The amount of carbon dioxide released from coal and wood depends on the type of coal or wood consumed and the moisture contents of both. A very rough estimate is that for each unit of coal or wood consumed, 1.5 units of CO2 are released. Higher-grade coal has higher carbon content so the amount of CO2 released per unit mass would also be higher.
The major difference between the carbon released from burning coal and wood is that …
Woody biomass is an abundant and readily available resource that historically has not been used much except by forest products manufacturers as an internal energy source at their facilities, although many such manufacturers have also been able to produce excess electric power for sale to the grid. Whereas commercial-scale production of transportation fuels is still in early stages of development, technologies are already well-developed for producing heat and electricity from biomass in firing or co-firing in boilers and in gasification …
