Am I missing something here? We're looking at significant increases in CO2 emissions from an H.R. 2454-based system, not reductions. And don't get started on the "biomass is carbon neutral" thing. We're all smarter than that.

The "strange bedfellows" story is amusing, for sure. But it's not relevant when evaluating the ability of the bill to meet its own stated goals.

Not something good, even, but something. Something with provisions for positive revision, something that shows that, yes, while our country is an enormous and lethargic emitter of GHGs, some Americans care enough to try to change that. Something that makes plain to the attentive pieces of the public who stands in the way of effective action, and why, and how. Something that begins a chain of stronger somethings.

As you can doubtless tell, I believe that something is better than nothing. I also believe that W-M is full of concessions that undermine or contradict its prescribed purpose. How else could we begin, from where we are? To me, this story is about where we are - about the ludicrous politics of self-interest (wrongly understood) that are present in this country. That will not change overnight, especially not since groups of human beings, who (collectively) are often far dumber than frogs, will sit in a proverbial vat of warming water until their proverbial geese are proverbially cooked.

This story should alert us to all that has to change, to how much work we have to do. Amusing though it may seem at first, it grows quite unfunny as one considers all its implications in their context - all that we have lost, and will continue to lose, to those who weaken or oppose climate legislation. The problem we have to work on, the question we have to answer, is how to change the political game so that climate skeptics and other water-downers won't win, especially not in strange alliance with hardline enviros.

But even if ACES could somehow be effective in meeting its very weak goal in the U.S., it would not set up a template for an effective international system.  Linking cap/trade systems is nightmarishly complex and would lead to perverse incentives for countries to set weak(er) caps in order to become suppliers of allowances in exchange for cash.  "Hiding the price" makes harmonization and linkage very challenging.  In sharp contrast, the Congressional Budget Office concluded that linking carbon tax or fee systems is relatively straightforward, involving the harmonization of one parameter-- the carbon price, which can be accomplished with WTO-sanctioned border tax adjustments.

The goal of climate legislation has to be to set an example and begin to weave a pattern that can form the basis of a workable international system.  ACES isn't leadership, it's obfuscation.  No one will follow us down that dead-end.

While I agree that these are not one hundred percent neutral: delivery and other chain-of-custody transfers contribute excess CO2, biomass is close to being neutral.

A tree which takes 80 years to grow gets incinerated in less than a minute in a biomass burner. The sutainable forestry provisions of ACES are weak, and enforcement will be a problem. A typical 50 MW biomass plant requires 650,000 tons of wood per year. In Western Mass, 3 such plants are in the permitting stage, one of which will co-fire construction and demolition debris. The state's analysis of biomass availability for the region has been discredited for its simple errors in arithmetic. Massachusetts is amending its forestry management plans to accomodate a vast increase in logging. Environmentalists such as Chris Matera (http://www.maforestwatch.org) fear that destructive, heavy logging will occur, impairing the ability of the forests to regenerate and to act as a carbon sink.

The CO2 emitted by these electricity plants will not be re-sequestered for centuries.  I quote from the EPA's 4/24/09 CO2 endangerment finding: "indeed, for a given amount of CO2 released today, about half will be taken up by the oceans and terrestrial vegetation over the next 30 years, a further 30 percent will be removed over a few centuries, and the remaining 20 percent will only slowly decay over time such that it will take many thousands of years to remove from the atmosphere." The argument that CO2 emitted by wood-burning biomass plants today will be re-sequestered in a timely fashion by existing forests is weak.

Wood-burning biomass plants emit more CO2 per MWH than do coal plants, yet this carbon is invisible to the regulatory process. See http://www.massenvironmentalenergy.org. Their figures are derived from data provided to the state by project developers.

So, I must respectfully maintain that large-scale wood-burning biomass electricity plants, as implemented, are not carbon-neutral sources of energy.

Fifteen years ago or so, it was theorized that it would take up to 50-100 years, not much more, to re-sequester carbon released from burning vegetation. This looked pretty good compared to fossil fuels. There was not a lot of talk (let alone a consensus) at that time about tipping points and imminent catastrophic events. Nor was there a consensus that immediate and dramatic reductions in all C02 sources contribute to the solution. So, 'net' carbon neutral biomass looked much better than fossil fuels.

The backstory is that having lost about 300 local fights over biomass and trash incinerators in the 80's, the incinerator industry had turned to cultivating the myth of carbon nuetrality. Leaders of large environmental organizations were schmoozed by the industry at banquets where they were 'educated' in the carbon neutral myth. Environmental leaders were either educated or replaced, and environmental foot soldiers (along with members of the press corps and the average college graduate) completely forgot that burning biomass releases carbon. That is why today you can't tell them that the billions in subsidies and tax credits and stimulus money that is going to build a fleet of new facilities to burn hundreds of millions of tons of carbon-based life forms is going to make climate change worse. You can't tell them that these facilities will increase carbon emissions. They just won't hear it. They have been trained not to hear simple truth.

