Talk:Biomass (energy)

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Clayoquot (talk | contribs) at 17:37, 12 January 2023 (→‎Deleting the entire second half of the article?: more). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Neutrality/sources

I get that this was a student project page, but why do so may parts remain like an essay in defence of the industry rather than a direct presentation of the science?

Just in the intro "Heat production is more "climate friendly" than electricity production, and harder to replace with other renewable energy sources. Solid biofuel is more climate friendly than liquid biofuel. Replacing coal with biomass is more climate friendly than replacing natural gas."

None of those statements are sourced, presumably they are opening statements elaborated on later. However, there is no further explanation for the first statement in the body and it seems unclear - of course burning the wood for heat works better than burning it for electricity to run a heater, but using that as a basis for the claim that heat production is "harder" to replace for renewables is an assumption about the state of any given infrastructure used for heating rather than cost, efficiency, emissions intensity etc of fuels themselves. The latter statement is also unclear - replacing coal has the greatest impact, sure, but that's true for any renewable source because gas burns cleaner than coal - is the statement trying to subtly claim biomass is directly more 'climate friendly' than natural gas?

Similarly are claims like this throughout "if fossil fuel energy sources with higher emissions in the supply chain start to come online (e.g. because of fracking, or increased use of shale gas)". This is unreferenced and seems contradictory, fracking for coal seam or shale gas has created a global oversupply of natural gas which is a lower emission fuel than coal, and the opening statement implied biomass was more likely to displace coal than gas. The idea of displacement potential being greater if there is more to displace is inherent to the concept, it does not beget the claim that displacement WILL rise. On the contrary, natural and syngas from fossil fuels is in direct competition with biomass industries.

The term 'climate friendly' is strewn throughout, but that is not an IPCC term. If statements are based off of scientific research about GHG emissions, limit discussion to GHG accounting terminology. As it stands, the article deals only with carbon accounting rather than all GHG production. Mostly importantly, the article uses the term 'climate friendly' and user 'Perennial Hugger' constantly relates this term to IPCC frameworks, yet there is no single reference to the other half of IPCC climate accounting - LULUCF. The article makes references to some land use changes, but the same user seems to deny any additional land use discussions added from other users, despite them being related directly to the biomass industry. This page being 'biomass', not 'net carbon accounting comparisons of biomass with other energy forms and strictly nothing else', there seems to be huge tracts of discussion missing and a complete dissonance with the ecology biomass page. I understand the user perennial also hates information shared by activists. However, if the information is verified and relevant, the users feelings about it are themselves irrelevant. Perhaps an experienced editor could provide another perspective on contributions added by users that have apparently been removed.

Finally, the user who seems to claim authorship of this page, perennial hunger, should not omit a general criticism section at the end of the article of further academic discussions notable points - it is a standard on wiki pages. Given this industry practice relies on combustion of carbon materials and deforestation when not based in plantations, it seems outrageous to omit critiques that genuinely exist from environmental fields of academia. For example the article makes a single line mention of one of the biggest issues - consuming or replacing existing natural landscapes, "There is also a risk for negative impacts if areas with large amounts of biomass such as forests are clear-cut in order to make room for low-productivity forest plantations". Keith et. al. for have recent studies differentiating natural and plantation biomass, and there are plenty more globally- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139640 . The page has had much effort and order put into it by ph, but the authorial control seems now somewhat over-limiting for the page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.138.200.93 (talk) 17:15, 12 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hello 144.138.200.93, I agree that the page should be a direct presentation on the science, but unlike you I think that in fact it already is. To be exact, it is a presentation of the mainstream scientific view, largely put forth by the IPCC, IEA, IRENA, FAO and the JRC. Critics is given a lot of room also through the entire article, which incidentally is the reason why there is no specific criticism section at the end.
I have tried to clarify and justify the claims in the lead (e.g. "heat production is more climate friendly than electricity production"). These claims are meant to be short "abbreviations" of the discussion further down in the article, however being clearer about the their justification already in the lead is unproblematic I think.
I disagree that there is a lack of sources to back up the claims. As far as I can understand, all the sources you have asked for are already there. Maybe you didn't read the footnotes? If you read the article again (including footnotes) and then try to specify where there is a lack of sources, I'll be happy to locate them for you (or add them if something indeed is missing.)
The use of the term "climate-friendly" is first and foremost motivated by the need to deal with very technical language in a way the average reader can understand. But incidentally, the IPCC does actually use this term themselves, for instance in this document where it is used 11 times: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/12/ipcc_wg3_booklet_TAR.pdf
It is not correct that the article only deals with carbon accounting. However, there is a chapter about carbon accounting before the chapters where different biofuels are ranked according to their climate-friendlyness. This is to give the reader a chance to understand that the ranking depend very much on the carbon accounting methodology actually used. Since the researchers themselves are very critical to the highly varying results they produce (because of different methodology choices), it seemed fair to start the discussion with a chapter on carbon accounting methodologies. It gives the reader a chance to understand better.
Regarding LULUCF, it is correct that there is little content about indirect land use change, the reason is that the IPCC itself plays down its significance. See for instance the subchapter on spatial system boundaries for more about this, especially footnote bo and bp. (For instance, the IPCC writes: "At a global level of analysis, indirect effects are not relevant because all land-use emissions are direct. [...] Estimates of emissions from iLUC are inherently uncertain [...] There is low confidence in attribution of emissions from iLUC to bioenergy." (footnote bo))
Regarding the "dissonance" with the biomass ecology page: That page only deals with the mass and weight of biomass globally, and I don't see how this is relevant in a discussion about the climate effects of biomass use.
It is not correct that biomass use automatically lead to deforestation when the biomass is sourced from natural forests. This depends on whether or not the forestry practices in question are actually sustainable or not. There is a whole subchapter devoted to this discussion, see "Sustainable forestry and forest protection".
I disagree that critiques from environmental fields of academia is ignored. For instance, the tradeoff between climate mitigation and consumption of existing natural landscapes is discussed in the subchapter about biodiversity (at length in the footnotes). Again, what is given prominence here is the mainstream scientific view, after all this is an encyclopedic article. Individual research articles that are in opposition to the IPCC (like the one you llnked to) are of course valuable contributions to the scientific discussion, but in an encyclopedic article it simply seems wiser to focus on the conclusions from the mainstream climate research organizations.
The Perennial Hugger (talk) 10:52, 16 April 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hello 144.138.200.93, Were any of your attempts to improve the article reverted? Chidgk1 (talk) 17:49, 5 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Has an article name change already been discussed (recently)? And too long.

I find the title "biomass" rather odd for this article. Shouldn't it be rather "Energy from biomass" or "Biomass energy" or possibly "Bioenergy" (which redirects to here). In the same process, the article needs to be split off into sub-articles, it is way too long at present (a tag for this has already been added). I came to this article based on a comment by User:Levivich on the talk page of the climate change article here. EMsmile (talk) 23:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There was a short discussion on the title 10 years ago here. At the time, the suggestion was for biomass (energy) and to have a disambiguation page for biomass. Then 7 years ago this comment was made "This page lacks clear focus and seems to be trying to steer towards biomass energy and biofuels. Thus, calling it "Biomass" is misleading. [...] So, the title "Biomass" is too broad. It might be helpful to have separate pages/chapters on for example "Biomass for alternative energy", "Biomass for medicine", "Biomass for chemical feedstock", "Biomass for construction materials", etc. Not all biomass uses require conversion. For example, dried bamboo stems/trunks are widely used for scaffolding in Asia. Physical separation without conversion is also common; oil from oil seeds (not just food use either)" (see here); sadly, no further discussion on this proposal happened at the time, even though it made a lot of sense. EMsmile (talk) 23:09, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
also pinging User:Chidgk1, User:The Perennial Hugger and User:Michaelmalak. EMsmile (talk) 12:25, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the word "biomass" has different meanings in other contexts, but it actually seems that the most common meaning is the one related to energy. Try to google it, almost all hits are energy-related. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 12:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
In the industry where I used to work (wastewater treatment) we used biomass as a term not related to energy (see also activated sludge). Not sure if we were an exception. My second question is about the length of the article. It's far too long. Currently 110 kB (17511 words) "readable prose size", should be brought down to about 60 kB. See also WP:TOOBIG. EMsmile (talk) 12:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
As noted in the intro to the biomass article, the word biomass seem to be used interchangeably with biofuel many places. But possibly it is more common to use the word biofuel in the energy context in the U.S. (so I've heard.) But as I said if you google it you will see that "biomass" is almost exclusively used within the energy context generally on the web. Regarding article length, the guidelines you linked to also say that "There are times when a long or very long article is unavoidable". I agree that the article is long and have tried to think about what to remove, but find it hard to do so without reducing the quality of the discussion, because all the issues discussed are intimately connected to each other. For instance, the discussion about carbon accounting helps understand the various arguments in the CO2 debate. Both sides claim to be scientific, so it really helps if the basic scientific accounting principles are understood. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 13:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't yet investigated in detail but I am 95% sure that this article would benefit from being shortened. Most likely, there is content that could be moved to existing (or new) sub-articles. Even the main climate change article manages to stick to a length of 53 kb and there is really a lot that could be said about climate change... Compare also with the older version of climate change mitigation which was over 100 kB when I started. Now it's down to around 60 kB and much easier and better to read. See talk page discussion here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change_mitigation#Another_attempt_at_looking_for_ways_to_shorten_this_article. I plan to take a closer look at this article but before starting I wanted to see on the talk page here first what has been discussed in the past and if anyone feels strongly about the title and the current length. EMsmile (talk) 15:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
"In addition to electricity and fuels, biomass can be used to create valuable chemicals and materials, known as 'bioproducts.'" I'm wondering if "Biomass" is really just a dictionary definition, and the Wikipedia articles should be the existing articles "biofuel" (to which "bioenergy" should redirect but doesn't) and "bioproducts"? Maybe the page "Biomass" should be a disambiguation page that lists those others as was suggested years ago? Levivich (talk) 17:11, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
See above, it is common to use the term "biomass" in an energy context (maybe not so often in the U.S.) See also the lead in the article itself (especially the footnotes), many governmental bodies use the word "biomass" in this way, especially when they talk about solid biological matter used for energy. The word biofuel is often used for liquid or gaseous fuels, used for transportation. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 17:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, it's common to use the term biomass in an energy context, but it's not the only meaning or use of the term. Levivich (talk) 17:39, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you google it, you will se that the word is almost exclusively used within the energy context on the web. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 17:43, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but that doesn't change the fact that biomass is used for both bioenergy and other bioproducts. That there are far more sources about bioenergy than other bioproducts does not mean that "biomass" is a synonym for "bioenergy", nor that the Wikipedia article entitled "Biomass" should be entirely about bioenergy and not at all about bioproducts. The first sentence of this article, Biomass is plant-based material used as fuel to produce heat or electricity., is an incomplete description of what biomass is.

For example, a paper from a couple months ago lists some uses of biomass:

The microalgae biorefinery concept is based on oil refineries where biomass can be converted into several value-added products (Siddiki et al., 2022). The by-products generated have application in several fields such as food (Torres-Tiji et al., 2020), feed (Kusmayadi et al., 2021), human health and nutraceuticals (polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), carotenoids, vitamins, phytosterols or polyphenols (del Mondo et al., 2021, 2020; Mehariya et al., 2021; Sañé et al., 2021; Zhuang et al., 2022)), materials (biopolymers (Mal et al., 2022), natural dyes, organic fertilizers (Lorentz et al., 2020; Pereira et al., 2021; Silva et al., 2021)) and energy (biofuels such as biogas, biodiesel, bio-oil and biohydrogen (Li et al., 2022a, 2022b; Bianca Barros Marangon et al., 2021)).
— Calijuri, Maria Lúcia; Silva, Thiago Abrantes; Magalhães, Iara Barbosa; Pereira, Alexia Saleme Aona de Paula; Marangon, Bianca Barros; Assis, Letícia Rodrigues de; Lorentz, Juliana Ferreira (2022-10-01). "Bioproducts from microalgae biomass: Technology, sustainability, challenges and opportunities". Chemosphere. 305: 135508. doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2022.135508. ISSN 0045-6535.

