodsmoke from all the houses. Sure electricity heating is less effective, but we've paid the carbon cost for that infrastructure and electricity production IS becoming greener.
Not that long ago in New Zealand we had a lot of the same.
In Christchurch (which is a sprawling, flat, and low-lying city), the combination of smog from widespread wood fireplaces plus old sodium street lights, when driving in from the outskirts at night you'd see a grotty orange-pink cloud hanging low over the city.
https://www.canterburystories.nz/collections/archives/star/prints/1992-1995/ccl-cs-4765
It's improved a lot, partly due to policy, although a fair bit due to the city being extensively damaged by an earthquake, and fireplaces (which had their brick chimneys destroyed) being replaced by heat pumps.