Carbon mitigation strategy uses wood for buildings first, bioenergy second

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.washington.edu/news/articles/carbon-mitigation-strategy-uses-wood-for-buildings-first-bioenergy-second

Nov. 9, 2011

Carbon mitigation strategy uses wood for buildings first, bioenergy second

By Sandra Hines
News and Information

Proposals to remove the carbon dioxide caused by burning fossil fuel from the atmosphere include letting commercially managed forests grow longer between harvests or not cutting them at all.

An http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/2/4/861/">article published in the journal Forests says, however, that Pacific Northwest trees grown and harvested sustainably, such as every 45 years, can both remove existing carbon dioxide from the air and help keep the gas from entering the atmosphere in the first place. That’s provided wood is used primarily for such things as building materials instead of cement and steel – which require more fossil fuels in their manufacture – and secondarily that wood wastes are used for biofuels to displace the use of fossil fuels.

“When it comes to keeping carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, it makes more sense to use trees to recycle as much carbon as we can and offset the burning of fossil fuel than it does to store carbon in standing forests and continuing burning fossil fuels,” said Bruce Lippke, University of Washington professor emeritus of forest resources.

Lippke is one of eight co-authors of the article in Forests. It is the first to comprehensively calculate using woody biomass for bioenergy in addition to using wood for long-lived products. The article focuses on the extra carbon savings that can be squeezed from harvesting trees if bioenergy is generated using wood not suitable for long-term building materials. Such wood can come from the branches and other debris left after harvesting, materials thinned from stands or from plantations of fast-growing trees like willow.

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[lumberjack_jeff]

1. Exactly.

The tragedy of NW forests is that monoculture forests in my area are harvested on a <30 year rotation. If those trees were allowed to reach maturity of 45-60 years, yields would improve, soils would be preserved and river habitat would recover.

Unfortunately, due to a number of factors, including wailing and teeth gnashing at the sight of "once-majestic kings of the forests" loaded in log trucks, sawmills that can handle big logs are now extinct.

When I was young, it was common to see "3 and 4 log loads" (only 3 or 4 logs would fit on the truck). Today, logs are <20" in diameter at the stump. 50 or more logs to a load - felled, limbed and bucked by one guy in a harvester.

A big log on a truck is not a tragedy. A bunch of small logs is.

Small clear cuts on a 60+ year rotation, accessed via ridgetop roads, with the waste removed by firewood gatherers are best for maximum BF yield, best for long term economics, least expensive (in terms of fuel required to harvest) best for habitat and best for the communities.

But in fairness, very little of the "waste" is actually wasted. "Junk trucks" (imagine very long dump trucks) leave very little in the way of limbs and stuff - it all becomes paper.

[kristopher]

2. +1