According to that paper, the uses of biomass include food, medicine, materials, dyes, fertilizer... and energy. It seems to me that what we have at "Biomass (ecology)" is what should be at the title "Biomass", and what's currently at "Biomass" should be titled "Bioenergy" (which is currently a redirect to "Biomass"). Levivich (talk) 18:01, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
My argument is basically that an encyclopedia article should relate to how people actually talk. And when people say "biomass" they usually think of energy, not ecology or bioproducts (even if those meanings also come up from time to time). Googling the word biomass reveals this. Looking at Wikipedia's pageview statistics reveals the same, for instance yesterday there were 819 hits for the Biomass article, 174 for Biomass (ecology) and only 24 for Bioproducts. In other words, if we add content on ecology and bioproducts to the Biomass article, we will make it harder for people to find what is actually of interest to them. If people are interested in bioproducts, they search for bioproducts, not biomass, and when people are interested in biomass in the ecological context, they come to the Biomass page and find a link to the Biomass (ecology) page in the header. Seems fair, because most people are interested in the energy aspects of biomass.
https://pageviews.wmcloud.org/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&redirects=0&range=latest-30&pages=Biomass%7CBioproducts%7CBiomass_(ecology) The Perennial Hugger (talk) 18:16, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Your argument with the Google search results doesn't convince me, The Perennial Hugger. Maybe your search results are different to mine as there can be variations from country to country. In the country where I live in (Germany), a lot of the search results for "biomass" actually take me to pages that specifically have content about "biomass energy" (i.e. taking me to websites that talk about "biomass energy"). The ones that do talk about biomass more broadly often mention that biomass can be used for energy, fuel but also for bioproducts. I agree with the points made by Levivich. I think the article should be renamed to "Energy from biomass" or "bioenergy" (which redirects to here). Here's another argument: Take a look at the articles on renewable energy and sustainable energy. They both call it "bioenergy" and start with a sentence about what "biomass" is. The article on renewable energy then links to Main articles: Biomass, Biogas, and Biofuel which indicates to me that we have a messy situation. In short, I think the status quo is not OK. Especially not for an article that gets so many pageviews (around 800 per day). We need to make sure people who come to this page can easily find what they are looking for. We don't want to add to the general confusion on biomass vs. bioenergy vs. biofuel but explain it all very clearly. EMsmile (talk) 22:12, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I also don't think search engine results are helpful or informative, for the various reasons explained in WP:GOOGLE. More broadly, I think if Wikipedia has an article titled, "X", it should be about X, and not about what people usually think of when they think of "X". Just because biomass is usually associated with bioenergy doesn't mean that biomass is bioenergy. If people are typing in "biomass" and looking for "bioenergy" (which I am not convinced is actually happening), then that would suggest making Biomass a redirect to Bioenergy, rather than the other way around, which is how we have it currently. Some other points:
  • When I Google "biomass", the first thing I see is a definition, "1. the total quantity or weight of organisms in a given area or volume ... 2. organic matter used as a fuel, especially in a power station for the generation of electricity.". This suggests that the #1 usage, or primary usage, of the word "biomass" is still the "total organic mass" definition, with the biofuel definition being #2 (and, notably, not defining biofuel as being liquid or gaseous, although that is how it is defined elsewhere).
  • Britannica's page on "biomass" [1] starts with biomass, the weight or total quantity of living organisms of one animal or plant species (species biomass) or of all the species in a community (community biomass), commonly referred to a unit area or volume of habitat.
  • Science Direct's page on "biomass" [2] starts with Biomass (B) is a measurement of how much living tissue mass for a population is present at one instant in time (or averaged over several periods of time), and its units are mass (or energy) per unit area (e.g., g/m2)
  • There's a MDPI journal called Biomass [3], which lists its scope as including "Biomass feedstocks, Biomass conversion, Biomass valorization, Conversion of biomass-derived compounds, Biomass into biofuels and renewable chemicals in biorefineries, Bio-based materials for biorefineries, Renewable energy technologies of biomass": they cover bioenergy but it's not just bioenergy.
It seems like "biomass" is used by RSes to mean something different than bioenergy, not synonymous, so I don't think our article about bioenergy should be at the title "Biomass", as it is currently. Levivich (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Levivich, you write:
– "I also don't think search engine results are helpful or informative, for the various reasons explained in WP:GOOGLE. [...] When I Google "biomass", the first thing I see is a definition, "1. the total quantity or weight of organisms in a given area or volume ... 2. organic matter used as a fuel, especially in a power station for the generation of electricity." This suggests that the #1 usage, or primary usage, of the word "biomass" is still the "total organic mass" definition, with the biofuel definition being #2 "
For me it's the other way around, energy use comes in at the top of the page, and in addition 9 out of 10 hits on the first google search result page mentions biomass in the energy context. Anyway, your argument seems self-defeating. On the one hand you say google search results are unhelpful, on the other you still use them to back up your argument if they benefit your own case.
– "I think if Wikipedia has an article titled, "X", it should be about X, and not about what people usually think of when they think of "X". Just because biomass is usually associated with bioenergy doesn't mean that biomass is bioenergy."
The biomass article actually has some content about the substance energy is made from, but I agree, I should have been more clear. What I think actually happens is that people search for "biomass" and expect to find stuff about both the substance and the application, i.e. both mass and energy. The substance and the application has a relation and is connected to each other both in reality and in people's heads, and for some reason people has chosen the substance part of this "connected mass/energy unity" as its name (or at least its "short" name). You may argue that they should have used the application part (energy) to name the unity, but they did not do this. You may also argue that they should have divided the substance from the application, but they did not do this either. I agree that both of these arguments have merit, but I'm simply not as eager to correct the way people talk as you are. See below for more on how people, including scientists, actually talk.
– "Britannica's page on "biomass" [4] starts with “biomass, the weight or total quantity of living organisms”"
The Britannica page on biomass ends with this: "In a different though related sense, the term biomass refers to plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel."
– "There's a MDPI journal called Biomass [5], which lists its scope as including "Biomass feedstocks, Biomass conversion, Biomass valorization, Conversion of biomass-derived compounds, Biomass into biofuels and renewable chemicals in biorefineries, Bio-based materials for biorefineries, Renewable energy technologies of biomass": they cover bioenergy but it's not just bioenergy."
I agree with you that the word biomass can be used in other contexts than energy, but pleace notice that most of the words mentioned here belong to the energy context. Anyway, this example is just from one single journal.
– "Science Direct's page on "biomass" [6] starts with "Biomass (B) is a measurement of how much living tissue mass for a population is present at one instant in time (or averaged over several periods of time), and its units are mass (or energy) per unit area (e.g., g/m2).""
1.) This particular page consists of short abstracts from 10 scientific articles about biomass published in ecological or agricultural journals only. Still, only 3 of these articles is about the weight aspect, the rest is about energy.
2.) At ScienceDirect the search result for "biomass" presents you with 72 relevant journals or books for information about this subject. [7] None of them deals with the weight/ecology aspect however, a few deals with bioproducts but the vast majority deals with energy. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 16:31, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
And I just discovered that a very similar discussion took place on the talk page of bioenergy last year, see here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Bioenergy#Merge_proposal. The proposal by User:Femke at the time was: "I propose this article is merged with biomass under the name bioenergy. Biomass has three meanings; it's some jargon in ecology, it can refer to solid biomass (which is now under the name solid fuel), or it's used as a synonym for bioenergy. The current article on Wikipedia uses it as a synonym for bioenergy, and that's also how most of the incoming links to the biomass article use it (I corrected quite a few that were meant to link to the ecology term)." The merger took place (in Feb 2022) but the name stayed as "biomass". I see it was also user The Perennial Hugger who opposed the name change there, right? Question to User:Femke: would you still support a name change to "bioenergy" for this article or have you changed your mind in the meantime? Pinging also User:Clayoquot due to their knowledge on sustainable energy topics. EMsmile (talk) 22:18, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Given that this article is about the use of biomass and biomass-derived products for energy, I'd slightly prefer "Bioenergy" as the title. In the literature on energy, "biomass" is sometimes used to mean solid, relatively unrefined stuff. You would not generally call ethanol a form of biomass. When people say "biomass stove" they mean a stove that burns wood or cow dung or pellets, not a stove that burns biogas. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 22:31, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The September 2020 version of this article had Biomass is plant or animal material used for energy production (electricity or heat), or in various industrial processes as raw substance for a range of products as a first sentence, which seems more complete than the current first sentence, Biomass is plant-based material used as fuel to produce heat or electricity. The 2020 version of the article was also significantly shorter: 1,693 words of readable prose according to DYKCheck v. 17,511 words in the current version. Levivich (talk) 01:30, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that 2020 version of the article was before the content of the former "bioenergy" article was merged into it in Feb 2022 in this edit here. It was a bold move and perhaps the mop-up operation afterwards was overlooked. I'm not sure. EMsmile (talk) 00:14, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IPCC definitions for biomass and bioenergy

It might also help us to consider the definitions that the IPCC AR 6 WG III report uses (Annex VII). "Biomass = Organic material excluding the material that is fossilized or embedded in geological formations. Biomass may refer to the mass of organic matter in a specific area." Bioenergy is strangely not defined there on its own but like this: "Bioenergy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (BECCS) = Carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS) technology applied to a bioenergy facility". The IPCC AR 6 WG III report itself talks of bioelectricity which confuses me a bit (we don't have a Wikipedia article for that in that meaning, see bioelectricity). See for example the graph with the mitigation options in the summary for policy makers on page SPM-50. They have there bioelectricity just below solar power and wind power. I guess that is electricity generated from biomass. It's all a bit confusing. We need good clear Wikipedia articles for this... EMsmile (talk) 22:36, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, isn't "bio____" just "_____" from/for biomass? Bioplastic, biomaterials, bioproduct, biorefinery, biofuel, bioenergy, etc. "Biomass thing" == "Biothing". Levivich (talk) 22:50, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes yes but sometimes "bio" is just that undefined adjective that you can stick in front of a noun, just like "eco", and roughly meaning "green" or "environmentally friendly" (and not related to biomass). Like "bio chicken" is colloquially used for "organic chicken" so here bio is not inferring "biomass". Sometimes "bio" refers to "biological, like "biowarfare" for biological warfare. So I would say "it's complicated"... EMsmile (talk) 23:02, 21 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Good point, I guess it's really more that "____ from biomass" = "bio____", not necessarily the other way around. Levivich (talk) 01:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at the other hits for "biomass" in this document, you will see this word explicitely used in an energy context. I think IPCC's very short definition here is good however, biomass is really organic material (some of it can of course be combusted, as the rest of the document show), and the word may also refer to weight. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 16:45, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Reorganization

I appreciate the urge to "fix" the current meaning ambiguity concerning the words biomass, biofuel and bioenergy. However, the pros and cons of language clarification vs language use in its current form is an endless discussion. I think it will be more fruitful if we discuss the practicality of the issue: If we are to reorganize, how would you proceed? The most important thing here should be the reorganization's potential for increased understanding.

1. Make a disambiguation page for Biomass, with links to relevant articles below.

2. Rename the Biomass page to Bioenergy. I'm somewhat against this, because the current article actually contains a substantial amount of content on different biomass substances, and because these substances are the foundation for bioenergy. (There is also the fact that the word biomass is more commonly used for bioenergy than the word bioenergy itself, but let's not get into the language philosophy discussion.)

3. Split the current Biomass article into several articles. As it is now, the biomass article is about different types of biomass substances suited for energy conversion, their energy potential, different conversion routes, and consequences for the climate/environment. To include content on all these subjects in one article makes a lot of sense to me, because energy/climate is maybe the most important topic of our time. If we for instance are to split content about biomass as a substance vs the energy produced from this substance, each article will miss important parts, which will lead to poorer understanding of the issue, and also cause duplication of content down the line (when people add in the related but currently missing content.) As it were, this was the reason the bioenergy and biomass article was merged in the first place. The biofuel article currently focuses on liquid and gasueous fuels. In other words, this article is also based on the premise that "a word means whatever people in general think it means", even if this use overlaps with other uses and therefore adds to meaning confusion. This is how language generally works in real life, but as I said let's not get into that ;-) The Perennial Hugger (talk) 10:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

