Next year’s heating wood is stacked in large piles all around people’s houses. It’s drying out and becoming “seasoned.” Even in winter, the process of drying out and seasoning continues. Winter air is often quite dry, and winter wind can do much to dry out a pile of wood. Seasoned wood burns much easier than green wood. It’s easier to care for a fire made from seasoned wood, and there’s less creosote in the chimney, which means a lower chance of a chimney fire.
As I look at the piles of wood sitting everywhere in huge
drifts of snow and ice, I imagine how they will transform when they are
used. I imagine the warmth they will
give off when they burn. I think about
the snug feeling of heat, the glow of the fire, and the happy faces of the
people and the animals who sit around the fire.
But when you look at the wood in several feet of snow and ice, it’s hard
to believe it will give off such heat and light. Why isn’t it giving off the heat and light
now? Why does it sit there now in a
frozen and motionless lump? And how did
the potential for heat get stored in the wood in the first place?
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| Bioenergy. |
Green plants are amazing things. They transform solar energy into chemical
energy through photosynthesis. We can’t
do that. We have to rely on the plants
to do that, and they do it quite well.
When an animal or a human eats a plant, the chemical energy stored in
that plant is burned through the process of metabolism. The energy is then released and transferred
to the body to be used for its various processes. So the human body is obtaining solar energy in a second-hand form if it eats a plant and in a third-hand form if it
eats an animal.
Trees, being large green plants, transform solar energy into
chemical energy and store it in the wood.
This biomass is a renewable energy source based on the carbon cycle (as
opposed to fossil fuels). The combustion
of wood releases the hidden stored solar energy within it, and we experience
the heat. This actually comes from the
sun but is stored within the wood as chemical energy and released as
bioenergy. But it still comes from the
sun.
Everything we do under our own power takes energy, which we
get by consuming something, such as a plant that stored the sun’s energy
firsthand or an animal that received it secondhand by consuming a plant. But it still comes from the sun.
We’re all filled with the energy of the sun. Some of that energy is actively being used
right now. Most of it sits in silence
and waits. This pile of wood contains a
tremendous amount of potential heat, but only if it’s burned. That makes me wonder what’s hidden within us,
but only if it’s somehow released. Each
of us is filled to the brim with potential.
Whether or not we use it is another matter, but it’s there. How will you express the sun today?