Niceties notwithstanding, you are wrong in nearly all of your statements:

1) an eighty year old tree would not be incinerated unless it was rotting, or of extremely poor growth form (and probably rotting). It is more likely that the year range for biomass would be between 20-50 yrs for trees, somewhere around 30 is when it becomes valuable, but it could be as soon as 20 yrs. Currently, what happens in the woods anyway due to a lack of demand for poor growth trees is that they get left behind (growing), while the good and fast growing trees get taken out and sold for quite a bit of money. So, essentially, while you still see trees and a 'forest', it is degraded. Studies by several colleagues have been showing that eighty percent of the woods that you have seen have been exploitatively cut in the past 30-40 years, and as a result forests' genetic legacy suffers (e.g. Munsell and Germaine 2007, Vickery et al. 2009). So, essentially, by campaigning against renewable woody biomass energy, you are dooming the forests that you appear to care about. Face it, no matter how hard you try, those forests will be cut as soon as the landowner's kid decides to go to a nice (expensive) college or for a myriad of other reasons. It is up to the markets to decide (or at least influence) how well* the woods are going to be cut.

*If you aren't familiar with what foresters do, please educate yourself, take a class in silviculture, or just read up on it.

2) The woody biomass also includes willow biomass (coppice) plantations, which produce a larger amount of biomass per year than forests. On top of that, these plantations take up CO2 for only three years before incineration.

3) "The CO2 floating around for centuries" is a strawman, if I ever saw one, since the CO2 taken up by plants is CO2, doesn't matter if it came from three centuries in the past or from yesterday, its effects in the atmosphere are the same.

4) Every study that I have seen with co-firing power plants shows that air pollution (soot, SO2, NOx) is decreased post-stack scrubbers (without changing the scrubbers), while the CO2 efflux changes are negligible.

Mary (I think that's who you are since the agenda is identical, and MA examples are consistent).

First off, there are some bad 'foresters' out there, I put that in quotes, because I hesitate to ethically call somebody a forester who does not do the job the way it's supposed to be done. I guess you can call someone a house builder, but if their houses fall apart in three years, would you? The majority of cutting that takes place takes place without a forester (or at least someone who has the credentials, I'm not sure if a forester has to be certified in MA, but in NY anybody can call themself a forester).

Markets are what drive the timber industry, with what sells driving the trees that get cut. Thus, without a market for low-quality wood, there will be and is low-quality wood all over the place in the northeast, including NY and MA.

Shocker to you: small to medium clearcuts (up to 15-20 acres, if done use successive strip cuts) are not bad. They provide horizontal structural complexity in wildlife habitat, and more importantly provide sunlight and nutrients to future trees. It is better to clearcut than to leave shit trees that are spaced poorly, grow poorly and produce poor seed crops with poor genetics. Have I said 'poor' enough times yet? Poor... And while I'm at it, I love how people rile against clearcuts, when nearly every forest you have been in has been clearcut, and surprise, lo and behold there is still a forest there. The young ones may not be as pretty as an uneven-aged forest or a 120 year old even-aged forest but it's still there taking up CO2 that has been released with prior burnings. It is a full-fledged forest by 60 years of age.

Second, carbon neutrality of power plants with wood, coal and natural gas, is still a strawman. First off, you cannot cite a handout created by a NIMBY organization. Second, even if it is true that there is more CO2 released, which I have not seen personally, the CO2 came from recently taken-up carbon, and not from something that has been stored underground for the last million years (after all that is the major argument against the fossil fuels, ahem).

Third, are you familiar with growth and yield functions of trees? There is an inflection point that, in the northeast, occurs at about 80-100 years of age (depending on site and species), when trees start to grow slower, and add less diameter to the boles. That does not exactly equal the inflection point in carbon uptake per acre, but that would come at about 110-150 years, when there is enough death in the main canopy to reduce any future carbon uptake to essentially zero, when new seedlings would replace dead trees. At that point there is relatively little new carbon taken up. Thus, the majority of carbon uptake occurs between 10-100 years of a clearcut stand.

I agree that there is some loss of carbon due to burning versus decay; however, as I have previously stated (or maybe not), many of the poor-growth, slated-for-biomass trees are not only already rotting on the stump, nearly all are smaller than the mean size of a stand (or at least median). The remainder, approximately two thirds by biomass (assuming that a forest stand has been properly managed, which is already a huge assumption with the current situation, see the 80% figure above) of the stand will go into long-lasting (actually increased storage time) wood products. Thus, the loss of carbon is relatively low, I would say that during one cutting operation, no MORE and quite likely less than 40% (including transportation, which is also inherent with coal) of carbon is lost.

I think that what you are trying to state sounds an awful lot like a NIMBY attitude with no real background of the topic. Or, maybe it's more sinister, maybe you are a coal lobby intern, using the same tactic employed by Inhofe. Nah, I think it's the first.

I never claimed that biomass was perfectly carbon neutral, but it is carbon neutral by comparison to ANY fossil fuel-feedstock power plant. I also never claimed that it would be the best solution, either, since it is probably better to use biomass for heating, since much less is lost during inefficiencies of producing and transfering energy via transmission lines. Wind, solar, geothermal, and the remainder of the renewable energy types are well suited for energy generation (maybe geothermal not so much, but whatever), while wood is good for heating. Also, there is not enough tree GROWTH in NYS to keep everyone warm in NYS, it's only good for maybe 1 -1.5 million homes per year. That's still a lot of new carbon kept out of the atmosphere.

If not, don't worry because it made absolutely no sense. Bluster, trying to 'out' an anonymous poster's identity, name-calling, put-downs, and pseudoscientific blabber are dead giveaways.