My preference would be:
  1. Move Biomass (ecology) to Biomass - this would be the article about the substance, biomass, "the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time." This article should then be expanded with a new section about uses or applications, which would summarize and link to articles like bioenergy, biofuel, and bioproducts.
  2. Move Biomass to Bioenergy and split it into multiple sub-articles. "Biofuel" is already one such sub-article. "Environmental impacts of bioenergy" might be another.
Biomass is the substance. Bioproducts, bioenergy, biofuel, etc., are the uses of the substance. The article about the substance is the natural parent article for all sub-articles about the uses of the substance. This is the same as it is with "Oil", which is the parent article to "Petroleum" and "Fuel oil" and "cooking oil". If you google "oil", most of the results are about petroleum (crude oil), but that doesn't mean we make the article title "Oil" into an article about petroleum. Oil is the substance; petroleum is a type of oil; fuel oil is an application of petroleum. It's the same with biomass, "woody biomass", and bioenergy, in my view. Levivich (talk) 16:44, 22 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I like your proposal, Levivich. I think this would work. It's also in-line/similar with earlier proposals made over the years. I am wondering if perhaps biomass energy is the better term than bioenergy but don't feel strongly about it. Google hits are 10 times more for bioenergy than for biomass energy so I guess it's the more common term for it. EMsmile (talk)
It is always somewhat tempting to put "everything" into the one article (which is what The Perennial Hugger talked about above). But I think this is not how Wikipedia really works. It's a web of smaller articles that all fit together like a giant puzzle or a web of information. We have to trust people that when the article branches off to the sub-article, the readers who are interested in that sub-topic will follow the link. A short summary can always remain which then points people to the sub-article. Have a look at climate change where the editors have done that extremely well and managed to keep the entire climate change article to just 51 kB. Biomass is currently 110 kB - about double the length than it should be. EMsmile (talk) 00:11, 23 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The Wikipedia pageview statistics indicate that the majority of readers want to read about the climate and energy implications of biomass (the portion of existing biomass substance that is suited for fuel use, described in the current Biomass article) and not about the weight of all biomass that exists (all living substance on the planet, described in the current Biomass (ecology) article). We know the readers want this because even though the Biomass article links directly to the Biomass (ecology) article in its header, and even though the Biomass (ecology) article appears in the drop-down menu on the front page of Wikipedia when you search for biomass, the Biomass (ecology) article only has ~20% of the pageviews the Biomass article has. I think this is not surprising at all, given the attention renewable energy has at the moment.
Directing all searches for "biomass" to the current Biomass (ecology) page would therefore confuse and slow down the majority of visitors. So this is not a practical solution.
The current solution, with a link to the article about weight at the top of the article about fuel-suited biomass substance (and its energy potential plus environmental consequences) is practical because the majority of readers immediately lands where they want. Of course, the minority that actually wanted information about biomass weight will likewise be confused and slowed down, but it is better that this happens to them than the majority.
But what about the overlapping meanings of the words biofuel, biomass, biogas and bioenergy? What are the options here? If we accept the premise that Wikipedia articles should teach people how to speak, rather than simply conform to the way people actually speak, and also if we accept the premise that the correct way to speak about biomass/biogas/biofuel/bioenergy is to split logically separate content into separate pages, we could for instance divide this content between 1.) substance, 2.) application and 3.) consequences for the climate/environment:
1.) Substance:
– Information about biomass weight in one article.
– Information about substances used for bioproducts in one article.
– Information about substances suited for fuel use in one article. This implies that most of the current Biofuel and Biogas articles would be merged with the content in the current Biomass article that focuses on suitable substances for solid fuels. Alternatively, these could be three different articles, with all of them only giving information about the different substances. (Liquids and gases are scientificallly speaking also mass, i.e. substance, even though most people don't talk that way, but of course the average reader's way of speaking should be ignored here.)
2.) Application:
– Information about the practical utility of bioproducts in one article.
– Information about the energy potential in solid, liquid and gaseuous biofuels in one article, or possibly in three different articles.
3.) Climate/Environment:
– Information about consequences of bioproducts use for the climate and for the environment in one article.
– Information about consequences of solid, liquid and gaseous biofuel use for the climate and for the environment in one article, or three articles.
I'm unsure where it is best to direct searches for "biomass", "biofuel" and "bioenergy". On the one hand, I think it is likely that most readers are here to find information about consequences for the climate/environment, as this question sits at the top of the political agenda. So if user friendliness is important, all those searches should be directed to the climate/environment article. I prefer this solution. On the other hand, one could also argue that we should accept the established meanings of those words, and send these searches to the energy article. Further, one could also argue that it is the substance that is the foundation for all, so the searches should be directed to the substance article. (In this case, the information about substances that can be used to make solid biofuels, liquid biofuels and biogas must be merged into one article.)
If we are to separate substance, application and consequence, we have to find support for this idea at the other relevant talk pages. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 16:37, 25 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I'm slowly coming out of vacation mode and hope to comment this week. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:26, 1 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that, for instance, "biomass as fuel use" be in one article and that "consequences of biomass fuel use for climate/environment" be in a separate article, with minimal overlap between them. This is not how Wikipedia organizes content. The article on biomass-as-fuel should cover all aspects of the topic, including consequences for climate/environment. We could also have a separate article that goes into more detail on the environmental impact of using biomass as fuel, but the main article on the topic of biomass-as-fuel needs to summarize its environmental issues. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 00:06, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Summarizing discussions-to-date on article title and merging

I'm going to make an involved, informal close of the discussions on this issue as it feels like things are ripe for closure. If anyone disagrees, feel free to request a second opinion at WP:Closure requests.

Based on this 2020 discussion on Talk:Bioenergy and the comments above, I believe there is a wp:rough consensus on the following:

  1. There should be one article, Bioenergy, that covers all aspects of all types of bioenergy (solid, liquid, and gas), including environment/climate aspects.
  2. There should be a disambiguation page for the many meanings of "Biomass". I have drafted one at Talk:Biomass/Proposed disambiguation page for Biomass. Edits there are welcome.
  3. It is very likely that a reader typing "Biomass" into the search bar wants to see a page about energy.
  4. If the reader types "Biomass" into the search bar, we don't know if they want to read about bioenergy in general or solid fuel bioenergy in particular. Therefore, the term "Biomass" should go to the disambiguation page. Consensus was less clear on this point than on the other points above. An alternative proposal, for which there was some support but not much discussion, was for "Biomass" to redirect to Bioenergy with a hatnote pointing to Biomass (disambiguation). There may be appetite for further discussion of this proposal.

To implement this consensus, I plan to:

I understand that a lot of work has been done on the Biomass page which should perhaps be copied into the Bioenergy page. Any editor is free to do this, however I have concerns and suggestions regarding the recently-added text that I will bring up in another section.

Courtesy ping to all those who have commented so far: @Femke, Chidgk1, Ita140188, EMsmile, 80.100.109.72, The Perennial Hugger, and Levivich:.

Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 01:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the 2020 discussion should be summarized together with the 2022 discussion as if they are one discussion. The 2020 discussion isn't really helpful to determine current consensus. I'm not sure I see any consensus in the 2022 discussion. Levivich (talk) 04:20, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding consensus: The close page seem to prefer that closure should be performed by non-involved editors/administrators. Also the wp:rough consensus page states that closure can only be performed by an non-involved administrator/editor, but I'm unsure of how authoritative that page is. Clayoquot (admiringly) admitted he/she is in fact involved.
I agree with Levivich that there is no consensus yet.
Regarding suggestion 1 (merge everything into a new Bioenergy page): 1.) I'm not in principle opposed to this but it requires a lot of work. 2.) The public clearly prefer the Biomass page over the Bioenergy page anyway. See previous discussion about this. Also, in January one year ago (just before Bioenergy visitors were automatically sent to the Biomass page), the Biomass page had 26000 pageviews, while the Bioenergy page only had 3500 pageviews. The public simply seem to prefer the term biomass over bioenergy when talking about these issues. So why send them to the Bioenergy page? To me, that simply doesn't make sense.
Regarding suggestion 2 (disambiguation page): Since the vast majority of readers searching for biomass and bioenergy seem to prefer the Biomass page, giving them a disambiguation page instead will simply slow them down, as they figure out which link to click. It seems more efficient to offer these links at the top of the current Biomass page, as only a small minority then have to go through extra steps. However these links could be presented in a more clear fashion.
Regarding suggestion 3 (the readers want to see content about energy): I agree, especially if climate consequences are intergrated into the same article.
Regarding suggestion 4 (disambiguation page): The current Biomass page already contains discussions about both topics; both solid fuel and the energy from it, and questions about bioenergy more generally. So it seems logical to send readers with those interests to the Biomass page. Also, as argued above; most people seem to want the Biomass page anyway, so why burden them with an extra step? The Perennial Hugger (talk) 11:52, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've struck the part in which I called my summary a "close". There is nothing wrong with a participant in a discussion summarizing things, but using the term "close" seems to have been distracting. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 18:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Clayoquot. I agree with your approach. As you're a very experienced editor in this area (both as a Wikipedia editor and also as a content expert on sustainable energy), I would be happy for you to take the lead and make those bold changes. I do feel that the discussion had reached a form of consensus (or maybe a stale mate). I feel that we were going round and round in circles because The Perennial Hugger is consistently arguing against changing the status quo (as far as I can see). I feel we might have to agree to disagree with each other on that one. I think you (The Perennial Hugger) need to understand that this page is too huge and complex as it currently stands. You wrote above above that you think "everything" ought to be in the same article: the material (biomass in the sense of mass) and its uses for energy. I think this is not how Wikipedia works in general. For comparison: I once argued that "sewage" and "sewage treatment" should be treated as one article but was convinced otherwise and we now have sewage and sewage treatment which do work quite well as two separate (but well integrated) articles. Same with wastewater and wastewater treatment. You could even argue (according to your logic) that "climate" needs to be fully explained in climate change. Instead we have climate and climate change as two separate articles. Therefore, I feel quite strongly that we ought to separate out "biomass" (the material) from "energy from biomass" (which we call, I guess, bioenergy. EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe the root problem is this edit which you made on 22 February where you redirected bioenergy to biomass. The proposal that User:Femke had made here in December 2020 was different to what you then implemented: "I propose this article is merged with biomass under the name bioenergy. Biomass has three meanings; it's some jargon in ecology, it can refer to solid biomass (which is now under the name solid fuel), or it's used as a synonym for bioenergy." EMsmile (talk) 12:37, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
EMsmile, please note that Clayoquot actually does not agree with your suggestion to split the content into separate topics. Clayoquot wrote (see above): "If I understand you correctly, you're suggesting that, for instance, "biomass as fuel use" be in one article and that "consequences of biomass fuel use for climate/environment" be in a separate article, with minimal overlap between them. This is not how Wikipedia organizes content. The article on biomass-as-fuel should cover all aspects of the topic, including consequences for climate/environment."
Regarding the earlier merge proposal by Femke, there was no consensus achieved, and no one opposed to my later suggestion to instead redirect the page to Biomass, on the grounds that most readers preferred the Biomass page anyway.
I don't really see the harm in a long article as long as the content is relevant and of high quality. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 13:04, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Clayoquot does agree with my suggestion: the points 1 and 2 by them are exactly what I would also favour. One article about energy, another about the material (and/or a disambiguation page). That other quote that you copied was referring to a different discussion.
I find it problematic that you still don't see the problem with an overly long article. Myself and others have given explanations above why the length is detrimental. I could repeat that but it probably wouldn't change your mind. I can just say, do take a look at the article climate change mitigation which was recently culled & condensed and is a lot better now. See also WP:TOOBIG. Current article size is 107 kB. The guideline says: "if over 100 kB: Almost certainly should be divided". EMsmile (talk) 14:49, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why is there a quotes and comments section?

I don't understand the section "Quotes and comments" in the references section. I've never seen it done like this before. Do we really need it? Seems overly complex. Is that a left over from a very old version of the article? EMsmile (talk) 14:26, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is there to provide additional information to interested readers. You basically hover with your mouse over the footnotes in the main text, and this additional content shows up. Since the article is long, the section is hidden by default, but you can open up the section if you will. I think it is a smart and efficient way to provide background information to the reader without cluttering up the main text. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've never seen it done like this before in any other Wikipedia article. Can you point me to a good article (WP:FA or WP:GA) where it's done like this as well? It does not seem encyclopedic to me. We're not trying to write a PhD thesis here. But perhaps I'm wrong and loads of other articles do it like this as well. EMsmile (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Footnotes with background information (including quotes and comments) is common in Wikipedia articles.
In case you are questioning the collapse functionality: I don't think other pages' use or non-use of this feature is relevant for any particular page, as each page has its own challenges it has to deal with. Here, the collapse functionality is used to hide the most complex discussion from view and thereby make the article shorter.
The collapse functionality is used on approximately 51000 pages. You can see an overview here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:WhatLinksHere/Template%3ACollapse%20top?hidelinks=1&hideimages=1 The Perennial Hugger (talk) 19:11, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Examples of FAs with notes sections would be Elizabeth I and Japan. - MrOllie (talk) 21:18, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@MrOllie: Japan has two notes. Elizabeth I has a few more. The difference here is one of scale. The notes section here is comically massive. The difference between this article and those FAs is one of scale. VQuakr (talk) 21:30, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@EMsmile: yes, the comments section needs to be trimmed by two orders of magnitude. It's a complete joke as of RN. VQuakr (talk) 22:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Why is the size an issue when it is hidden by default? As I see it, it only adds to the value of the article. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 22:53, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because an encyclopedia has value because it is curated. Excess information in an article has negative value. Collapsing it is no solution. VQuakr (talk) 23:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What is seen as exessive and what is seen as helpful/informative varies a lot, it depends on the readers' interest level and their mental capacities. Maybe we should start a poll, so people can vote? The Perennial Hugger (talk) 12:38, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's no need for a poll. Every other editor here sees the problem as obvious. VQuakr (talk) 17:30, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Discussion is continuing in this section: "Conversion of efn templates into sfn templates" EMsmile (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Too much detail on carbon accounting aspects?

