So Cal Gas Bill Increase?

@2:30 tell that to the State of CA. Newsom signed legislation requiring utilities to buy power from biomass power plants and our state has more biomass power plants than any other. https://biomassmagazine.com/articles/19354/new-california-law-promotes-the-continued-use-of-biomass-power and https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-california-a-push-grows-to-turn-dead-trees-into-biomass-energy

There seems to be a pervasive lack of understanding about how plants form wood and how wood decomposes. Plants use solar energy to absorb carbon from the CO2 in the air and turn it into wood. This stores the solar energy in the wood. Whether the wood decomposes, rots, gets eaten by termites, or burns in the next wildfire the energy stored in it is released and every molecule of CO2 that was absorbed in order to form the wood is returned to the air from which it came in the form of CO2. Therefore forests are carbon neutral. The living trees absorb CO2 and form wood, and the dead trees decompose or burn and release CO2 at the same rate it is absorbed by the living trees. Forests do not have some kind of magical power to pull CO2 out of the air and make it disappear from the earth. That’s not how chemistry works. Every molecule of CO2 must be accounted for in the formation and the decomposition of wood. This means that it makes no difference whether a dead tree falls over and gets eaten by termites in the forest or gets chopped up and burned in a fireplace. Either way, every molecule of CO2 that tree absorbed while it was alive will be returned to the air.

@2:30 / 32, you should probably tell that to the State of California, we have the most biomass power plants of any state and just last year Newsom signed legislation requiring electric companies to buy electricity from biomass plants. " Electricity is a byproduct of his biomass projects; “You do it for jobs, yes, but you do it for cleaner air, the ecosystem, and climate change benefits,”" https://e360.yale.edu/features/in-california-a-push-grows-to-turn-dead-trees-into-biomass-energy and https://biomassmagazine.com/articles/19354/new-california-law-promotes-the-continued-use-of-biomass-power

@2:21 then it should be easy to provide an example of my cherry picking on this thread.

@2:21, then an example in this thread of me cherry picking shouldn't be hard to provide.

6:36 AM -

Sorry, but burning wood just doesn't cut it, not to mention particulate pollution.

https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2014-4-july-august/ask-mr-green/what-greener-fireplace-choice

The good things you do have no bearing on the fact that burning wood adds CO2 to the atmosphere at a rate you can't mitigate by planting another tree.

@8:29
That's exactly what it means and exactly what you do - ignore facts that don't fit your narrative. It's your signature move, along with deflecting.

Point out something cherry picked @10:24. FYI, cherry picked doesn't mean facts you don't want to acknowledge.

@10:24, Let us sum some facts. Our electricity is 99% green/fossil free (primarily hydro). Our heat is green as stated, and we have a large wood fired kitchen stove/oven for cooking. We also have a gas stove, gasoline car, gasoline lawn mower and a chainsaw, but that is the extent of our fossil fuel use =Extremely low Carbon footprint. No cherry picking, just a very green, sustainable and affordable bottom line. Life is good.

I realize you're invested in what you're doing, so you want to ignore anything contrary, but the sum total of the facts disagrees with your conclusion. Just like VOR, cherry pick away and dodge around.

Stop falling for the Carbon shills; or JUST BE COLD! Wood IS a clean burning Carbon based fuel with proper forestry techniques. Fossil=Bad; Wood=Good.

@12:30 so in the meantime we should probably burn something to cook and warm our home that releases less C02 than burning wood, like nat gas, while also pushing reforestation efforts.

@12:30, You are wrong. Deforestation continues.THAT is the problem!!!! I agree that reforestation may not be able to offset the Carbon released by millions of years fossil fuel burn (coal, oil, gas), but it completely offsets wood heat, 100%. Sustainable permaculture rocks! We have never lived better or more affordably.

Agricultural/brush burning can also be used as a way to sequester Carbon. Rather than turning brush into ash and CO2, as is common globally, by utilizing pyrolytic (oxygen deprived combustion) combustion techniques, we convert our waste brush to bio-char. Bio-char has been used for thousands of years for better soil/crops and lasts many centuries in the soil, locking up the Carbon. Permaculture Rules! The solutions to many of our problems are far more simple than our complex societal minds would allow us to entertain. K.I.S.S. and learn from the old ways ;-)

Sorry for your rationalization, but reforestation cannot sequester the carbon fast enough to offset the output rate of CO2 from burning wood.