Proposed biomass power plants in Massachusetts would produce 1.5-3.5 times more C02 than coal plants in the northeast. No man alive can instruct that carbon not to contribute to catastrophic climate change impacts because some special interest group maintains that it is 'special' biogenic carbon. We are talking about facilities that have not been built yet, trees that have not been cut down and burned yet, entire ecosystems that are sequestering carbon every day that now stand in peril of being chopped down and burned. The only reason to compare biomass to coal is to show that biomass is not a solution to climate change. Comparisons with conservation and efficiency reveal the path not taken. A representative table comparing biomass carbon emissions with coal is available for viewing here:  http://www.massenvironmentalenergy.org/plantdata.html

Thankfully, real forest science is catching up with those who serve and drink the timberspeak coolaid, as in the following US News & World Report piece. Misguided and misinformed environmental groups and salivating politicians are saying that our national forests need to be 'thinned' and cleared to prevent wildfire damage, and the thinnings would incidentally be great for biomass fuel, but it turns out that superior wildife management is to let the trees live and grow and drop branches and die and decay just as they would without any help from us at all:

"[A recent NASA-funded study] concluded that so many trees and brush have to be removed to significantly reduce the carbon lost to wildfires, that even more carbon is released into the atmosphere by thinning than when the forests burn.

"If you wanted to save one unit of carbon going up in the atmosphere in a fire, you had to remove 10 to 20 units of carbon to achieve that result," said co-author Mark E. Harmon, professor of ecology at OSU.

The reason is that even in severe fires, the bulk of the carbon in the trunks, branches and roots of trees do not burn, so continue to be stored as carbon for many years, Harmon said.http://www.usnews.com/articles/science/2009/07/08/studies-foresee-dilemma-over-forest-carbon-storage.html

Are you aware that the reason biomass burning is being promoted by Duke Energy and others is that they are exploiting the "large biomass loophole" in the current state regulatory schemes?  That is, cap and trade does not "count" CO2 emissions from biomass smokestacks, and neither does EPA or state air pollution programs.  So, even if our state and federal forests were harvested "sustainably" for biomass incinerators to generate a few megawatts of electricity, that is not the point:  the point is that biomass burning gets a free ride in the regulatory process.

Even NRDC's David Hawkins thinks this is a big scam:  he testified in the U.S. Senate on July 7, 2009 that the U.S. House of Representatives ACES climate change bill has a "large biomass loophole" that lets CO2 emissions from biomass burning escape regulation and that this undermines efforts to address climate change.  NRDC wants the loophole closed - that's gotta tell you something, since NRDC is seen as corporate dominated and influenced and even Mr. Hawkins wants to save face now by exposing the biomass burning scam before it becomes a federal law.

There is one simple solution to this situation: make biomass burners count the CO2 from their smokestack emissions, just like coal and natural gas have to.  Then you can sustainably harvest all you want, but biomass burning will never be financially viable because it will have to buy offsets and limit its CO2 emissions, just like fossil fuel does.  And, it will be exposed for the fake renewable that it is - why should burning that emits more CO2 per megawatt hour than coal be subsidized with billions in taxpayer and ratepayer money?  So Covanta, Duke, and all the venture capitalists lining their pockets can make billions?  I'll be JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have a few dollars in this scam too.

You haven't convinced me that biomass burners and its corporate promoters should get a free ride out of this "renewable energy" scam.  

Meg Sheehan, EcoLaw

www.nobiomassburning.org

The agenda is the facts, so it shouldn’t surprise you that two people might have the same rational opinion.   Please don’t call me Mary, my wife would not appreciate it.

Flippantly dismissing valid and cited points in my own report with cheap shot labels such as “NIMBY handouts” without addressing the facts themselves exposes your tenuous grasp of the issue.

If you can look beyond your own timber industry absorbed propaganda, you might be shocked yourself.  Clearcuts and other even-aged management techniques are the most destructive type of logging and the  “clearcutting for wildlife” argument is nothing but industry sponsored, think tank generated, focus group tested……BS.  The few species of wildlife that industry claims are “helped” by clearcuts are often hunted, and are dwarfed by the hundreds or thousands negatively impacted by the fragmentation of the forest.  In any case, how exactly did wildlife manage to do so well before man was around to clearcut for them?   Please spare me the Indian argument, that was very localized and they cleared the understory, they did not clearcut the forest.

In any case, do not take my word for it take the word of 600 Scientists including world re-known biologist E.O. Wilson who collectively stated the following:

“Clearcutting and other even aged silvicultural practices and timber road construction have caused widespread forest ecosystem fragmentation and degradation. The result is species extinction, soil erosion, flooding, destabilizing climate change, the loss of ecological processes, declining water quality, diminishing commercial and sport fisheries”……“Even-age logging includes the application of clearcutting, high grading, seed-tree cutting, shelterwood cutting, or any other logging method in a manner inconsistent with selection management.”

According to these scientists, clear-cutting and other forms of even-age logging operations:

Cause significant deleterious effects on native biodiversity, by reducing habitat and food for cavity-nesting birds and insectivores

Disrupt the soil surface, compact organic layers and expose the soil to direct sunlight and precipitation

Deplete the habitat of deep-forest species of animals, including endangered and threatened species

Reduce habitat and food supplies which disrupt the lines of dependency among species and their food resources and thereby jeopardize critical ecosystem function, including limiting outbreaks of destructive insect populations    

Render soil increasingly sensitive to acid deposits by causing a decline of soil wood and coarse woody debris which reduces the capacity of soil to retain water and nutrients, which in turn increases soil heat and impairs soil’s ability to maintain protective carbon compounds on the soil surface

Disrupt the run-off restraining capabilities of roots and low-lying vegetation, resulting in soil erosion, the leaching of nutrients, a reduction in the biological content of soil, and the impoverishment of soil

Increase harmful edge effects, including blow-downs, invasions by weed species, and heavier losses to predators and competitors.