Just reading over the section on climate impacts, it seems overly detailed to me and not really written in an encyclopedic summary style. More like an essay or a research paper. Its structure is also perhaps overly detailed and thus not following WP:DUE? I'm not sure. Note we have an article on carbon accounting. Wondering whether some of the content should rather be moved from here to there. Pinging User:Dtetta for comment as they have recently worked on the carbon accounting article. This is the current structure as per the table of content: 

3 Climate impact
3.1 Carbon accounting principles
3.2 Carbon accounting system boundaries
3.2.1 Temporal system boundaries
3.2.2 Spatial system boundaries
3.2.3 Efficiency-related system boundaries
3.2.4 Economic system boundaries
3.2.5 System boundary impacts
3.3 Climate impacts expressed as varying with time
3.3.1 Short carbon payback/parity times for forest residues
3.3.2 Long carbon payback/parity times for forest residues
3.3.3 Short carbon payback/parity times for stemwood
3.3.4 Long carbon payback/parity times for stemwood
3.4 Climate impacts expressed as static numbers
3.4.1 Static emission estimates for a number of bioenergy pathways
3.4.2 Static emission estimates for wood pellets
3.4.3 Static emission estimates for short rotation energy crops
3.5 Climate impacts from albedo and evapotranspiration

EMsmile (talk) 14:59, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

see below The Perennial Hugger (talk) 19:48, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The carbon accounting system boundaries chapter is important because it provides the reader with essential knowledge on how to assess various climate friendliness claims (which depend to a very large degree on various methodological choices made by the scientist). (Wikipedia's carbon accounting page does not provide anything of interest here, as it only concerns climate accounting at the policy level.)
However, maybe most readers still want to go straight to these claims, and wading through the System boundaries chapter can be challenging (as EMsmile argue). We could however collapse this chapter. In that way, the information is available for the most curious minds at its most logical place in the article, and at the same time possibly most readers can go straight to the results of the various climate accounting calculations. This will significantly shorten the article. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No this needs removal not collapsing. It doesn't belong in this article; we have Wikilinks for a reason. VQuakr (talk) 21:15, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@EMsmile: yes the section you mention is both way too long and too essay like. It needs a complete rewrite with intense pruning. Overall readable prose size is 107kB which is in "almost certainly needs to be divided territory per WP:TOOBIG but in this case editing is needed not a split. VQuakr (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You just went ahead and deleted the content on carbon accounting? Please understand that this discussion provides the reader with essential knowledge on how to assess various climate friendliness claims (which depend to a very large degree on various methodological choices made by the scientist). It belongs on the Biomass page, since the Biomass page discusses the climate consequences of using biomass as a fuel. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 20:51, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We write in summary style. The subject of this article is biomass, not carbon accounting. Hence the "main" tag. This isn't information that is going to survive the needed rewrite of the article. VQuakr (talk) 21:13, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The system boundaries chapter is already in summary style. I think you would appreciate this if you read it more thoroughly.
You see, a particular challenge with carbon accounting for biomass is that scientists come to very different results simply as a consequence of different methodological choices. EU's Joint Research Centre for instance write that the results basically depends on "modelling approaches and the assumptions about hypothetical futures", and that researchers "come to equally valid, but opposite answers depending on assumptions chosen." They also write that "Wide variation in published estimates of payback time for forest bioenergy systems reflects both inherent differences between these systems and different methodology choices [...]. Critical methodology decisions include the definition of spatial and temporal system boundaries [...] and reference (counterfactual) scenarios [...]. Misleading conclusions on the climate effects of forest bioenergy can be produced by studies that focus on emissions at the point of combustion, or consider only carbon balances of individual forest stands, or emphasize short-term mitigation contributions over long-term benefits, or disregard system-level interactions that influence the climate effects of forest bioenergy." A strong statement from the scientists that are most in the know!
There is more on this problem in the subchapter "System boundary impacts". To summarize, the point of the system boundaries chapter, and content about carbon accounting in general, is to give the reader tools to understand particular climate-related claims related to biomass use. Since the climate context is essential to the Biomass page, this information is very much on point. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 21:54, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The system boundaries chapter is already in summary style. funny. I think you would appreciate this if you read it more thoroughly. Also funny.
No, this isn't how we handle related subjects. We link to the relevant article. VQuakr (talk) 22:19, 4 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for pointing out that connection EMsmile. From a quick review, IMO a shortened version of this text does belong in the article, but in it’s current form it seems overly detailed. I would suggest that the Carbon accounting article is not a “Main article” for this particular text. If anything, the Project accounting subsection of that article would be more relevant in a “See also” kind of context. The Perennial hugger’s assessment makes sense to me in that the carbon accounting article as a whole is not very relevant to this discussion. Here you’re talking about one specific aspect/methodology within project accounting, which itself is one specific aspect of the general carbon accounting topic. So I don’t think it would make sense to move parts of this discussion to that article; doing so would over-emphasize this specific aspect in relationship to the other aspects of carbon accounting, and present WP:DUE issues there. I would suggest that you all think about simplifying/summarizing, look at some of the references and standards in the Carbon accounting/project accounting subsection, and try to ground this part of the biomass article a little more on those standards and methods. Greenhouse Gas Protocol’s Project standard discusses biomass, and VERRA has a Methodology for Fuel Switch to Renewable Biomass for Thermal Applications. Those might be a couple of good references. I will also look for ways to mention biomass accounting methods within the Project accounting subsection of the Carbon accounting article. Hope that helps. Dtetta (talk) 14:02, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO the entire section on "Climate impact" AND the section on "Environmental impact" AND the section on "The forest biomass debate" should be deleted and replaced by entirely new content derived from high-quality secondary sources. The current sections are not only too long and repetitive but more importantly, they are impenetrable and promote fringe points of view, such as the promotion of Miscanthus which is mentioned 52 times. Here's what the IPCC's latest report says on the climate impact of biofuels:

"The use of bioenergy can lead to either increased or reduced emissions, depending on the scale of deployment, conversion technology, fuel displaced, and how, and where, the biomass is produced (high confidence). {3.4}" (AR6 Mitigation of Climate Change Technical Summary p. 85)[8]

This, despite coming from a source that is rather notorious for being written in a technical style, is a heck of a lot easier to understand than the current mumbo jumbo, isn't it? The IEA and the US government have excellent source material on bioenergy that have Wikipedia-compatible licensing, i.e. we can copy from them with attribution:

The IPCC's quote indicates that "conversion technology" and "fuel displaced" are important factors in assessing the climate impact of bioenergy. Climate impact is not just about how you grow stuff; it's about what kind of fuel you can produce from it and how you convert it into that fuel. After (or before) we clean these sections up I expect we'll find that they belong in the Bioenergy article.

Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:27, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

– Regarding deletion of large sections and the introduction on new content based on secondary sources: The article already contain much content from secondary sources, including from the "high-quality" sources you suggest above (the EIA and the IEA.) Also, what is wrong with using primary sources?
– Regarding so-called fringe points of view: The miscanthus content was included in the biomass article because miscanthus is percieved as an "advanced" or "second-generation" type of feedstock. There is a growing trend towards the use of such feedstocks (short-rotation coppices being another) both among scientists and at the government level. For instance in the UK, the goverment wants to dramatically increase the growing and use of miscanthus for energy production since it has a much better environmental footprint than the more commonly used feedstocks. You can read about their descision here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1031057/biomass-policy-statement.pdf
– Regarding the current text as being "mumbo jumbo": Maybe we should let the readers decide this, in a poll of some sort? I see the text as clear and to the point. It goes straight to the real core of the issues, and provide the readers with the most common arguments on both sides of the debate. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 13:14, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The current text is far from being clear. The statement by User:Clayoquot of calling it "mumbo jumbo" actually hits the nail on the head (even if it's super painful for the editor(s) who wrote it). I am assuming that most of it was written by you, User:The Perennial Hugger (as per this stats page and this one)?
You asked about primary sources. This is explained here WP:SCIRS. I find it's explained particularly well by Wikiproject Medicine, see WP:MEDRS. Primary sources can on occasions be used but they are certainly not the "gold standard" for Wikipedia articles. Like I said above, we are not writing a PhD thesis here, where primary sources might be the preferred type of source.
I see a bit of an WP:Editwar was going on on 4 January between User:VQuakr and User:The Perennial Hugger. That's no good. Let's try not to do that. But is it possible that you User:The Perennial Hugger have a bit of ownership issues with this article (WP:OWN)? Would you be willing to rethink your approach and to take advice from more experienced editors, e.g. Clayuqot, VQuakr and Levivich (and possibly myself)? I am sure you mean well and you have a lot to contribute. It can be very frustrating when one's "baby" gets criticised. But rest assured that us other Wikipedians have a lot of Wikipedia editing experience as well. And when we say for example that 101 kB is too long for this article or that the content digresses too far from the core topic or that it goes into too much detail or that using so many quotes in the "notes" section is distracting then please take a moment to consider if perhaps there could be some truth in this. - Do you agree that the status quo of this article is not good and needs changing? - If wonder if one solution might be to move some of that overly detailed content about carbon accounting to a new sub-sub-article. So that it's not all deleted but still available somewhere. Not sure if that would be a workable solution. EMsmile (talk) 13:32, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
- Regarding primary sources: Thanks for the links. I think this sentence sums it up: "In general, scientific information in Wikipedia articles should be based on published, reliable secondary sources, or on widely cited tertiary and primary sources." I agree that content based on secondary sources from established and respected organizations like the IPCC, IEA, EIA, FAO, JRC are most optimal.
– Regarding ownership issues: Yes, I probably have some ownership issues. Over the years I have read literally hundreds of scientific articles about the promise and pitfalls of bioenergy and I have felt that sharing some of this info increased the "seriousness" or "professionality" of the article. So definitely a good thing. But it is also possible that all this reading could have influenced my writing style. I am honestly a little baffled that people find it hard to read, but I understand and respect that Wikipedia is based on a collective effort, so if everyone (that includes Administrators, which I understand has been notified) agree that it is too long or dense, I will not oppose their decision. In the case that the higher-ups actually decide that the article has to be split up or dramatically simplified/shortened, I will accept that of course but also think that there should be room for a new article more like the current one that allows for an in-depth discussion of the subject matter. That way, the especially interested type of readers will also be catered for. Given the complexity of the scientific discussion around biomass energy, and the relevance it has today, I predict that even a "complicated" article about this would generate a lot of interest. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 15:00, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@EMsmile, there is a useful tool called Who Wrote That? It's buggy on long articles but to the extent that it works, it confirms that The Perennial Hugger wrote the Climate Impact section. It also says that 95% of the entire article was written by The Perennial Hugger.
Regarding your suggestion to move some content to another article, I'd ask that this be done only by someone who has fully read and understood the content that they are moving, and who believes that it will improve the article that they're adding the content to. It should not be done just because we are too nice to firmly say no to something.
@The Perennial Hugger, the source you gave says We will establish the amount of land that could be used in the UK for perennial energy crop production and for short rotation forestry with miscanthus as an example of a perennial energy crop. It's a stretch to conclude from this that "the goverment wants to dramatically increase the growing and use of miscanthus for energy production" as you said. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:12, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Clayoquot Here is a more relevant and to the point quote: "Existing biomass support schemes [...] already support the use of perennial energy crops such as short rotation coppice and Miscanthus grown specifically for bioenergy purposes and as a material. However, only a small land area (~10,000 hectares) is cultivated with perennial energy crops in the UK at present, and this is mainly used for heat and electricity generation. Currently, there is little to no use of perennial energy crops for low carbon fuels supported under the RTFO due to a lack of commercial-scale processing capacities to convert these resources cost-efficiently into fuel. [...] The CCC's 6th Carbon Budget report highlighted the significant potential for perennial energy crops and SRF to contribute towards our carbon budget targets by increasing soil and biomass carbon stocks while also delivering other ecosystem benefits. In their balanced pathway, the CCC suggests that up to 708,000 hectares of land could be dedicated to energy crop production, which has led to an increased interest in the role of perennial energy crops and SRF as biomass feedstocks to deliver GHG savings in the land use and energy sectors."
So, the UK government's Climate Change Committee have concluded there is significant potential for increased use of perennial energy crops and therefore want to scale up production dramatically. Currently only 10000 hectares are used for perennials, but the CCC argue that up to 708000 hectares could be utilized for energy crop production. I think you have to face that calling the miscanthus content "fringe theory" was a blunder. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 20:21, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Clayoquot: It should not be done just because we are too nice to firmly say no to something. I think this hits the nail on the head. Being "nice" to the editor that generated all this text isn't kind when it results in them wasting what I'm guessing was rather a lot of time building an essay like this that is going to need to be mercilessly pared and edited. Maybe if that had been communicated more firmly up front it wouldn't have gone this overboard for so long. Then again they've ignored multiple editors telling them to stop so I can't feel too bad. I do agree that most of this content is headed to the bin not to another article. VQuakr (talk) 05:26, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@The Perennial Hugger: think that there should be room for a new article more like the current one that allows for an in-depth discussion of the subject matter. Sort of. This concept is discussed at WP:DETAIL. Biomass is a broad subject that exists at the intersection of ecology and renewable energy (probably with some other streets crossing as well). We would expect child articles like biodiesel to be more technically detailed than the parent. But all are articles are expected to be terse and succinct. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a collection of statistics or essays. VQuakr (talk) 05:52, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@The Perennial Hugger, the quote I gave that you consider less "relevant and to the point" than the quote you gave is the summary statement of the section containing the quote you gave. My quote and your quote are saying the same thing. And neither of them support your claim that "the goverment wants to dramatically increase the growing and use of miscanthus", because the UK's Climate Change Committee is not the government. It is an independent advisory body whose advice the government can take or ignore. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:48, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi User:Clayoquot, by the way thanks so much for the link to the useful tool called Who Wrote That?. I've installed it and it works. I've been missing such a tool for a while now so thanks for the tip!! EMsmile (talk) 13:45, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Requested move 5 January 2023