BS on your BS! You know naught. We've planted 100's of trees and are Carbon neutral with wood heat. I harvest Eucs at 4-5 years when about 8" at the base. They re-sprout and the cycle continues. We also plant many non-firewood trees in our reforestation efforts. Whether Nat gas or electricity from nat gas, that is unsustainable fossil Carbon release. Global reforestation is the answer, not going without.

BS. Carbon in the wood that has been sequestered for years is released as CO2 that persists in the atmosphere for much longer, and you would have to plant many small trees to make up for the CO2 removal capabilities of the mature tree you kill.

Heating with wood is Carbon neutral (Green) as long as trees are planted to replace the firewood burned. We grow our own heat in a sustainable cycle. Proper stove and fuel management makes for a clean burn with little smoke. We do not burn trash, only dry Eucalyptus.

@6:54 PM
There is no such thing as a "clean burning" carbon based fuel. Maybe cleaner than coal, but that's it. Stop falling for the carbon shills' greenwashing attempts and propaganda.

4:50, I think natural gas is the best choice for home heating because it’s clean burning and abundant. We need to produce more natural gas and improve our infrastructure so it becomes cost effective again. Firewood is also an excellent source of energy. Dead wood in forest lands is destined to burn when the next wildfire occurs. Why not harvest it and utilize its energy by burning it in a wood stove? This seems like an obvious win-win for the forest and those who use the wood. One could make a compelling argument that electric heaters would be economical and environmentally friendly if they were run on nuclear power, and that could well be a long term solution. However, implementing energy policies that choke off the supply of natural gas and squeeze the poor with higher energy bills because people think it will make the air colder is hypocritical and just plain crazy. China produced a record amount of coal in the last year (and burned it) and has been rapidly increasing its coal production. This is how China generates the energy to make a substantial portion of the products we buy, including solar panels. Shafting the poor with higher bills while buying low cost imported products built with coal power is just plain wrong. If you buy Chinese (coal) products, you have no right to criticize someone for burning firewood, garbage, or waste oil to take some of sting out of their heating bills.

CHIP OF SB: Burn wood, waste paper, waste oil. Yeah, why not? Who gives a rat's ass about air quality? Please step into the 21st century. It is a known fact that wood stoves and wood-burning fireplaces are inefficient heat sources and spew toxic particulate matter into the air. This includes waste oil:
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(source: thepublicsradio.org)
"When fossil fuels are burned, they release large amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into the air. Greenhouse gases trap heat in our atmosphere, causing global warming. "

Only a fact in the carbon shill world.

There is no FUD, coal is close but probably less because they can extract pure coal without having to heavily process it. I’ve said many times we need to cut coal before we reduce Nat gas. More than half of our C02 production has been realized by switching from coal to nag gas power production - nat gas has been instrumental in achieving the C02 reductions we’ve achieved, that is FACT not FUD.

Not as much as coal or tar sands. But, you knew that. Spread that FUD!

@5:51 how many metric tons of earth needs to be extracted and processed to create enough of the materials needed to make solar panels for a home, the electric car battery in the garage, vs. a years supply of natural gas for that same house?

4:54 - You say that despite the fact that carbon fuel mining/production/spills/effects kill far more birds that wind turbines ever will? And the fact that mitigations like painting the rotors/hubs and adding dazzlers and whistles to the rotors greatly reduce their interactions with birds? Get facts, not carbon propaganda.

Wind farms won't be "non environmentally devastating" until the "incidental" bird kill problem is solved.

BUFORD - I'd rather see a low pollution, non environmentally devastating wind farm than a bunch of dirty oil derricks in the desert.

Oh. Yes. Got my bill today and yes, it's double last month's.

SoCalGas's Gas commodity cost per therm: Dec. $1.053, Jan. $3.448

FERNALDPOINT93108: Agreed. It's crazy seeing one gas bill super high and the next one at about 1/5 of the former bill. Although I can't see how they're making any money "borrowing" from us. I have $1,000 in one savings account and I've made a whopping 6¢ interest on it in four months.

Fortunately they are investing this as SCE’s parent company also supplies SCE with the natural gas they buy. I doubt anything will come of it but at least it is raising red flags.

CAISO shows 62% of our load today being supplied by renewable energy. Maybe your bias made you swap stats.

Yeah, the cost per therm more than tripled.

VOICE - intentionally making a false statement. You know, like "no one is pushing back on expanding renewable energy."

What would you call it? A fib?

I don't think you know what the words "lying" and "lie" actually means.

"I meant no one here on EdHat, but you knew that…." - LOL that's STILL BS. Look at any comment by CHIP, SBLOCAL, COASTWATCH, etc.... Just stop lying. You were caught it another lie and now you're backpedaling.. again.