Old Wood Is New Coal as Polluters Embrace Carbon-Eating Trees

Power companies are burning trees because they’re renewable and can be cheaper than coal. Wood needs no permit to release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.

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Using biomass for power and heat -- mainly from poplar, willow and pine trees -- grew by 25 percent during the past two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based adviser to 28 oil-consuming nations such as the U.S.

Industrialized nations got 4 percent of their energy from biomass in 2006, the most recent data available from the IEA. That was the equivalent of 151 million tons of oil.

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While forests blanket about a third of the planet’s land surface, they’re being harvested or burned at a rate that reduces tree cover by a Greece-sized area each year, sparking concern about whether replanting efforts will keep pace.

“There’s a strong limit to supply,” said Albrecht von Sydow, chief executive of Woodstone, a U.S. maker of wood pellets. Demand for the company’s pellets exceeds supply and this year’s production is already sold out, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=ardNIC7rNzQE

Many US forests, particularly those in the eastern US, were heavily depleted during the 19th century due to agricultural land clearing, logging and massive wildfires. The forest conservation policy framework that emerged after 1900 to address these concerns included efforts: (1) to promote and encourage the protection of forests and grasslands, regardless of their ownership, from wildfire; (2) to acquire scientific knowledge on the management of forests and wildlife and on the more efficient utilization of wood products; (3) to reserve remaining public lands for permanent use, management, and protection, e.g., national forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, etc., and (4) to improve the management and productivity of private forests and agricultural lands through research and technical and financial assistance to landowners.

The means for implementing this conservation strategy included public and private research and extension, establishment of professional forestry and natural resource colleges and universities, and a variety of public and private partnerships, e.g. cooperative fire protection involving federal, state and private entities, among others.

A snapshot of current conditions is as follows:

After two centuries of decline, the area of US forestland stabilized in about 1920 and has since increased slightly. The forest area of the US is about two-thirds what it was in 1600.
The area consumed by wildfire each year has fallen 90 percent; it was between eight and twenty million hectares (20-50 million acres) in the early 1900s and is between one and two million hectares (2-5 million acres) today.
Forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. By 1997 forest growth exceeded harvest by 42 percent and the volume of forest growth was 380 percent greater than it had been in 1920.
Nationally, the average standing wood volume per acre in US forests is about one-third greater today than in 1952; in the East, average volume per acre has almost doubled. About three-quarters of the volume increase is in broad leaved or deciduous trees.
Populations of many wildlife species have increased dramatically since 1900. But some species, especially some having specialized habitat conditions, remain the cause for concern.
Tree planting on all forestland rose dramatically after World War II, reaching record levels in the 1980s. Many private forestlands are now actively managed for tree growing and other values and uses.
Recreational use on national forests and other public and private forest lands has increased manyfold .
American society in the 20th century has changed from rural and agrarian to urban and industrialized. This has caused a shift in the mix of uses and values the public seeks from its forests (particularly its pubic forests). Increased demands for recreation and protection of biodiversity are driving forest management. This has caused timber harvest from federal lands to decline by more than 60 percent since 1990. In spite of this shift, today's urbanized nation is also placing record demands on its forests for timber production.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/x4995e.htm#P56_2748

Although forests have diminished globally over the past 400 years, forest cover has increased in some areas, including India in the last two decades. Aggregate time-series evidence on forest growth rates and income growth across countries and within India and a newly assembled data set that combines national household survey data, census data, and satellite images of land use in rural India at the village level over a 29-year period are used to explore the hypothesis that increases in the demand for forest products associated with income and population growth lead to forest growth.
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003355303321675464