1. burning fossil fuel. Pulling carbon from within the earth and putting the CO2 in the air. 2. biomass burning. Burning Carbon that is above ground and putting in the air.
I think 1+2=bad, 2 by itself I don’t think is bad basically what the Native Americans used to do to maintain forests before Europeans. However, we don’t live in a world where we are just doing #2.
It could be worse, sure, but that’s not an excuse for not doing better.
I suppose you could use byproducts of selective logging where replanting is occurring and actively managed and maintained. Where I’m living there are forests that are quite well managed for lumber such that what’s removed will likely be replaced by the time logging occurs again. Using a similar practice for biomass plants could conceivably be called carbon neutral.
I have a feeling it wouldn’t generate nearly enough biomass conveniently or efficiently enough. I don’t know though. It must take incredible amounts of mass to generate useful amounts of energy.
If you burn biofuels you encourage people to clear-fell forests to grow biofuels, as happens in Indonesia and Brazil.
If you promote burning biofuels, you divert attention from cleaner alternatives (Solar PV, wind).
If you make a big deal about biofuels, you create the impression that nothing really has to change.
Biomass plants burn biomass instead of fossil fuels. We’re currently burning a lot of wood by-products from the Estonian lumber (timber?) industry.
I’m not big on the science, and I hope someone can put it better, but the arguing, as I understand it, goes something like: “the trees have absorbed CO2, so burning them is CO2 neutral”, but it’s not like burning wood stuff doesn’t release CO2.