Limit areas where the public can satisfy an expanding need for recreation and decrease the recreational value of land.

Replace forests with a surplus of clearings that grow into relatively impenetrable thickets of saplings

Frequently lead to the death of immobile species and the very young of mobile species of wildlife

Aggravate global climate change by decreasing the capability of the soil to retain carbon, and during the critical periods of felling and site preparation, reducing the capacity of the biomass to process and to store carbon, with a resultant loss of stored carbon to the atmosphere.

Increase stream sedimentation and the silting of stream bottoms, causing a decline in water quality and the impairment of life cycles and spawning processes of aquatic life from benthic organisms to large fish which in turn causes a depletion of the sport and commercial fisheries

Cause harmful and in many cases, irreversible, damage to forest species and forest ecosystems

In areas where logging occurs, these scientists call for individual tree selection management which retains the natural forest structure and function, focuses on long-term rather than short-term management, works with, rather than against the checks and balances inherent in natural processes, and permits the forest to go through the natural stages of succession to develop a forest with old growth ecological functions.  Additionally, selective logging is more job intensive, and therefore provides more employment and produces higher quality sawlogs than clear-cutting and even-age logging

On the CO2 issue again, it doesn’t matter how long the carbon has been stored, it just matters that it is stored today.  What matters is where we are today, and how much carbon we release today in comparison to how much is taken up.  Stick your head in the ground if you want, but the fact is by the biomass plants own numbers, that burning trees releases more CO2 per MWhr than burning fossil fuels.  Ahem…

Regarding the yield functions, old forests do continue to absorb carbon, despite claims otherwise by industry.  Also, faster growth stages of younger tree re-growth are just faster growth rates, not faster growth volumes.  The volume from a fast growth rate on a tiny tree is nothing compared to the volume of a slower growth rate on a large tree.  Also, a young tree re-growing is just returning to the original place where the tree was before it was cut.  In the meantime, the uncut tree would have grown more and stored more carbon.  The new tree will never catch up with an unlogged tree until the death of that tree, well beyond the lifetime of anyone reading this post and well beyond our critical timeline to do something about the CO2 problem.

Storage in wood products is irrelevant to this discussion because we are talking about burning the trees for biomass.

For those who made it this far, please take a look at our website to see the Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre:   www.maforests.org/

Take it easy

Chris

I'm simply pondering whether an ACES-based climate bill will do more harm than good, and have used the example of a controversial set of projects proposed for the region in which I live. In the Massachusetts case, it seems that policy makers are charging forward to grant RECs to projects that have not been been properly evaluated for their full potential impact upon global warming.

ACES would place wood, garbage, and C&D-burning plants within the RES, and not account for CO2 at the stack. My question: Is the CO2 being properly accounted for in the forestry sector, then? Is the "biogenic" portion of Municipal Solid Waste being properly accounted for? If so, how?  I am curious.

No, I'm not a forestry expert; you've called that one straight. But there are forestry experts in Massachusetts who, as we speak, are advocating for a full carbon life-cycle analysis of wood-burning biomass plants. I'll be interested in following this topic, iayperson that I am, as it unfolds.

Fair enough, we should count CO2 from biomass smokestacks, but then we should be able to count the harvested wood as a carbon offset.

Also, 'even NRDC'? They will take up some extreme positions, and from what I have seen Robert Kennedy was opposed to wind in Cape Cod (typical NIMBY), although I believe NRDC's position differed from his.

Mary,

My apologies, it just seemed that the response was quick, and in line with your previous one. There are two ways that carbon is being accounted for in the forestry sector right now: academic studies and a fledging carbon offset industry.

Jana,

Nice job, you got me. I have to admit, name calling is something that only I am guilty of: 'timberspeak coolaid'. High marks for creativity. By the way, the only name calling was me suggesting that some commenters were NIMBYists. Good job citing a newspaper article and not bothering with the original works. You get an A+ in 'real forest science'. Sigh, I sure hope they have it as a course in college...

Chris,

Good arguments. I have to take off now, but I look forward to addressing your concerns on clearcutting, which are not unfounded, but in many cases overstated. In particular, I take offense to your suggestions that clearcutting is PR-generated. Furthermore, in regard to yield functions, there are thousands of small trees per acre versus maybe 100 old trees per acre, so while the volume is not as large, the carbon uptake differences are not as drastic. Also, in the meantime, I would like to ask you what kind of a place did you grow up in and lived for most of your life, as a curiosity. I grew up in a suburb-rural area as a kid, lived in a city as a teen, and lived in a small city/large town since.

Well, I'm glad to see you think we should count CO2 emissions from biomass incinerators, and make them subject to cap and trade.  Maybe there's hope.

On the other hand, you've got that wrong about "offsets."  That's the real scam:  1.  Biomass incinerators, and other fake renewables, such as burning trash and construction and demolition debris to generate electricity don't have to buy offsets for their CO2, like coal does.  2. Even if they did, please explain again how 483,600 tons of CO2 per year generated by the typical 47 megawatt wood burning biomass incinerator/power plant will be reabsorbed simultaneously with it being emitted.  

