Want to limit carbon and curb wildfire? Create a market for small trees


Date:
December 13, 2021
Source:
University of California - Berkeley
Summary:
Thinning treatments reduce the risk of wildfire and provide
ecological benefits for California's forests, but they also
generate wood residues that are often burnt or left to decay,
releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A new analysis shows
how incentivizing industries that convert wood residues into useful
products -- including biofuels and construction-quality engineered
lumber -- could fund forest thinning treatments while preventing
the release of carbon.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Clearing California's forests of dense overgrowth is a critical first step
for curbing catastrophic wildfire in the state. But forest restoration
-- whether through prescribed burning or thinning -- comes at a high
price: Not only are these treatments costly, but cutting down or burning vegetation can release stored carbon dioxide, accelerating the impacts
of climate change.


==========================================================================
A new analysis by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, provides a roadmap for how the state can effectively reduce wildfire risk through forest thinning while continuing to limit its carbon emissions.

By creating a market for small diameter trees and other woody biomass -
- particularly by encouraging the use of long-lived "innovative wood
products," such as oriented strand board -- the state can both create
an economic incentive for effective forest management and prevent the
carbon stored in this vegetation from entering the atmosphere.

"It's hard to manage our forests without releasing carbon," said study
first author Bodie Cabiyo, a Ph.D. candidate in UC Berkeley's Energy
and Resources Group. "But if we're really efficient and careful about
how we are using the wood and invest in innovative wood products that
can use waste wood, then we can achieve both net carbon benefits and
wildfire mitigation benefits in California." In 2018, former California
Gov. Jerry Brown committed the state to achieving full carbon neutrality
by the year 2045, a goal that will require both reducing emissions and investing in carbon sinks, such as forests, that can remove existing
carbon from the atmosphere. Two years later, California and the U.S.

Forest Service jointly committed to managing a total of 1 million acres
of state forest land annually through thinning, prescribed burning and industrial harvesting -- treatments that could send some of that carbon
back into the air.

"Alot of people are pointing towards forests as a source of sucking
carbon out of the air and not adding carbon to the atmosphere," Cabiyo
said. "And while the goal to manage a million acres per year is fantastic
and absolutely necessary, the reality is that a million acres per year
will cost a lot of money to manage, and it's still unclear where that
money is going to come from." While data is limited on exactly how
much of the state's forests are currently managed, the researchers
estimate that it is currently much less than the 1 million acre-a-year
target. Their analysis shows that, with the right set of policies and incentives, the use of innovative wood products could provide both the
state and private landowners with necessary funding to expand forest
thinning treatments while still limiting carbon emissions.



========================================================================== "California has been on the forefront of both climate change mitigation
and adaptation," said study senior author Daniel Sanchez, an assistant cooperative extension specialist in UC Berkeley's Department of
Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. "We hope our study helps
align these two goals, showing how the state can meet both its emissions reduction goals and reduce wildfire hazard, while providing a framework
for managing temperate forests across the world while trying to meet
the needs of a changing climate." Burn piles the size of school buses
To create forests that are more resilient to severe wildfire, forest
managers usually focus on removing smaller trees and underbrush, leaving
many of the larger and more fire-resistant trees in place. However,
while larger trees can be harvested and sold to sawmills as timber,
the smaller wood residues produced by forest thinning have little market
value in California and are often burned or left to decay.

"If you drive through these forest treatment projects, you'll see
massive burn piles that can be over 20 feet tall -- the size of
multiple school buses -- and they're just sitting there waiting to
be combusted," Cabiyo said. "That's a lot of carbon that is going to
go back into the atmosphere." Small trees and woody residues aren't
useless, however. Industries in other parts of the world, including the southeastern U.S., create engineered lumber by mixing wood residues with adhesives and then compressing them into large sheets. This engineered
lumber is strong enough for construction, and many houses in California
are already built with imported engineered wood, Sanchez said.



========================================================================== Woody residues can also be converted in biofuel plants to create
electricity or liquid fuels, and if these plants are outfitted with
carbon capture technology, this energy can be produced while removing
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"When it comes to carbon storage or sequestration, some people focus
only on what's in the forest," Sanchez said. "We wanted to assess the
carbon emissions associated with the whole life cycle of these new
products." The study calculated future carbon emissions under both a business-as-usual scenario, assuming limited forest management, and a
scenario in which the state has created a market for wood residues. To
make the comparison, the researchers conducted a cradle-to-grave analysis, looking at the carbon emissions associated with every single life stage
of a product -- from the moment the wood is harvested until the end of
the product's life.

By investing in local industries that create innovative wood products
or that convert biomass into biofuels using carbon capture technology,
the state could create a market for wood residues that does not add
significant carbon emissions, the study found. The study also proposes
a model scenario in which the state incentivizes the use of engineered
wood in the construction of multi- unit affordable housing.

"If California starts doing thinning treatments at a large scale, then
we're going to be producing a lot more lumber and wood residues, and
where that material goes is a question," Cabiyo said. "We found that
using that new material for building affordable housing could produce
massive carbon benefits, largely because those buildings otherwise would
be built with steel and cement, which have significant carbon emissions associated with them." Thinning treatments also reduce the risk of
severe wildfires that can incinerate millions of acres of vegetation at
once and kill even large trees, helping California's forests maintain
their long-term ability to store carbon.

Study co-author Brandon Collins, a research scientist with Berkeley
Forests and with the U.S. Forest Service, points out that these treatments
have also been shown to provide numerous ecological benefits, including increased water availability and habitat diversity.

"Creating a market for forest biomass produced by forest thinning
could reduce wildfire hazard, prevent air pollution from smoke, and
potentially displace fossil fuels and increase water availability,"
Collins said. "We need to deal with this small diameter biomass, and there
is a solution if we could just find a way to connect the dots politically
and economically." Additional co-authors of the study include Jeremy
S. Fried of the U.S. Forest Service and William Stewart and Jun Wong of
UC Berkeley. This research was supported in part by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and the Conservation 2.0 Program.

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
University_of_California_-_Berkeley. Original written by Kara Manke. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Bodie Cabiyo, Jeremy S. Fried, Brandon M. Collins, William
Stewart, Jun
Wong, Daniel L. Sanchez. Innovative wood use can enable
carbon-beneficial forest management in California. Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences, 2021; 118 (49): e2019073118 DOI:
10.1073/pnas.2019073118 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/12/211213121857.htm

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