Biomass → Biomass (energy source) – Previous bold move was contested in 2019. There is no primary topic, and having this page here is confusing to those attempting to find Biomass (ecology). This page, Biomass should be a disambiguation page. VQuakr (talk) 18:26, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure about this proposed solution. Biomass (energy source) is the same thing as Biomass (ecology) is the same thing as "biomass". Biomass is a specific concept, it has a specific dictionary definition, it has a primary topic. Yes, it has multiple applications--the Fs: food, feed, fuel, fertilizer--but it's all biomass. I don't think we should have one article called "Biomass (energy source)" and another called "Biomass (ecology)". Those two articles should be titled "Bioenergy" (or "biofuel"--in fact, those two articles should probably be merged) and "Biomass", respectively. I don't think Biomass should be a disambiguation page. Rather, topics like bioenergy and bioproducts--which are applications of biomass--should simply be linked in the lead of Biomass where we explain various applications of biomass. I'm not sure this article needs to be moved at all, as opposed to the content being merged with bioenergy (and biofuel being merged in there, too), and the page Biomass (ecology) should then be moved to this title, Biomass. Compare blockchain and cryptocurrency: most people looking up blockchain might be looking for crypto, which is a specific application of blockchain, but we handle that by linking crypto in the lead of blockchain, not by making an article called "Blockchain (cryptocurrency)" which is about cryptocurrency and another article called "Blockchain (technology)" which is about the technology. There should be an article about the thing, and separate articles about the applications of the thing, and readers looking for information about specific applications should be guided there via links in the lead of the article about the thing itself (or via hatnotes). Levivich (talk) 22:39, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Levivich: in common usage, I think "biofuel" refers specifically to fluids, while biomass (from an energy perspective) refers to bulk solids that are combusted with relatively limited processing. That seems to be the separation as it currently exists in our articles now. We could merge this article, biomass with biomass (ecology) while either spinning out content to Biomass energy or merging with Biofuel? Spinning out to Biomass energy would make sense to me as an alternative, so I would say I support that option just as much as my proposed rename. VQuakr (talk) 23:03, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@VQuakr: I would say at the outset that both of these proposals, and Clayoquot's above, would be improvements to the status quo. So I don't oppose any of these proposals, but I'm not sure any of them are the ideal organization. What do you think of this topic/subtopic tree:
  1. Biomass - the total mass of living organisms
    1. Species biomass - the biomass of particular species
    2. Community biomass - the biomass of a particular community or habitat
    3. Bioproduct - products from biomass
      1. Bioenergy - bioproducts used for energy
        1. Biofuel - liquid bioenergy
          1. Biodiesel
        2. Biogas - gas bioenergy
        3. Pellet fuel - solid bioenergy
      2. Biochemical - chemicals from biomass
        1. Biopharmaceutical
      3. Biomaterial - materials from biomass
        1. Bioplastic
        2. Biochar
        3. Biofiber (not to be confused with BioFibre, a brand name)
Anyway, not a complete outline, but I think you get the idea: Biofuel is one type of Bioenergy, which is one type of Bioproduct, which is a product made from Biomass... and we name the articles accordingly? No disambiguation pages, and no parenthetical disambiguation, required. Levivich (talk) 23:43, 5 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I removed some plurals per WP:SINGULAR. Please let me know if you disagree and I will self-rv; some of these could be interpreted as classes of objects. Overall this seems like a logical tree. VQuakr (talk) 00:29, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No, I don't mind at all, thank you! Levivich (talk) 00:49, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm fine with Biomass being either a disambiguation page (see my draft here)or a Wikipedia:Broad-concept article as Levivich proposes. W.r.t the specific idea of a topic/subtopic tree, that tree could get big and tangled pretty fast (biomass growing fast, ha ha).
W.r.t. the idea of a Biomass (energy source) page, "biomass" is used in the context of energy with at least two meanings. It can mean a primary energy source, i.e. a feedstock that gets processed into more refined forms of bioenergy including liquids and gases. It can also mean a secondary energy source, i.e. solid (not liquid or gas) fuel that people burn for heat and light. One of the problems with the current Biomass article is that it confuses primary and secondary energy. E.g. the lead gives the impression that people commonly process wood into a fuel for transport; this just isn't done (it can be done in a lab but it's not economical at scale).
The issues around primary biomass energy and secondary biomass energy are quite different, especially when it comes to health (secondary biomass energy kills millions of people every year and primary biomass energy does not), so ideally they would be covered in separate articles, e.g. Biomass (primary energy resource) and Biomass (solid fuel). Overall I support the idea of moving this article even if it's not split, as it would be an improvement over the status quo. Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:14, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Trying to move forward: I think we should start off with creating "biomass" as a disambiguation page (see draft here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Biomass/Proposed_disambiguation_page_for_Biomass). This could later be "upgraded" into a broad topic article if we think that is helpful. Or it could be a bit of a hybrid like we did at climate action: that page looks like a disambiguation page but also like a stub. The advantage is that it can be wikilinked directly whereas disambiguation pages are not meant to be wikilinked. Another similar example is marine resources. EMsmile (talk) 09:44, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think we have these two options: Option 1: we rename the existing biomass article to "biomass (disambiguation)" and/or we cut it down to become that kind of short hybrid article like marine resources; and move all the current content to biomass (energy) or to bioenergy. Option 2: we rename the existing biomass article to biomass (energy) and create a new article called either biomass (disambiguation) or just "biomass" (to become that hybrid type article as per above). The two options are very similar but the difference is in the amount of work that would be required to fix up all the incoming wikilinks. EMsmile (talk) 09:44, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That makes sense to me. I think go with the option that is less work for incoming wikilinks. Levivich (talk) 14:16, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That would be Option 2 then (rename the existing biomass article to biomass (energy)). In a second step we'd have to figure out which content belongs to biomass (energy) and which to bioenergy; at the moment, they overlap a lot. Also, do you prefer biomass (disambiguation) or just "biomass" for the little overview article? It would be very similar to the draft here. EMsmile (talk) 18:35, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think just Biomass because WP:NCDAB says parentheticals are disfavored. I like the idea of the short WP:CONCEPTDAB like marine resources and climate action. Levivich (talk) 21:25, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That would also be my favourite. So to get that done, Step 1 would be to rename this article to biomass (energy) (mind you, we'd have parentheticals again in that case?). Should we rather make it biomass as energy source? Too long? Or biomass for energy production? The original move proposal had biomass (energy source). EMsmile (talk) 21:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The text of the article is mostly about climate impact and environmental impact of bioenergy (with some background about biomass used as energy, aka bioenergy), so how about "Environmental impact of bioenergy", which is currently a redirect here anyway? Levivich (talk) 06:28, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That article redirected here because of a bot fixing a double redirect after Bioenergy was redirected here against consensus. I've reverted the bot so that Environmental impact of bioenergy redirects to Bioenergy. We also have Environmental impact of biofuels which redirects to Issues relating to biofuels. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:45, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Just to make sure I understand what you're proposing: It sounds like you're proposing that a link to Biomass will bring the reader to a short article that 1) explains the concept and 2) contains a list of links to articles that cover in depth what the term "biomass" is used for. The initial version of this page would be the contents of Talk:Biomass/Proposed disambiguation page for Biomass, and it would not be tagged as a disambiguation page. Is that right?
I'm not sure what you mean by "move all the current content to biomass (energy) or to bioenergy." Do you mean we should do a WP:MOVE of the Biomass page to Biomass (energy) and then manually cut and paste some of the page content to Bioenergy? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:35, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi User:Clayoquot, yes that's exactly it. (maybe at a later stage when we rework the biomass (energy) and bioenergy articles we find out that indeed they could be just one article but initially I'd find it easier to get my head around this whole messy situation if they were separate). Once we move the current biomass page to biomass (energy) then it frees up the current "biomass" article to become the new short overview article based on your Talk:Biomass/Proposed disambiguation page for Biomass (and not tagged as a disambiguation page). EMsmile (talk) 10:03, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Off topic; this is a RM
@Clayoquot
– Regarding "confusion" between primary and secondary energy sources: The article already have this correct. Under the "Categories" headline it says: "Biomass is categorized either as biomass harvested directly for energy (primary biomass), or as residues and waste: (secondary biomass)." See footnotes for sources.
– Regarding confusion about wood fuel for transport, the lead says: "Some people use the terms biomass and biofuel interchangeably, while others consider biofuel to be a liquid or gaseous fuel used for transportation, as defined by government authorities in the US and EU. The European Union's Joint Research Centre defines solid biofuel as raw or processed organic matter of biological origin used for energy, such as firewood, wood chips, and wood pellets." Please explain more clearly why this text (or any other text in the lead) gives the impression that people use wood as a transport fuel.
– Regarding your claim that primary biomass is clean and secondary biomass dirty. This is incorrect. First, even the article you linked to lists both primary and secondary energy sources as dirty (wood, dry dung, coal, and kerosene). The article also explains that health issues stems from the use of traditional biomass which can be of both the primary and secondary kind. Let me quote the IEA: "In the NZE Scenario, bioenergy rapidly shifts to 100% sustainable sources of supply, and sustainable use. There is a complete phase-out of the traditional use of solid biomass for cooking, which is inefficient, often linked to deforestation, and whose pollution was responsible for 2.5 million premature deaths in 2020." Link: https://www.iea.org/articles/what-does-net-zero-emissions-by-2050-mean-for-bioenergy-and-land-use
Further, the IPCC says that a shift from traditional to modern bioenergy have large positive impacts on air quality. Link: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/sites/4/2019/11/09_Chapter-6.pdf (p. 628)
The reason traditional bioenergy is dirty is that there is no filtering going on and because people sits right next to the pollution source.
Sorry, but your recent comments give me reason to question your competence. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"Secondary biomass" is a totally different concept from biomass used as a secondary energy source. (See the diagram here for an explanation of the terms primary and secondary energy: https://stem.guide/topic/primary-resources-and-secondary-energy). I may have been unclear which concept I was referring to when I used the phrase "secondary biomass energy". Nowhere have I claimed that primary biomass is clean and secondary biomass is dirty. The practice of using biomass as a secondary energy source kills millions of people because the vast majority of the time, it's used in the traditional ways. There are ways to use biomass as a secondary energy source cleanly, but doing so is relatively uncommon at this time.
Regarding your question on the impression of using wood as a transport fuel, I have to head out to a meeting but I will answer when I can. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 21:41, 6 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
To answer your question on why the lead is misleading: As you know, the types of biomass that are burned for heat and electricity are different from the types of biomass used for producing transport fuels.
Almost every primary biomass source mentioned and re-mentioned in the lead is appropriate for heat/electricity and not for transport: wood, wood residues, energy crops, agricultural residues, and waste... firewood, wood chips, wood pellets... coppices or perennial energy crops, agricultural residues, and biological waste.
In the middle of the lead it talks about bioenergy used for transport. But nowhere in the lead does it say what the biomass that is processed into fuels for transport mostly comes from, which is food crops such as corn, sugar cane, and soy. A reader new to the topic would probably get the impression that the list of biomass sources in the lead is what is used in all of the applications of biomass-derived energy that are in the lead. Even if each individual statement is correct, juxtaposing statements about different topics leads to confusion. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 06:24, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Question for everyone: Instead of moving this page, I'd actually prefer to just replace its contents with a WP:CONCEPTDAB page. I don't see the point of having a (Biomass (energy source) page in addition to a Bioenergy page. Why have two articles? What would you expect to see in a (Biomass (energy source) page that you would not expect to see in Bioenergy? Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 07:10, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think of it as an interim step, as EMsmile says above, it allows work on a Biomass CONCEPTDAB to continue in parallel with work on the text currently at Biomass. To go through that much text and figure out what to merge, what to spin off, what to delete, etc., will take hours. By having two articles (three, actually: Biomass the CONCEPTDAB, Biomass (energy) or whatever we end up calling it, and Bioenergy), work on Biomass, and work on Biomass (energy)/Bioenergy, can proceed in parallel without having to wait for the latter before tackling the former (particularly given that the latter is much more work). Levivich (talk) 00:03, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone object to me closing this RM, summarizing our discussion as "we're going to boldly break everything, fix it, then discuss tweaks once the dust settles?" I view it as something of a formality at this point. VQuakr (talk) 00:12, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense to me, and that sounds like an excellent summary :-) Levivich (talk) 00:21, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Levivich and VQuakr. Reply to Clayoquot: I think it's useful to have three articles for a while, even if it's an interim thing, like Levivich explained. Also if we followed your suggestion of "I'd actually prefer to just replace its contents with a WP:CONCEPTDAB page" then it would create extra work to change all the incoming wikilinks: I am assuming (based on our previous discussions) that most of the incoming wikilinks want to go to "biomass energy"/bioenergy, not to a biomass overview page. EMsmile (talk) 09:22, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Miscanthus

Miscanthus × giganteus is mentioned 26 times in the article at the moment. I think this is 25 times too many. Thoughts? VQuakr (talk) 05:54, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well not sure if it's 25 times too many... but I guess this will be resolved once we seriously start the trimming, condensing and moving exercise. One would assume that miscanthus is covered in detail at energy crop (?) EMsmile (talk) 13:48, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The emphasis on miscanthus is a symptom of deeper problems: The article is biased towards covering species that are suitable for producing fuel pellets and is biased against covering the species that are used to produce transport fuels today, such as corn and palm oil. It's also heavily biased towards the energy needs of Europe and North America. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:35, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Administrator input

