Ok, wood comes from trees that got cut down, but is it actually a worse energy source environmentally-speaking than photovoltaic? While growing, trees provide food and habitat for wildlife, and require little maintenance to produce. PV solar, besides the environmental costs of producing the panels themselves, also depends typically on lead or lithium-based batteries, and all of the equipment needs to be replaced on a regular basis (5-10 years for batteries, 25 years for panels). Large-scale solar farms often occupy space that trees could instead, and I wonder whether the trees would be more efficient at capturing solar energy.

I'm sure improvements could be made in the forestry industry, but wood burning seems to be less of an environmental concern than burning fossil fuels, and is an economical source of heat in areas where wood is abundant.