Last I checked, we're in a climate crisis now, and Congress wants to enact a bill that gives incinerators the right to emit as much CO2 as they want, without offsetting in any manner.  On the other hand, we're being told we are in a climate crisis because the atmosphere can't absorb all the greenhouse gases we are emitting now, today.  If the atmosphere is already overloaded with greenhouse gas today, planting trees to replace the ones you cut down won't help this crisis -  Even if you do grow them in the south and they reach maturity in 2 or 3 years as you assert (seems impossible to me, but...)?  

The facts are the facts:  biomass burning, "waste to energy" and all the other incinerator scams to generate "clean and green" renewable energy generate more CO2 than coal, per megawatt.

There is a Grist article that talks about the Massachusetts movement to block the construction of these forest incinerators, remove their subsidies, and count their carbon emissions:

http://www.grist.org/article/2009-06-25-biomass-opposition

So, that's what I was talking about, when I was talking about 2-3 year cycle of CO2. Check out:

http://www.esf.edu/willow/

Also, the CO2 emissions versus offsets was precisely my point. If the plants are burning the biomass, then the amount of CO2 that is taken up by the plants should count as an offset to the plant. I think that's the reason for why these plants already have an exception, because there is a trade-off between renewable C-sequestration and power generation. You might be right, as I previously said, that these should not be 1:1, due to time scale differences and delivery logistics, but at worst it should not be over 1.5:1. I agree with accountability, and I am not against some penalty for the produced CO2, but the first step is to attack the obvious holes in our energy-carbon management, which is fossil fuels, not biomass. Furthermore, I seriously dislike blanket statements like "THIS IS NOT A CARBON NEUTRAL STOCK".

Chris,

I will take your points one at a time, and attempt to show you that the 'facts' in your case are only one side of the story. Further, what's wrong with hunting?

I will provide a quick crash course in silviculture:

Even-aged regeneration systems include clearcuts (and derivations, such as strip clearcuts), shelterwoods, and seed tree cuts. The most predominant even-aged system is shelterwood, due to its ability to temper the regenerative niche at the ground level by retaining about 30-40% of basal area. These trees also provide a seed source for future trees. Major detractors is the low financial return on the first entry to the stand to remove the low-value wood. The second entry typically brings in a much higher return. Clearcuts are typically done if shade intolerant species, such as birches, cherries and ashes are desired in higher proportions than shade tolerant species, which are proportionately more common with shelterwoods. Seed tree is in between clearcut and shelterwood cuts, with maybe 5-10% of the basal area. Typically done to provide seed and not temper the soil-level environment, so higher proportions of shade intolerants are expected. Furthermore, most well-done clearcuts (but many are reactionary, after an insect outbreak, for example) are done following a thinning 10-15 years prior, to provide advance regeneration, in which case there will be little to no lag time in tree cover at a site.

Uneven-aged regeneration systems include single-tree selection systems include single-tree, group, patch  and hybrid selection systems. The main characteristic of these systems is the presence of multiple age classes in a stand. Single-tree is self explanatory, with typically a high level of shade, and thus typically a low species diversity, primarily sugar maple and beech are the only two species that dominate the composition, with beech becoming a pest due to beech bark disease. Group cut typically takes three to five trees, and thus provides a little more sunlight, but typically not enough for even intermediate shade tolerant trees, in other words you might see a red maple or an ash, occasionally. Patch cuts are really a tiny clearcut, about 1/2 - 1 acre in size maximum, which provide a larger proportion of sunlight, so that there is more shade intermediate and shade intolerant species. Hybrid systems are a combination of the three previous depending on the stand and creativity of the forester.

1) Cause significant deleterious effects on native biodiversity, by reducing habitat and food for cavity-nesting birds and insectivores

Point well taken: cavity-nesting birds will suffer with a complete clearcut. Most even-aged systems today leave one snag per 3-5 acres, which has been shown to not have any adverse effects on cavity-nesters and insectivores. Furthermore, a late successional forest is species poor, with mid-successional forests having the largest combination of tree species, which presumably also has an effect down the trophic chain.

2) Disrupt the soil surface, compact organic layers and expose the soil to direct sunlight and precipitation

This one is true, however most even-aged systems have a 75-80% tree seedling cover within 3 years. Also keep in mind that the first two of the points apply as much, if not more with uneven-aged systems, since over the course of a century, an uneven-aged system could have as many as 7, and rarely fewer than 4 entries into a stand, whereas even-aged systems usually have 1 or 2. Ideally, in both cases, soil damage is minimizedby using a good road layout and appropriate Best Management Practices (BMPs).

3) Deplete the habitat of deep-forest species of animals, including endangered and threatened species

I'm not sure that this one is true in the northeast, considering the majority of out endangered and threatened birds are open-field migratory songbirds. In fact, large openings benefit many, if not most, endangered and threatened species. The majority of threatened and endangered plants occur in bogs and wetlands, places that are typically off-limits to commercial logging, whether by practicality, merchantability or regulations.

4) Reduce habitat and food supplies which disrupt the lines of dependency among species and their food resources and thereby jeopardize critical ecosystem function, including limiting outbreaks of destructive insect populations  

New York State is currently about 60% forested. Prior alternative uses were agriculture: a low of about 10% forested in early 20th century, or housing development, which consistently encroaches on forestland and greenspace. Forestry keeps forests, and even-aged regeneration systems are a part of the mix, particularly if we don't want only sugar maple and beech.

