« Harvesting
PHOTO: FOREST GUILD
CONTRIBUTION
New Markets Call for New Management Practices Forest Guild offers voluntary guidelines for forest harvesting and biomass retention. BY MICHAEL DEBONIS
F
or several centuries, America’s forests served as one of the single largest sources of energy for this growing nation. Wood heated homes and fired the boilers of America’s industrial revolution. With the discovery of fossil fuels, however, and more efficient ways to extract and transport them to population centers, the use of wood as a source of energy rapidly declined. This new source of energy, fossil fuels, took pressure off America’s forests, allowing them to grow back to the forests we see today. America’s forests are once again being seen as an energy source as both the U.S. 38 PELLET MILL MAGAZINE | Q3 2013
and Europe begin working to reduce the use of fossil fuels. The difference between today’s use of wood as an energy source and the past is that new technologies allow for much more efficient means of extracting valuable Btu from every ton of wood harvested. From heating single homes, to firing boilers in hospitals, to 20,000-ton cargo ships bound for European electric generating facilities, the use of wood for energy is resurging. In just five years, the U.S. has seen wood pellet and other woody biomass production climb from 1.8 million tons in 2008 to nearly 6 million tons in 2012. Dramatic growth of pellet and woody
biomass facilities in the U.S. Southeast will bring even greater increases as more facilities come on line by 2015. The U.S. Forest Service forecasts forest bioenergy harvesting can increase anywhere from 54 to 113 percent by 2050. This emerging industry could not have come at a better time. With reductions in production demands and capacities in the pulp and paper and sawmill industries brought on by the still-lingering global recession, the new surge in pellet production has been a shot in the arm to rural forestbased economies and forest owners.