HOMEPAGE

SOWing your seeds

UPDATE: BACK TO SCHOOL

Planting your trees

How a tree works

What can I do?

Teachers' notes

FILM: A Convenient Truth

SPOT your school

Stars for seeds

What Can I Do: Use wood for energy

Burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas is a one-way process – it releases the carbon that has been stored up underground for many millions of years into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide.

All of this extra carbon dioxide is linked to current climate change and global warming. But using trees as fuel can be truly sustainable.

If a tree is used as fuel then the stored carbon is returned to the atmosphere as CO2. As long as those trees that are cut down and used as fuel are replaced with new ones, either naturally or by good management, then the newly released CO2 is used up again.

The forest continues to be a big carbon storehouse, soaking up and storing harmful CO2 in an endless cycle. With careful management, we can use trees to provide heat and power and yet never harm this valuable resource or the atmosphere.

So, one of our oldest resources is perhaps the smartest one too. There is a wide choice of sophisticated wood burning equipment that offers a range of features, efficiency and convenience equal to the best fossil fuel fired systems. 

Timers, auto-ignition, automatic fuel feed, de-ashing and sophisticated building management systems all help to make using biomass as a primary heating fuel as straightforward as using oil, coal or gas.

Wood burning stoves and fires are increasing in popularity in the UK as more people realise the benefits of this cost-effective and low-carbon emission fuel.

The Carbon Cycle: How trees contribute to our atmosphere



Next step...

Now click on 'Use wood elsewhere' on the left of this page to learn about other things wood is used for.

Links

Biomass Energy Centre

Using woodfuel