How much carbon is in wood?
Excellent question.
🌳 How much carbon is in wood?
On average:
- Dry wood = about 45% to 50% carbon
- The rest is mostly oxygen and hydrogen (plus tiny minerals)
So if you dry a piece of wood completely, about half of its weight is carbon.
That carbon originally came from CO₂ in the air.
☀️ What happens to sunlight?
Sunlight is not stored as light.
It is converted into chemical energy.
During photosynthesis:
CO₂ + H₂O + sunlight → glucose (sugar) + O₂
The sunlight’s energy is:
- Captured by chlorophyll
- Used to rearrange atoms
- Stored inside chemical bonds of sugar
So the light itself disappears —
but its energy becomes stored inside the molecules.
Simple analogy
Sunlight is like electricity charging a battery.
You don't see electricity inside the battery.
But the battery now holds stored energy.
A tree is like a solar battery made of wood.
🌲 So is sunlight part of the tree’s body?
Not as light.
But its energy is trapped in chemical bonds.
When you burn wood:
- The stored chemical energy is released as heat and light.
- That energy originally came from the Sun.
So when wood burns, you're releasing ancient sunlight ☀️🔥
If you want, I can explain something even deeper — how Einstein’s equation relates to stored energy in wood.
