Carbon balance for wood production from sustainably managed forests

Regarding the second issue, we notice that some other authors of papers on bioenergy claim that biomass would not be “climate neutral” when used for energy as, for generation of a given energy amount, more fixed carbon is released from biomass than from fossil fuels. In our opinion, authors of these papers apply obsolete, too general or sometimes illogical default values. This Short Communication Paper suggests that emissions from combustion of forest biomass should be compared with emissions from coal as it is the most common and relevant fuel to replace. Also additional emissions from mining/harvesting, transport, leakage, etc. should be included both for biomass and for reference fuels like coal, gas, and oil. The comparison should also be based on state-of-the-art technology, which for biomass would mean i.a. flue-gas condensing and efficient fuel treatment. Under these conditions, typical biomass applications for energy would be both carbon neutral and climate neutral.