I was under the impression that Wikipedia administrators had been contacted in order for them to evaluate our discussion above. But nothing has happened yet, and VQuakr has already started to delete large sections of the article (specifically the references section). Clayoquot and VQuakr, it was you who noticed the administrators, please explain in clear language the process forward (sorry for the newbie question). I will respect the administrators descision, but I basically feel just as entitled as you guys to fight for my view if we hear nothing from them. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 13:14, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@The Perennial Hugger: administrators are janitors, albeit respected ones. They carry lots of keys but don't run the place. I don't think any pages need to be deleted or anyone needs to be blocked; those are the sorts of things admins are needed for. What specific action(s) are you hoping to have performed by one? VQuakr (talk) 20:45, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
VQuakr, you suggested to open a case at the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, which I agreed to do, but nothing has happened yet. Clayoquot, you issued discretionary sanctions notifications for climate change and fringe theories on my talk page. I understood both actions as a way to ask for input from Wikipedia administrators of some sort, which seemed like a helpful move to me (a competent outside look at the situation, what's not to like.) I think our situation is basically a disagreement of the form vs content type. Most of you argue that the article simply has the wrong form; it is too long, too essay like and too complicated, and VQuakr also seem to think that many of the references are unnecessary. My focus has always been the content; maximum information value. I have felt rather free regarding form, as one of Wikipedia's pillars is that there is no firm rules. So I was hoping an administrator could have a look at the article and said something to the effect that in this particular case, a different form is actually needed even though it mean reduced information value, I'm sorry but we have to make this content as simple to read as possible. Or the opposite, that keeping the existing information value was more important than changing its form (dumbing it down), possibly because it is such a complex and hot topic. Sadly, if it is true that no administrators are going to do something like that, I see no end to our conflict. I really believe we should prioritize high information value over easy to read material. That is, the lead should be easy to read, the main article should be thorough, and the references section should be collapsed and really large, really well developed, with lots of available information paths for the most interested readers.The Perennial Hugger (talk) 22:06, 7 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discretionary sanctions notifications are explicitly not a call for administrator attention. They are informational. I note that you already have received administrator feedback on your editing style at least twice, here and here, feedback that you argued with and subsequently deleted, which makes me wonder whether more feedback from an admin really would make any difference. Practically speaking, we already have clear consensus for cleanup from the various other editors that have weighed in here, and frankly any 3rd party editor is going to immediately see a need for cleanup as well. This isn't a border case so much as a WP:SNOW situation.
Yes, the guidelines at the manual of style are not hard rules (pillar 5), but understanding them is important to writing good articles (particularly if you want to generate substantial contributions less likely to be heavily edited by others later on). MOS:QUOTE, for example, implores us to use quotes sparingly. The same feedback those two admins gave you. Meanwhile pillar 1 reminds us that this is an encyclopedia (that is, a summary), and pillar 3 reminds us that our contributions will be "mercilessly edited" by others. VQuakr (talk) 03:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Personally I am not optimistic that dispute resolution will be useful here, because massive changes are such an obvious conclusion in this case. But I am absolutely willing to participate if others think it would be helpful. @Clayoquot, EMsmile, Dtetta, and Levivich: what are your thoughts here? Can you indicate if you are willing to participate in DR/mediation activities? VQuakr (talk) 03:33, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm responding here in my capacity as an experienced editor, not as an admin (I'm WP:involved in the topic matter, and admins are janitors who do not decide on article content). A clear consensus against the changes by TPH is evident from this discussion. On Wikipedia, we decide article content by WP:consensus, and dispute resolution is not that useful when there is a clear consensus. I would recommend TPH to WP:listen to fellow editors and drop the stick.
I very much agree with the current consensus: most readers do not spend a lot of time on Wikipedia and needs to be able to access information fast. Furthermore, most readers will not have sufficient background knowledge to read this article. I think WP:SCIRS summarises best how your editing style needs to change, TPH: Cite reviews, don't write them. —Femke 🐦 (talk) 10:29, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In the beginning, I did not know about which sources it was ok and not ok to copy from, but of course followed the advice from the admins when I heard from them. I felt embarrased about my mistake so deleted their response afterwards, sorry for that. As I understood it, their critique was centered on copyright, while the critique on quotes was that it was simply not necessary to use them. As you probably have grasped by now I personally feel that lengthy quotes are a wonderful tool when they just sit there quietly in the background, so I continued to use them. Thanks to the MOS:QUOTE link however, I understand now that only brief quotations are in fact acceptable. I would prefer Wikipedia to be more in line with my personal taste, but I'm not going to oppose such clear guidance. I also agree that in practice, there is agreement here that the page needs to be trimmed and easier to read, so I will now step back. Go ahead and re-organize all the relevant pages in the bio-space on Wikipedia. I will come back later with info I feel is missing, but write in a less dense style and only with brief quotations. Thanks for your later comments, which I feel have been more constructive than the earlier ones. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 11:37, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to all involved so far and to The Perennial Hugger for listening (WP:listen). I think we can now move forward and rework bioenergy and biomass, and end up with two great new articles that will greatly benefit all Wikipedia readers! Looking forward to it. EMsmile (talk) 13:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
What EMSmile said :) Cheers, Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 16:59, 8 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Conversion of efn templates into sfn templates

Sorry EMsmile I've had to undo you conversions from {{efn}} to {{sfn}} tempaltes. This isn't how sfn templates are meant to be used, see the templates documentation and the resulting errors type you were causing Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors. Specifically the sole purpose of a sfn template is to link with a full cite elsewhere in the article, using the |last= and |date= fields in the cite (or the |ref= field if necessary). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:20, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I know, it was work in progress. I was trying to find a way of getting this fixed up in an automated manner, rather than manually one by one. Can it be done in an automated manner? We want to delete the quotes but keep the refs that are inside of the footnotes. EMsmile (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Moving the earlier discussion to here: EMsmile (talk) 14:34, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi User:VQuakr: I've just reverted this edit of yours because (whilst I agree those quotes and comments were far too lengthy) I do worry that by taking out all the quotes and comments in one go you have also deleted the refs that were embedded in those "comments". I agree with you that we don't need the quotes and notes but we do need those in-line citations, don't you think? By deleting everything, this would create a lot of unsourced content. EMsmile (talk) 09:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@EMsmile: I mean, when WP:TNTing an article some stuff is going to get broken before it gets fixed. VQuakr (talk) 09:46, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but re-finding all the deleted in-line citations will be very cumbersome later, won't it? I'll me try to delete some of the quotes now and see how it looks then. EMsmile (talk) 11:59, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've now converted the notes into refs and corrected the formatting for the first few (the ref list is now temporarily messed up as a result). It's doable but it's very time consuming. So I wonder if I am on the right track here or if I am barking up the wrong tree. A whole-sale deletion would be faster, sure, but I want to keep any of the useful content with regards to in-line citation. What's the best way forward from here? Continue like I have done? Or is that a waste of time? EMsmile (talk) 12:42, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Hi ‎User:ActivelyDisinterested, I see you have reverted me. Can you please provide guidance on the fastest way of converting the refs that are inside of those notes into refs? That's what I was trying to do... i.e. to delete the quotes and text but to keep the refs that are inside of those footnotes. EMsmile (talk) 14:17, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I added a section below before I saw this comment. Short answe this isn't a correct use of the sfn template. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:21, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If you turn on the error messages for short form refs (details are in ten category Category:Harv and Sfn no-target errors, ask if you have any questions), then you will see your version was a sea of red error messages. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:24, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK I've done a couple of examples of how removing the notes while keeping the refs could work. In example one the inline note is replaced with a refname, and the ref is added to the reflist. This way means that any note that's re-used many times only has to be defined once. In the second example the inline is replaced with a direct link to cite using a {{sfn}} template. This is cleaner but each inline use of a note needs slightly more conversion. I'd suggest anyone doing the conversion turns on the error messages so they can check their work. Any questions just let me know. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 14:53, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks a lot, User:ActivelyDisinterested. I've tried to follow your first example but got myself into a knot. So it seems each one would have to be converted manually one by one. This is quite time consuming (especially for me because I keep getting confused). I might just leave it for now as we're probably going to cull and condense a lot of the content anyhow. This would then remove a lot of the notes anyway. We could can just convert the ones that actually remain manually. It must have taken the person who set this up originally ages to set this all up! EMsmile (talk) 17:41, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of the time it's easier to setup complicated referencing than it is to maintain it. I agree it's likely a better idea to cull content and then convert any notes that remain. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested ∆transmissions∆ °co-ords° 17:51, 9 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]


There seems to be some confusion regarding the correct way to delete or move content containing SFN and EFN-based footnotes. Here is how to do it correctly (use Source editing):


Footnotes based on the SFN (Shortened FootNotes) template consist of 2 pieces of text. The first piece is the SFN template itself, the second is its citation counterpart.

The SFN template is inserted into the main text, for instance {{sfn|EIA|2021a}}

This code tells the computer to go look for a citation further down below where the author is IEA and the date is 2021a. (The "a" is added to the year since there are two or more EIA citations from that particular year.) The computer then races towards the bottom of the article and finds this:

{{cite web | author=EIA | title=Biomass explained | website=U.S. Energy Information Administration | date=2021a | url=https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/?page=biomass_home | access-date=2021-11-02}}

The computer sees that the author is EIA and the date is 2021a, and is satisfied. It then generates the correct footnote.

If you want to delete SFN-based footnotes, you have to delete both pieces of text. Otherwise you will generate error messages. (Exception: If other footnotes uses that same citation, you should not delete it. If you actually delete it, the computer will generate an error message when you preview the result. Go back and reinstate the citation.)

If you want to copy a SFN-based footnote to another article, you have to put the SFN template into the main text, and its citation counterpart between {{refbegin}} and {{refend}} in the References section.


Footnotes based on the EFN (Explanatory FootNotes) template consists of 3 pieces of text. The first piece is the EFN template, the second is the note counterpart, the third is the citation counterpart.

The EFN template is inserted into the main text, for instance

{{efn|name=EIA-2021b}}

This code tells the computer to go look for its note counterpart, which has the name EIA-2021b (you choose this name yourself). Here it is:

{{efn|name=EIA-2021b|"Biofuels are transportation fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel that are made from biomass materials." {{harvnb|EIA|2021b}}.}}

The first part of the note (the quote) can now be generated. But it is not complete; we also need the citation. However, the last part of the note gives the computer the information it needs in this regard; it tells the computer that the author is EIA, and that the date is 2021b. The computer then looks further down the article to find a citation that matches these requirements, and finds this:

{{cite web | author=EIA | title=Biofuels explained | website=U.S. Energy Information Administration | date=2021b | url=https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/biofuels/ | access-date=2021-11-02}}

The computer here sees that the author is EIA and the date is 2021b, and is satisfied. It then generates the correct footnote.

If you want to delete EFN-based footnotes, you have to delete all the three pieces of text. Otherwise the computer will generate an error message. (Exception: If other footnotes use the same citation, you should not delete it. If you actually delete it, the computer will generate an error message. Go back and reinstate the citation.)

If you want to copy an EFN-based footnote to another article, you have to

1.) put the EFN template in the main text

2. put the note counterpart between

{{notelist|40em|refs=

and

}}

(Note that the 40em parameter above is not essential, it only tells the computer how wide the columns should become.)

3. put the citation counterpart between {{refbegin}} and {{refend}} in the References section.


If you are looking for the easiest way to edit and move content, consider NOT converting SFN and EFN-based footnotes manually to inline (that is, only one piece of text) REF-based footnotes. Inline REF-based footnotes can later be added at will, with SFN and EFN-based footnotes co-existing. If you keep the SFN and EFN-based footnotes, these footnotes will be presented in two layers like they are today, with the quote/comment first and citation second, but on the plus side you will not have to do any manual labor converting them. However, since they are presented in two layers, you might want to consider keeping just a tiny fraction of the quote or comment, what you consider the most essential part. In Source editing mode, it is super easy to delete the part of the footnote you find excessive. Just scroll down to the notelist and start editing. I have found that for big jobs, I work faster by simply copying the article code over to several text documents, which I work on at the same time. For instance when I work on EFN-based footnotes, I have one text document for the main text, one for the notelist, and one for the citations. That way, I save myself a lot of scrolling back and forth. When you are done, simply merge these three documents together. The Perennial Hugger (talk) 17:33, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]


Deleting the entire second half of the article?