5) Render soil increasingly sensitive to acid deposits by causing a decline of soil wood and coarse woody debris which reduces the capacity of soil to retain water and nutrients, which in turn increases soil heat and impairs soil’s ability to maintain protective carbon compounds on the soil surface

I think that there's a bit of confusion here: organic matter (OM), while exceedingly good for soil, actually acidifies soil through tannic and carbonic acid. The story is more complicated than that, once you account for acidic precipitation, but acid rain problem is no longer the major issue, due to cap-and-trade systems of the seventies and eighties. Furthermore, base cation poor soils are poorly buffered against acidic deposition, and in most cases the damage was done during the first wave of acidic deposition.In base cation-rich soils, OM does not provide buffering against acidic deposition as much as the cations do.

6) Disrupt the run-off restraining capabilities of roots and low-lying vegetation, resulting in soil erosion, the leaching of nutrients, a reduction in the biological content of soil, and the impoverishment of soil

Two factors: one, roots are not removed, and two, these effects last only about 3-5 years. The impacts on soils are pretty dramatic, but the impact is directly related with the amount of canopy retained.

7) Increase harmful edge effects, including blow-downs, invasions by weed species, and heavier losses to predators and competitors.

This is a screwy one, since it is a counterargument to previous points: weedy species increase biodiversity, blow-downs can occur, but that actually adds to OM, and heavier losses to predators and competitors of what? Really this statement looks good, but actually does not make much sense.

8) Limit areas where the public can satisfy an expanding need for recreation and decrease the recreational value of land.

This, in my opinion is the single best argument in the list, not only because it directly addresses the reasons that most clearcuts are opposed, but also gets at the real sociological root of the problem. Forest stands post-cutting does not look pretty, no matter whether even- or uneven-aged, except that with even-aged, more is visible. The aesthetics are clearly deteriorated. However, perceptions of beauty are about as individual as DNA, and I have even heard a few people who enjoy the way a clearcut looks. I personally do not find it appealing, but neither does the shifting population. This is the reason for why I asked the question as to where you were from, the scientific consensus that I have heard is that as the population has shifted from rural to urban-suburban communities, the idea of the 'working landscape' has shifted to 'forests for recreation'. It's not fun recreating in places that don't look pretty and thus most urbanites are opposed to even-aged or really any tree cutting. Most rural people know that plants grow, and grow pretty well, they also know that they need to clear land for agriculture, thus many rural people like open spaces. It's not rare to see a 5-7 acre mowed lawn adjacent to rural homes, because that is what they value. Personally, I do not find that appealing, but to each his own. Ultimately, and THIS is what I would like to stress, opposition to even-aged silviculture is due to personal choice based on aesthetics rather than any true scientific reason.

9) Replace forests with a surplus of clearings that grow into relatively impenetrable thickets of saplings

This is directly related to the previous statement, and actually disregards the needs of open-field/shrub dependent species and thus is opposed to the 1st statement.

10) Frequently lead to the death of immobile species and the very young of mobile species of wildlife

It's true for the latter. Not sure what the immobile species are that you are talking about. This statement is aimed at the emotions of PETA types, and while I cannot defend this, nearly all species affected are not threatened. There are two factors that are important with this: season of cutting, since there are no young during winter, when more than half of the lands are cut, and regulations and training workshops offered to the loggers, as well as leaving wildlife trees.

11) Aggravate global climate change by decreasing the capability of the soil to retain carbon, and during the critical periods of felling and site preparation, reducing the capacity of the biomass to process and to store carbon, with a resultant loss of stored carbon to the atmosphere.

This is important during the first 3-5 years after a clearcut (not shelterwood), and becomes decreasingly and nearly exponentially unimportant after.

12) Increase stream sedimentation and the silting of stream bottoms, causing a decline in water quality and the impairment of life cycles and spawning processes of aquatic life from benthic organisms to large fish which in turn causes a depletion of the sport and commercial fisheries

BMPs require loggers to leave a buffer around any waterways of varying width, depending on the slope, precisely to protect the streams. Stream crossings are done using temporary bridges. The few times, where this is not true is with a gullible landowner, open to an exploitative logger, who will most likely cream and high-grade, put his roads through wet areas and conduct stream crossing by simply going straight through a stream. I didn't say there weren't unethical people out there, but this can be eliminated by having a certified forester or at least someone who has the appropriate credentials.

13) Cause harmful and in many cases, irreversible, damage to forest species and forest ecosystems

This is a good rhetorical ploy, because it really doesn't mean anything, and thus it is irrefutable. We have been talking about this precise thing the entire time, and so far I have showed that there is little irreverisble damage to "forest species and forest ecosystems" and furthermore, I have attempted to point out that  "harmful" is not only predominantly a strong value judgement without scientific backing, but is also not quite true from a value standpoint.

14) In areas where logging occurs, these scientists call for individual tree selection management which retains the natural forest structure and function, focuses on long-term rather than short-term management, works with, rather than against the checks and balances inherent in natural processes, and permits the forest to go through the natural stages of succession to develop a forest with old growth ecological functions.  Additionally, selective logging is more job intensive, and therefore provides more employment and produces higher quality sawlogs than clear-cutting and even-age logging

The above statement is not true, for many of the previous reasons, but also because single-tree selection system is geared only for late successional species, and actually erases any succession. Old-growth forests are not diverse, and are not particularly productive in terms of C sequestration. Selective logging has the potential to be more job intensive, but this actually may reduce the income of the loggers since they are not paid by the hour but by the job. Also, do you think it costs more or less to cut down every single tree if you're only going to sell 60% of the trees and nearly all of the income will be from 10-20% of the trees, as is typical in a clearcut?

