Climate change in the Maine woods (CO2 sequestration)

[jpak]

http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/business/stories/070304climatechang.html

J.D. Irving Ltd. is Maine's largest private landowner, with 1.3 million acres in Aroostook County. Foresters manage its land primarily for spruce-fir sawlogs, as well as paper mill pulp and power plant fuel.

Now the Canadian-based company is exploring another potential value for those forests that could be worth millions of dollars -- carbon dioxide storage.

Irving is supporting carbon storage as part of plans to establish a Northeast regional program that would cap how much CO2 power plants can emit. To exceed the limits, plants could buy credits from landowners that manage trees in ways that store additional amounts of carbon.

That would give forest owners additional financial value from their land.
"The land will have all the same values for the company," said Bill Borland, Irving's director of environmental affairs. "But while we're growing for that, we'll be receiving credits each year for absorbing carbon."

<more>

[phantom power]

1. I don't mean to digress, but...

The largest land-owner in Maine is a Canadian company??

You hosers.

[jpak]

2. Hosers are from Ontario - Irving is NB

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

3. I guess I was biased by growing up closest to Ontario.

I used to paddle with a bunch of Canadians. Are you sure they aren't all hosers?

[jpak]

4. Maybe, but what about the Newfs????

:hide:

[phantom power]

6. It's also possible that only the hosers would paddle with me.

:evilgrin:

[phantom power]

5. Canadians aside, there is a thing about this biz-model that jabs me.

And that is: the actual "cap" on CO2 emissions that we really need is less than zero.

I would rather have CO2 scrubbing performed as a service in it's own right. The governments of the world pay companies to scrub CO2 and sequester it. Given the world's appetite for wood, I have bad feelings about the fate of tree-based sequestration.