Can Bioenergy Power Forest Carbon?

Trees are the one of the best and few methods to capture and store carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Unlike annual plants or animals, trees can capture carbon for decades, which takes centuries to release. They do this through photosynthesis: trees pull carbon dioxide out of the air through their leaves, break off the carbon to make sugar—which is used to make the tree—and release the unused oxygen. All while cleaning water, providing a home to numerous species, and being a great place to recreate. At the surface, burning them for bioenergy seems to be counter to forests capturing carbon, but bioenergy and forest carbon could be intertwined.

A forest's ability to capture and sequester carbon can be increased through active management. Harvesting can increase the amount of carbon that can be captured and sequestered by a single acre of forest. Instead of allowing trees to die, decompose and release their stored carbon, trees can be harvested and turned into wood products that can last for centuries—like the yoke of the Liberty Bell, which is made of American elm harvested in the late 1790s. Only a few trees in a harvest can be turned into boards and cabinets—most trees are "low-quality." They are too small or defective to go to a sawmill and are instead made into products like paper or oriented strand board (OSB).

Unfortunately, the low-quality wood market is quickly evaporating (Why Penn's Woods Needs Biomass). The loss of a low-quality wood market not only threatens the sustainability of a forest—by only incentivizing loggers to only cut high-quality timber—but it's also unprofitable as loggers need to cut and dispose of trees that they cannot sell. Landowners are now having to pay up to $400 an acre for low-quality trees to be harvested. That money is needed to help forests regenerate through stressors like invasive species, high deer populations, and climate change. Many of the prescriptions to overcome these stressors, like herbicides and deer fences, are costly. These costs had been covered by profits from timber harvesting, but with landowners having to pay for harvesting, there is little money or effort left for regenerating forests.  Bioenergy could help solve that problem by providing a new market for low-quality wood. Instead of paying for management, land managers could once again be paid for harvesting. This would subsidize forest management and help regenerate forests.