Forests: An Answer to Green Energy Cycling

How it feels like to live in a Thoma Holz100 home

We turn our back towards the sun
and mine coal in the mountains.
We turn our back towards the sun
and drill for oil
We turn our back toward the sun
and split atoms.
When will we turn around?
​
​- By Franz Gillinger

Nature is reaching out, let's take her hand. We can observe natural energy cycles where one day's energy production contains a multitude of what we spend in a whole year. Solar energy used straight from the collectors could cover about 70-80% of our residential energy demand for hot water and heating. With energy produced from wood, hydro and wind power, we could cover a large part of our total energy demand in the medium and long run. Despite this, even the energy supply in Europe still consists of approximately 75% of non-renewable energy like mineral oil, gas, and coal.

Planet earth became habitable millions of years ago when carbon from the atmosphere was absorbed and stored in forests which turned into the coal, oil, and gas we use today as energy. However, the way we use fossil fuels today reverses this process and if we don't change, this direction will lead us to an earth that is inhospitable.

Every day, nature re-grows millions of cubic meters of wood in the forests of our planet. Just in the tiny land of Austria itself where the Thoma Holz100 forests originate, every second grows one cubic meter of wood.

Every day, the sun evaporates unimaginable amounts of water from the oceans into the atmosphere. This water returns as rain and fills creeks, lakes and rivers which lead it back to the oceans. The sun's power also causes air movements. Winds and storms could run all the machinery of this world. And the sun rises every day, what more could we want?

What does it take for us to realize that our energy demand is tiny compared to these powerful natural processes? When will we recognize that nature's designs are the most economic and wholesome?

Once we understand how to tune into that huge natural energy current, we won't need to waste fossil fuels like oil, gas, coal and nuclear energy so that nature can re-establish the natural balance of our earth.

By the time trees have grown from a seedling to a gigantic old tree and broken down, they have had decades of working out rankings with each other to establish their social position in the forest hierarchy. Animals and the entire forest community has been protected and nourished by them. The trees also provide for their own existence by supplying leaves and pine needles to the forest grounds to produce enough mulch for the coming generations. Finally when the tree has fulfilled its need for procreation, it leaves the same way as it came. Old tree giants collapse, break down and enrich the soil with nutrients for the next generation in which they live on.

This process from tree to mulch is in perfect natural order and a very productive cycle. The sun's energy and the carbon dioxide which is absorbed by the tree is released back into the atmosphere, when the tree is rotting.

We wish for an exponential increase of solar and passive homes, made of of wood, hemp and many uses of natural materials for our future generations. Mothers buying toys and fathers building homes set this trend and their demands will reach the people responsible in the economic and politic echelons.

Let's make the most of this sacred cycle and live in harmony with nature. Conservation means appreciate and manage our forests appropriately in a loving and caring way.