Furthermore, diameter-limit and high-grading cuts are the least job intensive and the most profitable cuts, and to most laymen would look like a single-tree selection system. These are the cuts that will deplete the forest genetics, forest stocking and soil much, much more than any silvicultural system.

P.S. Looking at how much I wrote, I'm afraid you won't read the response, and thus I will have wasted my time, but there's always hope, isn't there?

You're right, it does take 80 years for 1 tree to grow to merchantable size for sawlogs. It takes a lot less for one tree to grow to merchantable size for biomass, as soon as 10, but 20 is also possible. All hardwood trees at that age reproduce by sending stool sprouts, that absorb CO2 with no break in photosynthesis.

The argument for biomass isn't purely for storage. We aren't talking about carbon offsets, with deep ocean C sequestration by dumping large sawlogs. We are talking about a three-fold issue: producing energy, while reducing the carbon imprint of said energy and improving our energy independence.

Do you prefer coal?

Also, I never said that this was THE silver bullet, just another part of the solution.

I didn't make any comments about the merits of hunting, I said that many of the species claimed to be declining by industry, thus "requiring" clearcutting by their logic, are hunted.  Maybe rather than clearcut the forest which impacts thousands of other species that require un-fragmented forest, we should stop shooting the ones we claim we are trying to save.

You are obviously dedicated to the idea that cutting and burning forests will "help" the environment.   Since it is nearly impossible to get someone to understand something if his paycheck depends on him not understanding it, I suspect you have a vested interest that prevents you from seeing the folly in your argument.  

I am throwing my lot in with the 600 world reknown scientists and commmon sense that say rather than cutting down massive amounts of forests and burning them at 15-25% efficiency for tiny amounts of power, we need to keep as much forest as possible growing and absorbing CO2, and cleaning the air and water if we are going to provide a world our children can live in.

Cutting and burning the forest would not be "part" of the solution, it would worsen the problem.

Let's be honest please.  Humans log for money and wood, not to "help" the forest or "reduce" CO2 levels and no amount of elaborate rationalizations or self-delusion will change that fact.

ciao

Chris

I'm a forest ecosystem scientist, my paycheck is not related to biomass production or forest cutting. I do not suggest that we are 'helping' the forest by cutting it, that is your construct. I am saying that forests will be cut, and they will be cut for wood, which also takes up carbon, which makes it a much, much more carbon neutral source of energy than fossil fuels. Forests can be cut in exploitative ways or ways that do not deplete the stands' genetics and stocking, like high-grading.  Lack of a market for low-value wood (i.e. a biomass market) will allow the current situation for high-grading to go on, until our forests will be deteriorated to the point of potential no-return.

I do not think you read my spiel above, and thus have not even attempted to understand what I was trying to say. It shows because the species that are in decline are not game species. Because of this I believe that it is you, sir, who is close-minded, not the other way around. It also appears that it is your paycheck that depends on your view point, after all you are the one making hand-outs for an anti-biomass organization. I'm only commenting based on my knowledge of the system, I work primarily with old-field successional ecology, which is not related to any cutting.

It is not true that the species claimed to "benefit" from clearcutting are not game species.  The Woodcock and Ruffed Grouse are the poster children for clearcutting to "help" wildlife, yet the Woodcock is said to be "declining due to logging and land development on the bird's breeding grounds responsible for the diminishing bird count" and the Ruffed Grouse is said to "prefer dim and quiet woods, deep thickets, or sheltered swamps" and "doesn't like open fields, and will rarely, if never, be found there" and "needs a forested region, so this is another animal that could be affected by extensive deforestation."  Pearson.

For the record....$0 income and about negative -$2,000 so far to pay for ink cartridges to print hand-outs to counter the relentless, well funded industry propaganda following the lead of George Bush's efforts touting chopping down trees as the "healthy forests" initiative, polluting the air for "clear skies", clearcutting to "help" wildlife and burning the forest for "carbon neutrality".  Just more shameless, simplistic, greenwashed BS for personal monetary goals at the expense of the future for all of us.

This discussion was about cutting forests for biomass, not for wood, so please get it straight...cutting existing forests for electric production is WORSE than fossil fuels....and will just make our predicament worse.  We need to get away from combustion and particularly shouldnt be burning coal or forests.

Forest Biomass = 3,300 lbs CO2/MWhr

Coal = 2,100 lbs CO2/MWhr

Oil = 1,900 lbs CO2/MWhr

Gas = 1,350 lbs CO2/MWhr

Fore citations see:  http://www.maforests.org/Biomess.pdf

"MORE" CARBON NEUTRAL  ???  

.......JUST MORE GREENWASHING.

It's my understanding that MA Energy and Environment Secretary Ian Bowles has called for a study of forest sustainability issues as they relate to the RECs assigned to wood-burning biomass electricity plants. So even top state regulators seem to be backing down from their initial enthusiasm for the large-scale implementation of these plants in western Massachusetts.

Then there's the issue of the proposed biomass electricity plant in Springfield, Mass, which will co-fire construction and demolition debris. In the ENF submitted to the state for this burner, Palmer Paving proposes to put 3.11 tons of lead into the atmosphere per year. I know this is a whole other topic--toxics not CO2--but it illustrates the problem with very dirty technologies being granted Renewable Energy Credits and other subsidies under state and proposed federal climate legislation.

