Carbon Accounting for Forests, Forest Products, and Bioenergy:  Recent Studies Released

A number of new scientific studies have been released examining whether and how forests, forest management practices, forest products, and bioenergy from forests either contribute to or help mitigate climate change through carbon sequestration and emissions. Just in time. The EPA Science Advisory Board Biogenic Carbon Emissions Panel is beginning its review of the EPA’s proposed accounting framework for biogenic carbon emissions from industrial sources.

For previously posted information on the EPA Science Advisory Board Biogenic Carbon Emissions Panel, click here .

November 9, Science Daily reported on a recent study by R. W. Malmsheimer, et al., in a supplement to the October/November issue of the Journal of Forestry , “Managing Forests Because Carbon Matters: Integrating Energy, Products and Land Management Policy.” The authors find: “The United States needs many different types of forests: some managed for wood products plus other benefits, and some managed for non-consumptive uses and benefits. The objective of reducing global greenhouse gases (GHG) requires increasing carbon storage in pools other than the atmosphere. Growing more forests and keeping forests as forests are only part of the solution, because focusing solely on the sequestration benefits of the forests misses the important (and substantial) carbon storage and substitution GHG benefits of harvested forest products, as well as other benefits of active forest management.”

October 23, Science Daily reported on a recent study by T. W. Hudiburg, et al., “Regional carbon dioxide implications of forest bioenergy production,” published in Nature Climate Change . The international team examined 80 forest types in 19 ecoregions in the Pacific Northwest. They found that 16 of the ecoregions provided strong carbon sinks such that no combination of biomass removal for forest thinning and bioenergy production would meet or exceed the existing net carbon balance in the forests. However, in forests weakened by infestations, disease or draught, where net primary productivity is impaired, forest fire fuel reduction treatments combined with bioenergy production may be beneficial to the overall carbon balance. They conclude that, if the policy goal is to reduce carbon in the atmosphere as quickly as possible, it is better to leave the forests as they are, increasing net carbon sequestration at current rates of biomass removal, than to increase biomass removal for fuel load reduction with bioenergy production.

Earlier this year, July 14, Science Daily reported on a recent study by B. Lippke, et al., “Life Cycle Impacts of Forest Management and Wood Utilization on Carbon Mitigation: Knowns and Unknowns,” published in Carbon Management . The authors find that “rather than just letting the forest sit there for a hundred or more years, the amount of carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere could be quadrupled in 100 years by harvesting regularly and using the wood in place of steel and concrete that devour fossil fuels during manufacturing, producing carbon dioxide.”