Solid wood timber products consumption in major end uses in the United States, 1950-2009 : a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA assessment

Abstract

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The economic potential of wood pellet production from alternative, low-value wood sources in the southeast of the U.S.

“…For similar reasons, this scenario was also used for the future outlook of wood pallet production and the related potential of discarded pallets. Because pallet production is the largest consumer of hardwood lumber in the U.S. and consumes 90% of all lumber and 70% of all structural panels produced for packaging and shipping [7], the growth rate of hardwood lumber to 2020 was used as a proxy for wood pallet production.…”

“…However, the sawmilling industry has retrenched due to the sharp decline in demand for solid wood timber products. The demand for solid wood timber products in the U.S. reduced by half from 202 hm 3 in 2005 to 110 hm 3 in 2009 mainly a result of the economic crisis and its effect on the housing market [7]. This has resulted in an imbalance between supply and demand of secondary wood residues [8] and in combination with the decreased demand for wood from primary sources, has increased the production of wood pellets from primary forestry products, for example pulp wood.…”

Carbon calculator tracks the climate benefits of managed private forests

“…Our 45-year half-life for wood products produced in California was based on the weighted combination of a 60-year half-life for lumber products (McKeever and Howard 2011;Skog 2008) and a 15-year half-life for other products that is proportional to the allocation in California (Morgan et al 2012). According to McKeever and Howard (2011), 57% of California's lumber products go into buildings, where the wood is estimated to provide additional carbon sequestration benefits and energy savings by displacing fossil fuel alternatives (Sathre and O'Connor 2010).…”

“…Our 45-year half-life for wood products produced in California was based on the weighted combination of a 60-year half-life for lumber products (McKeever and Howard 2011;Skog 2008) and a 15-year half-life for other products that is proportional to the allocation in California (Morgan et al 2012). According to McKeever and Howard (2011), 57% of California's lumber products go into buildings, where the wood is estimated to provide additional carbon sequestration benefits and energy savings by displacing fossil fuel alternatives (Sathre and O'Connor 2010). The estimated allocation of postconsumer wood residues between landfills, energy and uncollected waste was based on estimates by Stewart and Nakamura (2012) of current best practices in California; undoubtedly these could To conform with the units used in COLE reports (Van Deusen and Heath 2014), we used a single hectare (2.47 acres) as the unit of analysis.…”

“…To estimate the sequestration benefits associated with harvested products, we used the most current state and regional information on where harvested wood goes (Morgan et al 2012) and how products are used (McKeever and Howard 2011;Sathre and O'Connor 2010;Skog 2008;Smith et al 2009). Stewart and Nakamura (2012) used these same sources and estimated that the sequestration benefits of harvested wood were two times (when wood used for bioenergy is The increase in carbon stands over time in a let-grow forest, above, is based on the observed rate of live tree carbon by stand age.…”