So, back to my original post, before things got so heated (no pun intended)--I am beginning to suspect that a climate bill based upon Waxman-Markey may very well do more harm than good. I guess that puts me in the Hansen camp. So be it.

What I am referring to is YOUR article:  the Keoleian and Volk article in the Critical Reviews in Plant Science (2005) that is on the website you posted. You cite this article in support of your assertion that biomass burning using willow trees is a legitimate "renewable energy resource" because it is carbon neutral. There is a fatal flaw in this article however: the article does not count the CO2 emissions from burning the willow trees to produce energy. Why isn't this CO2 emission number contained in the authors' analysis of the "carbon footprint" of burning willow trees to produce electricity?

Until you show me a "lifecycle analysis" article that includes the CO2 emissions from burning willow trees in a biomass incinerator articles such as Keoleian and Volk are just more shuck and jive: scientists dancing around the key issue here: CO2 emissions from combustion of the stuff.

I still say: show me the goods.

First, with ruffed grouse - 'thickets': how do you think you get these? It's obvious that you understand that, since that was one of the 'bad' things about clearcuts from your list. Second, grouse and woodcocks need a mix of habitats in close proximity for their life cycle, including forests, thickets AND open fields (or at least open patches, how else could a woodcock do the mating dance?). Just because a guidebook will tell you where to find them, does not mean that is how you manage for them. Luckily, that's not how wildlife managers work. Third, migratory songbirds in decline (threatened and endangered) across the board in the northeast are all open-field/shrub/early successional habitat species. Warblers are hardly game. Finally, wood is biomass, I don't understand that comment.

It's obvious that you are trying to do something that you think is right, but you have a layman's understanding of ecology, and it shows. It would be prudent for you to learn more than the snippets of information that you have presented, before you go on an activist campaign trail.

Mary,

I'm not quite sure what the harvest is in MA. It is likely that the tonnage that you refer to is current pulpwood/biomass harvest, not overall tonnage. For example, NY harvests approximately 2 million tons of pulpwood annually. The tonnage for the sawlogs is rarely reported, although it could be calculated. There are two aspects to your statement. First, from what I know Non-Industrial Private Forest (NIPF) landowners who own roughly 80% of all forestland, which makes up over 60% of MA land (of course the actual tree cover for MA is likely closer to 70-75%, with ag/suburban/urban trees) are undercutting the overall growth by approximately 60%, that is they leave 60% of growth in the forest. Second, there's a lot of poor trees out there that are not being cut, and are actually depleting the forest genetics, and the bulk of these makes up the 60% figure. While I'm not suggesting that we cut growth 1:1, there's a lot of leeway out there in terms of sustainable harvest. 

Furthermore, there's about 2.5 million tons annually of unused biomass WITHOUT harvesting any more trees:

http://www.mass.gov/dcr/stewardship/forestry/utilmark/supply_report.pdf

And there's a further 2 million tons of unharvested annual growth.

Meg,

It's not MY article. My last name is nowhere on it. I have nothing to do with willow biomass, either from a professional or academic standpoint (I guess the second is the first for me). I know a lot about it, because it's a product of the college where I work, and I interact with people in the know. I cannot answer your question, since I haven't read the paper that you refer to. I would guess that the authors of the paper is who you can approach to find out what it was that they did. However, I hope you understand that you cannot release more CO2 than is stored in the burned biomass during combustion, and the biomass burned takes up the same amount of CO2 in 2-3 years. It is axiomatic, and simple logic will get you to that point. If you have another quibble with the methodology of the article, please contact the authors.

I think this is my last post, I have wasted way too much of my time educating and arguing (to some extent) with you people. If you don't care to learn what I know or learn the actual facts, that is your problem, but don't be surprised if you don't understand why people are supporting biomass. It's got less to do with money than you think, after all, cutting for pulpwood will make precious little money for the landowner* and VERY little money for the logger. What loggers would love is if they could keep high-grading forever (they can't).

*It does allow for offsetting the costs of properly managing a forest and may provide a way to pay off taxes. 

You confuse disemminating industry BS with "educating" and dismissively label anyone unwilling to drink the Kool Aid as beneath your superior intelligence.  Most likely, you don't even know that you are parroting industry financed, think tank generated, focus group tested.....propaganda.

It would be helpful to your cause if your ideas were able to stand up to light of common sense, but if you want to make simplistic and false claims that burning growing forests will help CO2 levels, clearcutting forests is good for the environment and and humans "need" to clearcut forests for wildlife to survive (how convenient), go right ahead, but it doesnt reflect well upon the integrity of the "college where you work" (which one?) or all those "people in the know".

Thank you for proving my point with your regurgitated comment.

So which college?

And yes, of course you know everything about propaganda, considering that is all you have. Anything can be overcome with repeated ignorance.

How does a systems engineer become famous in the blogosphere and his community? Pick a topic he knows nothing about, and start blabbing about it. Really, I'm done talking to you, I would also strongly suggest that you stop talking about things you obviously know nothing about.

Apparently, if you don't agree with Dr. Pomposity (identity withheld) who claims to know better than E.O. Wilson and 600 world re-known scientists who are not under the influence of the forest industry... you don't know anything!

http://www.maforests.org/Biomess.ppt

For our more detailed report that the power point draws upon, with citations from the State's own plans, links and calculations see:

http://www.maforests.org/Biomess.pdf

thanks

Chris Matera, P.E.

Massachusetts Forest Watch

http://www.maforests.org/CBDCarb.pdf