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FPS
On behalf of the Forest Products Society and The Forest Products Report, we would like to wish all of you a joyous and safe holiday season.
Last week, we provided the subscribers with a look at the 10 most-read news stories. This week, we'd like to offer additional articles that caught the interest of the subscribers. Your regular news publication will resume on Wednesday, Jan. 4.
Treehugger
From June 8: The respected German newspaper, Die Welt, published an article under the title "The naive carelessness of the wood burner." In fairness to the complexities of translation, the German word "Sorglosigkeit" might also be translated as "carefreeness," but either way the message is clear: Anyone who bought into the idea that wood pellets can solve climate change issues related to heating with oil or coal has erred.
Is it true? Do we need to be concerned already that we are at "peak wood"? A closer look at the details in the article provide an amazing view of what some would call a trifecta of environmental, economic and feasibility success.
READ MORE
The Hill
From Sept. 7: Covering more than one-third of the United States, our forests are the cornerstone of American industry, infrastructure, health and well-being. Nowadays, America's trees and forests are under attack; threats include catastrophic wildfire, forests being broken into smaller tracts, and attacks from insects and disease. Healthy forests do not happen by chance and require investments of dollars, time and expertise.
A prolonged drought in the western United States has created conditions for massive wildfires and bark beetle devastation, turning once-healthy landscapes from green to brown. In the eastern United States, pests like the emerald ash borer have destroyed tens of millions of community trees. The effect on ash trees is even threatening production of one of America's most iconic wood products — the baseball bat.
READ MORE
The Fresno Bee
From July 20: Trees are dying in the Sierra at modern-day unprecedented rates, posing elevated fire danger and creating health, water and air quality concerns, but a possible solution to rid the forest of dead and dying trees is getting short shrift, officials say. California's biomass industry is set up regionally to turn agricultural waste into electricity while eliminating open burning. But many local biomass plants have closed or are closing soon because it costs less to produce electricity with solar and wind, which get subsidies that are not available to biomass.
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LBM Journal
From May 4: The American Wood Council, American Forest Foundation, Binational Softwood Lumber Council and Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Association have announced their strong support for the Timber Innovation Act (S. 2892), introduced by lead sponsors Sens. Debbie Stabenow (Michigan) and Mike Crapo (Idaho). Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota), Steve Daines (Montana) and Maria Cantwell (Washington) are also original co-sponsors.
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Woodworking Network
From Nov. 30: The market for tree stumps has never been better, as a drinking game called hammerschlagen — German for hammering nails — gains popularity at tailgating parties. The trendiness was boosted even more by an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show, and a front page feature in The Wall Street Journal.
READ MORE
The Washington Post
From Sept. 14: The state of California, wracked by drought, has 66 million dead trees across its landscape. They've been killed by both the drought itself and by voracious bark beetles, and now they're just sitting there — destined to either decompose, burn in a wildfire or be incinerated, for safety reasons, by state fire managers before the next blaze comes along.
And it isn't just California. Raging bark beetle infestations, fanned by warmer temperatures and droughts, have also struck forests in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho in recent years. Erica Belmont, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Wyoming, is studying an intriguing solution for what to do with all these dangerous dead trees — namely, burn them for energy. In a recent study in Energy Policy, Belmont and colleague Emily Beagle do the math on whether it would make sense to use the timber in existing coal plants, which can be "co-fired" with wood.
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NUVO
From Feb. 24: Jeff Stant, executive director of the Indiana Forest Alliance, writes: "Forestry is NOT forest science. Our hardwood forests have been here for thousands of years and do not depend upon forestry to survive or be 'healthy.' A serious problem has emerged in our judgment because there are no forest scientists, only foresters, managing our state forests, and they are viewing these public forests incorrectly through the lens of industrial forestry. However our state law does not and should not require every acre of our state forests to be logged."
READ MORE
AL.com
From Aug. 3: In recent weeks, coverage of the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union has dominated headlines. Stock markets have begun to recover, and the consequences of the Brexit could prove less cataclysmic than some anticipated. However, the full economic impact remains to be seen.
READ MORE
edie
From Jan. 13: U.S. firm Enviva — the world's largest producer of wood pellets — has announced the establishment of a new $5 million, 10-year forest conservation project in North Carolina and Virginia. The project aims to protect around six million acres of forest along the Virginia-North Carolina coastal plain — an area that is home to three Enviva wood pellet production facilities.
READ MORE
Woodworking Network
From Jan. 6: A research project into 3-D printing of wood furniture and components is underway in Europe. Launched by Vinnova, a Swedish government agency charged with developing new, high value forest products, the 3-D wood printing project is being managed by Innventia, a research organization located in Stockholm, under an initiative called "Would Wood."
READ MORE
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