I would imagine it taking out plenty of minerals and nutrients from the soil though, needing constant fertilizer usage which comes with its own set of problems.
The minerals remain in the ashes. Other nutrients may be an issue, but for example when producing biogas, they’re essentially in the leftover parts of the plant. Biogas is mostly methane, so carbon and hydrogen.
Oh I see, thanks!
Re:Nuclear power is too slow
by throwaway4aday on Tuesday December 27, 2022 @02:09PM
(#34152459)
Isn't that an inaccurate simplification? A lot of harvested wood is not from tree plantations but from old(ish) growth forests. It also takes decades to regrow trees so the carbon capture is taking place over an extremely long time compared to the near instant release from burning the wood. Add to that the emissions from harvesting the trees using heavy equipment, transporting them, and processing them into pellets. Burning wood is also pretty inefficient when it comes to energy or heat production and it releases a lot of particulate matter. Of all the renewable options it's obviously the worst.
The problem correctly pointed out in the article is that often the replanting comes after the harvest, or does not effectively happen at all - at least for wood pellets.