Forestry and wood energy

[Ahmed]

Philippe Schutt wrote:

When you see what they are feeding, it is hard to believe that the forest can grow quite quickly ...

As in other industries, the concentration explains this observation: some very large sawmills have replaced a multitude of small ... so no hasty conclusions!

[moinsdewatt]

Ademe highlights the impact of wood energy development on the carbon footprint of the forest

news-environment.com 24 June 2015

Who says biomass development says increased wood harvest, which would impact the GHG balance of the forest. Ademe presents the effects of an increase in its levies and formulates proposals.
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http://www.actu-environnement.com/ae/ne ... 24819.php4

[chatelot16]

the carbon footprint of the forest is better when you use it than when you let it loose

if we let some wood get lost a very small part of the carbon goes back into the soil, the majority of them finished in CO2 while rotting

if we use wood efficiently we save other energy consumption: when we use wood as building materials we economize steel or concrete infinitely more expensive energy ... and when wood arrives at the end of its life as materials it still has its fuel value: it serves 2 times!

[Did67]

I would like to know a little more about the calculations of the ADEME.

What I understand :

a) when cutting to burn, there is temporarily an immediate emission of CO²
b) trees that grow to replace those cut will absoerber an equivalent amount of CO², if they reach an equivalent standing volume
c) therefore the immediate emissions will only be "offset" when an equivalent mass of wood has grown in turn ... So in 50 or 100 years depending on the species ...

So it's a question of the length of the cycle that we are considering.

This is the question of the ambiguity of the term "sustainable management", which we have mentioned on another thread: what is the duration of the cycle that we are considering!

[Maybe over 1 billion years, oil exploitation is sustainable, if so much is reformed in the sediments? What I do not think seriously, because to form oil and coal, it undoubtedly required considerable quantities of biomass "sweeping" and "left in place" - which is hardly the case any more today ...]

[moinsdewatt]

French forestry cooperatives demand rapid increase in wood energy projects

Frédéric DOUARD3 October 2017


Harvest of wood energy in private forest, photo UCFF

Since the launch of the wood energy market in France there is more than 20 years, forestry cooperatives have always been present to meet a new and growing market. They have demonstrated their competence in the mobilization of the resource and are today the leading producer of wood chips in France.

The heat fund, essential tool for the establishment of collective wood energy boiler, is it up to the situation? The answer is NO, the number of projects is historically low.

It does not correspond to the targets set by the public authorities to reach the percentages of renewable energy consumption in 2030.

In addition, the price of fossil fuels greatly hampers the consumption of wood energy. A drop in 30% of the volumes delivered in the second quarter 2017, at the national level, shows that energy companies prefer other low-cost energies.

The immediate consequences are a large deficit of logging as a whole and a loss of direct income for forest owners.

The forestry cooperatives therefore call for an urgent rebalancing of the competitiveness of wood energy. The heat fund, the amount of which must double rapidly, must be used to revive and sustain the use of wood energy.

Forest cooperatives have sufficient resources to respond to markets. They know how to harvest and value it. As a result, forest cooperatives engage in the regular supply of fuelwood if these markets are relaunched very quickly.

Finally, forestry cooperatives strongly encourage the State to actively pursue its investment for a real increase in the consumption of Renewable Energy. Wood is the first of the ENR far ahead of wind, solar or even hydraulics. It is therefore necessary to arrogate the aid on the price differential between fossil energy and wood energy.

Wood is not uncommon, it is valuable for the entire wood forest sector. But it is essential to invest in a thoughtful and balanced way between upstream (mobilization of the resource) and downstream (construction of boiler houses), by encouraging the grouping of forest owners.

With a turnover of 430 millions of euros and 1 000 employees, the Union of French Forest Cooperation is the first economic force of the French private forest. It brings together 19 forestry cooperatives in France which bring together 120 000 forest producers members, manage 2 million hectares of forests, produce 7 millions of m3 of wood per year. Forest cooperatives are the largest producer of wood chips in France (600 000 tonnes / year). www.ucff.asso.fr

https://www.bioenergie-promotion.fr/532 ... s-energie/

[izentrop]

Intensification of logging + repeated droughts that kill trees with shovels ...
https://www.futura-sciences.com/planete ... gir-76860/
https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/jura-situ ... forestiere


This will further accelerate the drought by feedback, due to the slowing of the biotic pump.
Short explanation:

[Ahmed]

There is another vicious circle, on a smaller scale and probably less known: the edge effect. Forest edges are the first to suffer from desiccation, exposed directly to the sun and the wind and the owners, in a natural reflex, often proceed to their exploitation, which has the effect of amplifying the phenomenon by creating a new edge ...

[Ahmed]

It is not only mature trees that die back: great mortalities appear in plantations after clear cutting; the most worrying thing is that these recovery difficulties are cumulative over the first years *. The cause is the elimination of the forest atmosphere (less air humidity, more wind ...), which calls into question the practice of these clear cuts in favor of a forestry approaching more the natural dynamics of stands, as advocated for example by the "ProSylva" movement.

* After three years, this cumulation condemns the plantation because of an insufficient density ...

[Did67]

Ah, the high forests! [term that I mistakenly used to label a regular forest in the photo sheet illustrating the first edition of my book - another mistake I admit / those who read some other threads will understand]

[Ahmed]

forests ... irregular gardened!

Okay, it's a bit of a pleonasm, but we have to nail the nail ... and at the time of "selective sorting" (sic!) ...