Carbon Neutral heating - or maybe not.

 

There are people in the world who believe that something can be done about global warming, they seriously think that even though the ice age ended itself without the assistance of Range Rover 4x4s that by buying their electricity from Green Southern Elec-Trickingyou Ltd they will save the planet.

Everyone is jumping on the band waggon, saying that their product will save the planet,  Dyson for example sell a vacuum cleaner that has no carbon brushes in the motor and  claim it "emits no carbon". Seems they miss the small point that the carbon dust sent out from electric motors is nothing to do with the carbon dioxide which has nothing to do with global warming.

 

Now even the local log company is trying to claim the green moral high ground. The advert at the top of this entry includes the line "providing you with carbon neutral heating". Really ?

 

Hold on, they are telling me that burning logs is carbon neutral. Using their logic you can say the same for coal and gas, oh and probably petrol too.

I bet their argument will be that the trees are from sustainable forests, oh yes that's it, still that doesn't negate the fact that when you burn a tree it releases carbon along with other pollutants. 

Ok ill be generous, if they give you a tree and then plant another then eventually the carbon you release will be taken back. No hold on, the tree would still only be carbon neutral if it was cut down by hand saw, then dragged to your door on the back of a donkey.

 

But it isn't, these logs are from Sweden where they will have been cut using a petrol saw, loaded using a diesel tractor taken by diesel truck to a drying kiln and probably dried using gas. Loaded onto a oil powered ship and brought to the UK where they go by road to the distribution yards and eventually delivered to your door on the back of a diesel pickup.

So exactly how carbon neutral is heating by logs?