In the talk page above, you User:Clayoquot said "IMHO the entire section on "Climate impact" AND the section on "Environmental impact" AND the section on "The forest biomass debate" should be deleted and replaced by entirely new content derived from high-quality secondary sources." I've taken another look at those sections now and am wondering if some of it could be rescued and moved to bioenergy. E.g. I've just moved the section about "local protests" to bioenergy as it seemed fairly OK. See this edit. But should all the rest really be wholesale deleted, is there nothing worth saving? I'm not an expert on this topic so will be guided by you. Some of it seems OK though, like the biomass forest debate section? This is actually what brought me here in the first place, based on a comment by User:Levivich on the talk page of climate change on burning wood and climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Climate_change#Burning_wood_and_climate_change . Or is the problem that culling, condensing and reworking is more time consuming than writing from scratch in this case? (I guess I am a bit inclusionist) EMsmile (talk) 10:57, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As written, the "forest biomass debate" section has a lot of issues that should be addressed before any portions are moved to Bioenergy. It is overdetailed for anywhere on WP. It is about a "debate" rather than the actual nominal topic of bioenergy from forest resources. It is written like an essay, evaluating and refuting points of view rather than simply stating those points of view in proportion to the RS as is required by WP:WEIGHT. Personally I think there is very little to salvage, but if you find it easier to salvage from the live version of the article than from the history I don't take exception to holding off a bit. VQuakr (talk) 18:00, 10 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I'm likely to take this article and all other bionergy articles off my watchlist soon because I'm getting burned out. Wikipedia has a lot of strong content in the topic area, e.g. in Issues relating to biofuels and Indirect land use change impacts of biofuels, that is worthy of being in more prominent articles. Wikipedia also some really bad misinformation in the topic area, and large quantities of moderately bad misinformation. For instance, the "local protests" section that you copied says "While bioenergy is generally agreed to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale, environmental activists argue..." This is moderately bad misinformation. The general agreement is that bioenergy can either mitigate or increase GHG emissions, and concern about local environmental impacts is also generally agreed-upon.
The only way to recognize and fix misinformation is to spend a significant amount of time engaging with high-quality, secondary, overview sources. Reorganizing and copyediting misinformation makes it worse, not better. I strongly recommend at least starting by rewriting from scratch because the problems in some of our existing content are so deep and also because there's so much excellent content out there in freely-licensed sources (IEA, US government, and Our World in Data) that we can copy and paste from. Then, with a structure in place, you can use the high-quality content we have in existing Wikipedia articles to expand sections within that structure. After someone has spent the necessary time reading the sources, writing it up is the easy part. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 15:55, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I hear your pain. Strange that the sub-articles, such as Issues relating to biofuels and Indirect land use change impacts of biofuels (I've never looked at them before) are better than the main articles on this topic. My plan is still to work through the previous work of The Perennial Hugger (like I have been this week) and to see if any of the content or refs can be salvaged. Some of the text - even if biased & repetitive & too detailed - does give an indication of what the issues are. Even if only 10% of the original text and refs remain in the end, I find it easier (with respect to my own personal working style) and more ethical than deleting it all without giving it a second thought. EMsmile (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I never had these two pages on my watchlist until recently. I do wonder how it could have been that The Perennial Hugger was left on their own to work on this for days, weeks and months and nobody stepped in earlier and said "stop, this is not encyclopedic". It's possible that they didn't listen back then. Or perhaps it just slipped through. Either way it's a shame that their time and energy wasn't directed/helped/corrected at an earlier stage in the process. I am not blaming this on anyone, it's just an observation and a feeling that makes me uneasy. EMsmile (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As an interim quick fix, I've changed the wording about the "local protests" section in the bioenergy article. EMsmile (talk) 17:04, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I see you did more than just retitle the "local protests" section - thanks for that, it really needed the deeper attention that you gave it just now. I appreciate and share your not wanting to hurt TPH's feelings and your dismay that we didn't address it sooner. I must emphasize that each editor is 100% responsible for the quality of content that they add to an article, even when someone else wrote it. If you aren't reasonably sure that something passes WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:NOR and WP:NOT but think it might be a useful addition to article x, you could add it to the Talk page of article x as a suggestion. Please change something about your work process, or else you're likely to add misinformation to articles again. Clayoquot (talk | contribs) 17:23, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Working on section forest biomass debate

I am going to try this method of work now: I'll copy here the text block that I plan to delete or drastically cull. If there is anything in here that needs to be salvaged it might be easier to do it this way. EMsmile (talk) 09:40, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've now finished the first round of cutting for the "forest biomass debate" section. I'll stop for today and see if others think this is a workable way of doing things? I could continue with "Climate impact" next (already I see a lot of overlap and repetition with text that was or is in the "forest biomass debate" section). EMsmile (talk) 10:46, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Smokestack emissions from forest biomass compared to coal

So I've just cut out this text: 

++++

Some researchers (e.g. the research group Chatham House) therefore argue that "[...] the use of woody biomass for energy will release higher levels of emissions than coal [...]."[1] Likewise, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences argues that for smaller scale utilities, with 32% conversion efficiency for coal, and 20-25% for biomass, coal emissions are 31% less than emissions from wood chips. The assumed moisture content for wood chips is 45%. Assumed moisture content for coal is not provided.[2]

Cowie et al. argue that stack emissions for biomass and coal is the same when biomass is co-fired with coal in large power plants, and that torrefied biomass has a higher conversion efficiency than low-rank coals.[a] Wood pellets combusted at Drax in the UK (the world's largest biomass power plant) have 7% moisture, and when combusted the plant has a higher conversion efficiency than what is average for coal plants in the UK (38.6 vs. 35.9%). Stack emissions were 2% higher than the UK average for coal in 2015.[b] When emissions from the wood pellet supply chain is included (the pellets are shipped to the UK from the USA), Drax claims that emissions are reduced by over 80%, compared to coal.[c]

Wood pellet mill in Germany.

The bioenergy consultant group FutureMetrics argue that wood pellets with 6% moisture content emits 22% less CO2 for the same amount of produced heat, compared to sub-bituminous coal with 15% moisture, when both fuels are combusted in facilities with the same conversion efficiency (here 37%).[d] Likewise, they state that "[...] dried wood at MC's [moisture content] below 20% have the same or less CO2 emission per MMBTU [million British thermal units] as most coal. Wood pellets at under 10% MC result in less CO2 emission than any coal under otherwise equal circumstances."[3] However, when raw wood chips are used instead (45% moisture content), this wood biomass emits 9% more CO2 than coal in general, for the same amount of produced heat.[3]

Sustainable forestry and forest protection

Also cut this text (sorry for the formatting, how can I force it to do line breaks better?): 

++++++ In the context of CO2 mitigation, the key measure regarding forest sustainability is the size of the forest carbon stock: "The core objective of all sustainable management programmes in production forests is to achieve a long-term balance between harvesting and regrowth. [...] [T]he practical effect of maintaining a balance between harvesting and regrowth is to keep long-term carbon stocks stable in managed forests."[4] The IPCC defines sustainable forestry in a similar manner, while including ecological, economic and social criteria.[e]

Globally, the forest carbon stock has decreased 0.9% and tree cover 4.2% between 1990 and 2020, according to FAO.[5] 

++++++++

Some researchers seem to want more than "just" sustainably managed forests; they want to realize the forests full carbon storage potential. For instance the EASAC writes: "There is a real danger that present policy over-emphasises the use of forests in energy production instead of increasing forest stocks for carbon storage."[6] Further, they argue that "[...] it is the older, longer-rotation forests and protected old-growth forests that exhibit the highest carbon stocks."[7] 

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In Europe, 25% of all forests are protected,[8] including 89% of the primary/old-growth forests.[9] The new version of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED II), introduced in 2021, extended its sustainability criteria from liquid biofuel production to also include solid (and gaseous biofuels), which is more likely to be produced from forest biomass.[f] 

++++++++

The IPCC writes: "When vegetation matures or when vegetation and soil carbon reservoirs reach saturation, the annual removal of CO2 from the atmosphere declines towards zero, while carbon stocks can be maintained (high confidence). However, accumulated carbon in vegetation and soils is at risk from future loss (or sink reversal) triggered by disturbances such as flood, drought, fire, or pest outbreaks, or future poor management (high confidence)."[10] 

++++++++

EU's Joint Research Centre write that the measured effects of harvest and replanting on soil carbon is "[...] slight in the short term, with carbon decreases concentrated in the forest floor and near the soil surface and carbon increases occurring in the deep mineral soil layers."[11] The JRC also argues that "[w]hole-tree harvesting for biomass production has little long-term effect on soil carbon stocks if surface soil layers containing organic material (O horizon) are left on site, nutrients are managed, and the site is allowed to regenerate [...]."[11] The IPCC state that the current scientific basis is not sufficient to provide soil carbon emission factors.[g] 

++++++

When put to work, this carbon moves from the forest carbon pool into forest products and energy carriers, then via combustion into the atmosphere, and then back to the forest via photosynthesis. For each roundtrip, it displaces more and more of the fossil fuel carbon that is normally used in heat production, industry production and electricity production. After some roundtrips, the amount of displaced carbon far exceeds the amount of locked-away carbon: "The biomass produced cumulatively across subsequent rotations can far exceed the biomass produced in the no-bioenergy scenario, thus constituting ‘additional biomass', delivering cumulative net GHG savings that exceed the GHG cost of forest carbon stock reduction [...]."[12] Said differently: "If the forest is allowed to continue to grow, biomass energy will be replaced with fossil fuels and wood products will be replaced with alternate materials."[13] Miner argue that "in the long term, using sustainably produced forest biomass as a substitute for carbon-intensive products and fossil fuels provides greater permanent reductions in atmospheric CO2 than preservation does."[14] 

+++++++++

The IPCC argues that sustainable forest management "[...] aimed at providing timber, fibre, biomass and non-timber resources can provide long-term livelihood for communities, reduce the risk of forest conversion to non-forest uses (settlement, crops, etc.), and maintain land productivity, thus reducing the risks of land degradation [...]."[15] The connection between economic opportunities in forestry and increased forest size is emphasized by other researchers as well.[h][i] However, Cowie et al. argue that in some situations, "[...] such as high latitudes where forest productivity is very low, greater abatement may result from retaining and enhancing forest carbon stocks than harvesting forests for wood products including bioenergy, especially if the GHG savings from bioenergy use are small [...]."[12] They also argue that forests that produce income for private forest owners are unlikely to be protected. When forest products are in demand and forests therefore are managed for timber production, the most realistic no-bioenergy scenario is not forest protection but continued timber production without residues collection and utilization. In this case, the residues will instead decay on their own or be incinerated, which in both cases produce emissions without any fossil fuel displacement effect. The most realistic no-bioenergy scenarios in case of low demand for forest products is land use change to natural forests (with increased risk for wildfires), or clear-cutting to prepare for agriculture or urbanization.[j] 

+++++++

In 2020, the forested area covered 39.8% of EU's total land area.[16] Likewise, North America produced 29% of the worlds pellets in 2019, while forest carbon stock increased from 136.6 to 140 Gt in the same period. Carbon stock decreased from 94.3 to 80.9 Gt in Africa, 45.8 to 41.5 Gt in South and Southeast Asia combined, 33.4 to 33.1 Gt in Oceania,[k] 5 to 4.1 Gt in Central America, and from 161.8 to 144.8 Gt in South America. Wood pellet production in these areas combined was 13.2% in 2019.[l] However, Chatham House argues that "[f]orest carbon stock levels may stay the same or increase for reasons entirely unconnected with use for energy."[17]

EMsmile (talk) 09:49, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sustainable forestry and forest protection

I also cut this text; if any of the content was to be kept it would have to be summarised; I am assuming that IPCC reports contain good summaries, so I left the para about the IPCC report finding in the article for now (but quote should be converted to own words): 

++++++++

Cowie et al. argue that "[...] a 10-year payback time as a criterion for identifying suitable mitigation options is inconsistent with the long-term temperature goal of the Paris Agreement, which requires that a balance between emission and removals is reached in the second half of this century [...]."[m] They also argue that emissions from bioenergy is fundamentally different from emissions from fossil fuels, since the former are circular and the latter linear.[n] Biomass is compatible with the current energy infrastructure, so it works today, while proposed alternatives with low emissions "[...] may be restricted by immature development, high cost or dependence on new infrastructure."[o]

Chatham House argues that there could be tipping points along the temperature scale where warming accelerates.[p] Cowie et al. argues that tipping points are an uncertainty, but a global tipping point seems unlikely "[...] if warming does not exceed 2°C [...]."[q] The IPCC argue that while there are "[...] arguments for the existence of regional tipping points, most notably in the Arctic [...]", there is "[...] no evidence for global-scale tipping points in any of the most comprehensive models evaluated to date in studies of climate evolution in the 21st century."[18]

An important presupposition for the "tree regrowth is too slow" argument is the view that carbon accounting should start when trees from particular, harvested forest stands are combusted, and not when the trees in those stands start to grow (see Temporal system boundaries, above.)[r] It is within this frame of thought it becomes possible to argue that the combustion event creates a carbon debt that has to be repaid through regrowth of the harvested stands.[s]

When instead assuming that carbon accounting should start when the trees start to grow, it becomes impossible to argue that the emitted carbon constitutes debt. FutureMetrics for instance argue that the harvested carbon is not a debt but "[...] a benefit that was earned by 30 years of management and growth [...]."[19] Likewise, Lamers & Junginger argue that owners of existing intensively managed, even-aged forests probably will consider the plantation establishment year as the logical start year for carbon accounting, and that harvesting redeems a carbon credit rather than creating a new debt. However, from a policy maker's perspective, [...] the main question is rather whether he/she should incentivize harvest for bioenergy or not."[20] In other words, "[...] what is important to climate policy is understanding the difference in future atmospheric GHG levels, with and without switching to woody biomass energy. Prior growth of the forest is irrelevant to the policy question [...]."[21] If this line of reasoning later is applied to new forest plantations planted on "empty" land areas as well (for instance agricultural or marginal lands), the onset of carbon accounting will shift from the planting event to the harvest event, for instance after the second rotation.

