Oregon Lumber Company Showcases New Mass Timber Product, Invests in Sustainability

Take a look at a typical commercial building under construction and you will see a lot of steel and concrete. The manufacturing of these carbon-intensive materials produced 11 percent of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2019, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, but they are the typical code-approved choice for tall buildings. As the world struggles to combat climate change and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, structural wood products, like mass timber, offer a renewable alternative that can greatly reduce the amount of concrete and steel in commercial building construction.

Mass timber is an umbrella term given to a class of wood materials that serve as the main structural components of a building. These products offer many advantages including sustainability, ease of assembly, fire resistance, high seismic integrity, and thermal performance (temperature stability). Made from a renewable resource, mass timber lowers building sector emissions and provides carbon storage. Further, as mass timber products are often created from small-diameter trees or even diseased trees, they provide an economic incentive to remove less valuable (and often more flammable) wood from forest areas, reducing wildfire risks.

Kyle with MPP

Kyle Freres standing with MPP.

Credit: Freres Lumber Co.

Meet Freres Lumber Co., Inc, a small family-owned and operated wood manufacturing company in Oregon’s Santiam Canyon, working to use mass timber products to accomplish their goals. Kyle Freres, Vice President of Operations, describes how the company's multi-generational management approach places sustainability at the forefront of their business model. From the time timber is harvested to the collection of their waste products, the company works to maximize resource use and efficacy.

As a longstanding veneer and plywood manufacturer, Freres Lumber applied their expertise to the creation of a new mass timber product, the Mass Plywood Panel (MPP). MPPs are assembled like veneer, which is created by building up small, fine layers of wood. They differ from traditional mass timber products, which use slices of lumber.

“When you have thin layers of product, you can construct that product with a lot of flexibility and get a lot of characteristics that you can’t get out of lumber. We can characterize every one-eighth inch,” Kyle said.

Using such thin layers lends itself to better consistency, faster drying time, and randomization of defects, reducing their overall impact on the final product. Additionally, MPPs make more efficient use of raw materials, using 20 to 30 percent less wood than Cross Laminated Timber (CLT), the leading mass timber alternative.

Biomass cogeneration facility

Freres's Biomass Cogeneration facility

Credit: Freres Lumber Co.

After the products are finished and leftover wood chips sold to market, Freres’s Biomass Cogeneration facility generates energy using any non-economically viable residuals. Along with additional urban wood (Christmas trees, used pallets, etc.), the company’s waste is incinerated in large boilers, generating steam that turns a turbine and produces electricity. The system makes use of well-established technologies and transforms waste and undesirable products into useful, reliable energy.

Record-high natural gas prices and business tax credits incentivized Freres Lumber to initiate this project in 2006. Thirteen years later, the facility is still producing renewable energy. Freres Lumber’s longstanding “buy-all/sell-all” contract with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PGE), feeds all produced energy directly into the grid.

“It’s kind of like a faucet filling a bucket, it goes to wherever it's needed,” Kyle said. “A substantial part of that power is coming back to our facilities, but transactionally that’s not what’s happening.”

On average, between seven and seven and a half megawatts are generated each year. That is enough energy to power roughly 5,000 homes or offset operation costs at Freres Lumber's facilities.

“We are a baseload power source, which means we’re going to be there when the sun’s not shining, we’re going to be there when the wind isn’t blowing, you can count on our power being there. I think we’re actually a very clean sustainable source of power,” Kyle said.

While biomass cogeneration has many advantages, it has received criticism for its inefficiency, pollution, and waste byproducts. Freres Lumber implements pollution control measures to reduce the particles and gases emitted during combustion. Ash, the waste product, has several developing markets. High in calcium, it can be used as an alternative to lime on agricultural lands, helping to reduce soil acidity. Alternatively, ash could be turned into biochar, and used in various applications from carbon sequestration to soil remediation.

Freres Lumber is one of the many companies affected by the wildfires raging across the west coast, which have caused all operations to cease at their facilities. Freres Lumber has protected its people first, evacuating nearly all staff from their premises and sharing resources, like water and diesel, with first responders fighting the fires.

Despite the damages of this year’s severe fire season, Kyle Freres hopes they will help people to see mass timber products in a more positive light.

“If people look at it as a forest health and environmental benefit, that we can get more people out in the woods working, we can improve forest health and at the same time generate resources that companies like ours can use to rebuild a lot of these buildings that have been destroyed.”

If the larger public can perceive mass timber as the fire resilient material that it is, then there will be a lot of opportunity and Kyle believes the industry has a bright future.

“We’re going to be around for another hundred years and if we weren’t thinking that way then I don’t think we would have made a $45 million investment in an MPP facility, that I think and hope will sustain us for another hundred years.”

Author: Emma Walker