As mentioned in Spatial system boundaries above, some researchers limit their carbon accounting to particular forest stands, ignoring the carbon absorption that takes place in the rest of the forest.[t] Other researchers include the whole forest landscape when doing their carbon accounting. FutureMetrics for instance argues that the whole forest continually absorbs CO2 and therefore immediately compensates for the relatively small amounts of biomass that is combusted in biomass plants from day to day.[u] Likewise, IEA Bioenergy criticizes EASAC for ignoring the carbon absorption that is happening in the forest landscape, noting that there is no net loss of carbon if the annual harvest is smaller than the forest's annual growth.[v] EMsmile (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Roundwood and resiidues

I also cut this text; if any of the content was to be kept it would have to be summarised: 

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Stemwood is a type of roundwood; according to the JRC's definition the stem of the tree is cut at a height of 15 cm above ground, and extends in a straight manner up to a point where the diameter of the stem should be minimum 9 cm. See footnote for full definitions of roundwood, stemwood, fuelwood, salvage loggings, pulpwood and sawnwood.[w] 

+++++++

Chatham House argue that it would be better if some of the biomass defined as roundwood (most notably stems) was not harvested and used for wood pellets, as this would increase the growing carbon stock in the forest.[22] They also argue that "[...] trees that would not qualify as high-quality sawtimber could nevertheless be used for pulp, panels or laminated products."[23] In other words, it would be better if this low-value biomass was used as raw material for other products than for wood pellets, since carbon is stored for a longer period of time in the former case. Chatham House also argues that all available sawmill residue is already being used for pellet production, so there is no room for expansion. For the bioenergy sector to significantly expand in the future, more of the harvested pulpwood must go to pellet mills.[22]

Cowie et al. argue that approximately 20% "[...] roundwood (also referred to as stemwood), such as small stems from forest thinning [...]" is used for wood pellets in the USA. However, the use of stemwood from short-rotation forests have short parity times, and in long-rotation forests, the stemwood used for wood pellets usually consists of by-products from sawnwood production (thinnings or irregular/bent/damaged stem sections from larger trees.) Sawnwood production provides over 90% of foresters income and is the main reason forestry exist.[x][y] Without a market for the low-quality stem sections or thinnings, they would have been left in the forest to decay, or been incinerated at roadside. Cowie et al. also argue that using thinnings for bioenergy strengthens the carbon displacement effect of harvested wood products, since the thinning practice help produce more sawnwood.[z]

Likewise, FutureMetrics argues that it makes no sense for foresters to sell sawlog-quality roundwood to pellet mills, since they get a lot more money for this part of the tree from sawmills. Foresters make 80-90% of their income from sawlog-quality roundwood and only 10-15% from pulpwood, defined as a.) the upper part of the stem that is too thin or too bent to be used for sawnwood production, plus branches, and b.) tree thinnings. This low-value biomass is mainly sold to pulp mills for paper production, but in some cases also to pellet mills for pellet production.[24] Pellets are typically made from sawmill residues in areas where there are sawmills, but also from pulpwood in areas without sawmills.[aa]

Short-term vs long-term climate benefits

I also cut this text; if any of the content was to be kept it would have to be summarised: 

+++++++++++++

The National Association of University Forest Resources Programs recommends a time horizon of 100 years in order to produce a realistic assessment of cumulative emissions.[ab] 

+++++++++++++

According to Cowie et al., "[...] the perceived attractiveness of specific forest bioenergy options is influenced by the priority given to near-term versus longer term climate objectives."[25]

References

  1. ^ Chatham House 2017, p. 2.
  2. ^ Manomet 2010, p. 103-104.
  3. ^ a b FutureMetrics 2012, p. 2.
  4. ^ Miner 2010, p. 39–40.
  5. ^ FAO 2020, p. 16, 52.
  6. ^ EASAC 2017, p. 33.
  7. ^ EASAC 2017, p. 1.
  8. ^ EU Science Hub - European Commission 2021.
  9. ^ Sabatini et al. 2018, p. 1426.
  10. ^ IPCC 2019b, p. B.1.4.
  11. ^ a b JRC 2014, p. 49.
  12. ^ a b Cowie et al. 2021, p. 1217.
  13. ^ Schlamadinger & Marland 1996, p. 291.
  14. ^ Miner 2010, p. 39.
  15. ^ IPCC 2019a, p. 386.
  16. ^ Camia et al. 2021, pp. 32–33.
  17. ^ Chatham House 2017, p. 7.
  18. ^ IPCC 2013, p. 121.
  19. ^ FutureMetrics 2011a, p. 5.
  20. ^ Lamers & Junginger 2013, p. 374.
  21. ^ Gunn 2011.
  22. ^ a b Chatham House 2017, p. 19.
  23. ^ Chatham House 2017, pp. 19, 21–22.
  24. ^ FutureMetrics 2016, p. 5–9.
  25. ^ Cowie et al. 2021, p. 1222.

Culling from the section on environmental impacts

OK, I'll continue with some more culling today. This is what I have removed (Question: Should some of this text be moved to biofuel?): EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Surface power production densities

Removed content from this section: 

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The average human power consumption on ice-free land is 0.125 W/m2 (heat and electricity combined),[1] although rising to 20 W/m2 in urban and industrial areas.[2] 

++++++

When used for ethanol production, miscanthus plantations with a yield of 15 tonnes per hectare per year generate 0.40 W/m2.[3] Corn fields generate 0.26 W/m2 (yield 10 t/ha).[4] In Brazil sugarcane fields typically generate 0.41 W/m2.[4] Winter wheat (USA) generates 0.08 W/m2 and German wheat generates 0.30 W/m2.[5] When grown for jet fuel, soybean generates 0.06 W/m2, while palm oil generates 0.65 W/m2.[6] Jathropa grown on marginal land generate 0.20 W/m2.[6] When grown for biodiesel, rapeseed generate 0.12 W/m2 (EU average).[7] Liquid biofuel production require large energy inputs compared to solid biofuel production.[ac] When these inputs are compensated for (i.e. when used energy is subtracted from produced energy), power density drops further down: Rapeseed based biodiesel production in the Netherlands have the highest energy efficiency in the EU with an adjusted power density of 0.08 W/m2, while sugar beets based bioethanol produced in Spain have the lowest, at only 0.02 W/m2.[8]

Using solid biomass for energy purposes is more efficient than using liquids, as the whole plant can be utilized. For instance, corn plantations producing solid biomass for combustion generate more than double the amount of power per square metre compared to corn plantations producing for ethanol, when the yield is the same: 10 t/ha generates 0.60 W/m2 and 0.26 W/m2 respectively, without compensating for energy input.[9] It has been estimated that large-scale plantations with pines, acacias, poplars and willows in temperate regions achieve yields of 5–15 dry tonnes per hectare per year, which means a surface power production density of 0.30–0.90 W/m2.[10] For similarly large plantations, with eucalyptus, acacia, leucaena, pinus and dalbergia in tropical and subtropical regions, yields are typically 20–25 t/ha, which means a surface power production density of 1.20–1.50 W/m2. This yield put these plantations' power densities in-between the densities of wind and hydro.[10] In Brazil, the average yield for eucalyptus is 21 t/ha, but in Africa, India and Southeast Asia, typical eucalyptus yields are below 10 t/ha.[11] 

++++++++

Oven dry biomass in general, including wood, miscanthus[12] and napier[13] grass, have a calorific content of roughly 18 GJ/t.[14] When calculating power production per square metre, every t/ha of dry biomass yield increases a plantation's power production by 0.06 W/m2.[ad] As mentioned above, the world average for wind, hydro and solar power production is 1 W/m2, 3 W/m2 and 5 W/m2 respectively. In order to match these surface power densities, plantation yields must reach 17 t/ha, 50 t/ha and 83 t/ha for wind, hydro and solar respectively. This seems achievable for the tropical plantations mentioned above (yield 20–25 t/ha) and for elephant grasses, e.g. miscanthus (10–40 t/ha), and napier (15–80 t/ha), but unlikely for forest and many other types of biomass crops. To match the world average for biofuels (0.3 W/m2), plantations need to produce 5 tonnes of dry mass per hectare per year. When instead using the Van Zalk estimates for hydro, wind and solar (0.14, 1.84, and 6.63 W/m2 respectively), plantation yields must reach 2 t/ha, 31 t/ha and 111 t/ha in order to compete. Only the first two of those yields seem achievable, however. 

++++++

In the case of old combustion facilities, yields need to be adjusted to compensate for the amount of moisture in the biomass (evaporating moisture in order to reach the ignition point is wasted energy unless the resulting steam can be harnessed for energy).[ae] The moisture of biomass straw or bales varies with the surrounding air humidity and eventual pre-drying measures, while pellets have a standardized (ISO-defined) moisture content of below 10% (wood pellets) and below 15% (other pellets).[af] Likewise, for wind, hydro and solar, power line transmission losses amounts to roughly 8% globally and should be accounted for.[ag] If biomass is to be utilized for electricity production rather than heat production, yields has to be roughly tripled in order to compete with wind, hydro and solar, as the current heat to electricity conversion efficiency is only 30-40%.[15] When simply comparing the surface power production densities of biofuel, wind, hydro and solar, without regard for cost, this effectively pushes both hydro and solar power out of reach of even the highest yielding plantations, power density wise.[ah] EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Biodiversity

Removed content from this section: 

++++++

Other measures include "[...] careful feedstock selection, as different feedstocks can have radically different environmental trade-offs. For example, US studies have demonstrated that 2nd generation feedstocks grown in unfertilized land could provide benefits to biodiversity when compared to monocultural annual crops such as maize and soy that make extensive use of agrochemicals."[16] Miscanthus and switchgrass are examples of such crops.[17] 

+++++++++

Since biodiversity has been defined by the EU as an important policy goal, EU's Joint Research Centre has examined ways to ensure that increased use of bioenergy does not negatively effect biodiversity in European forests.[ai] Only bioenergy pathways that provides additional bioenergy resources compared to the existing forestry practices were considered, namely 1.) increased use of logging residues, 2.) afforestation of unused land areas and 3.) conversion of natural forests to more productive forest plantations.[aj] The authors divided the results into four categories, depending on their potential for climate and biodiversity mitigation: 1.) Win-win scenarios (green quadrant in the chart to the right) have positive consequences for both the climate and for biodiversity, 2.) win-lose scenarios (yellow quadrant) are trade-off scenarios with positive consequences for the climate but negative consequences for biodiversity, 3.) lose-win scenarios (yellow quadrant) are trade-off scenarios with negative consequences for the climate but positive consequences for biodiversity, and 4.) lose-lose scenarios (red quadrant) have negative consequences for both the climate and for biodiversity (see chart on the right.)

Long term, increased bioenergy may have a positive impact on biodiversity because "[...] climate change in itself is a major driver of biodiversity loss." However, this is hard to quantify, so as a conservative measure, the authors chose to only recommend bioenergy pathways with consequences for biodiversity seen as positive in the short term.[ak] The same goes for climate effects; only bioenergy pathways with positive short-term consequences were recommended (short-term is defined as a period of 0–20 years, medium-term 30–50 years, and long-term over 50 years.) The alternative scenario for all bioenergy scenarios was a fossil fuel mix ("fossil sources"), i.e. not coal exclusively.[18] No market effects were considered, so the results are only seen as valid for small-scale bioenergy deployment.[al] 

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Some of the negative consequences in the trade-off scenarios (yellow quadrants) can be minimized by implementing the RED II sustainability criteria, for instance no-go areas for biomass harvesting.[am] However, as the European forests age, the authors expect a moderate harvest level increase because of "forest age dynamics" and in order to avoid emissions caused by forest fires, pests and windstorms.[an] In general, scientists can describe the situation as they see it and provide policy options, but ultimately it should be up to the politicians to prioritize between climate and biodiversity mitigation in the trade-off scenarios because this prioritization is based on ethical value choices, not science.[ao] EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pollution

Removed content from this section: 

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A study of the giant brown haze that periodically covers large areas in South Asia determined that two thirds of it had been principally produced by residential cooking and agricultural burning, and one third by fossil-fuel burning.[19] EMsmile (talk) 09:29, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Smil 2015, p. 170.
  2. ^ Smil 2015, p. 2095 (kindle location).
  3. ^ Smil 2015, p. 91.
  4. ^ a b Smil 2015, p. 89.
  5. ^ Smil 2015, p. 228.
  6. ^ a b Smil 2015, p. 227.
  7. ^ Smil 2015, p. 90.
  8. ^ Smil 2015, p. 229.
  9. ^ Smil 2015, pp. 80, 89.
  10. ^ a b Smil 2015, p. 85.
  11. ^ Smil 2015, p. 86.
  12. ^ Schwarz 1993, p. 413.
  13. ^ Flores et al. 2012, p. 831.
  14. ^ Ghose 2011, p. 263.
  15. ^ van den Broek 1996, p. 271.
  16. ^ Gasparatos et al. 2017, p. 168.
  17. ^ Gasparatos et al. 2017, p. 173.
  18. ^ Camia et al. 2021, pp. 108, 144.
  19. ^ Gustafsson et al. 2009, pp. 495–498.

EMsmile (talk) 09:11, 12 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]


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