Tree-mendous

By OLIVIA JUDSON

Olivia Judson on the influence of science and biology on modern life.

© Michael Zysman | Dreamstime.com 
 The prickly pear cactus in the Galápagos Islands.

The garden outside my window is home to an enormous and beautiful tree. I gave it a hug the other day, but the trunk is so huge I could barely get my arms round a quarter of its girth. For now, the branches are bare of leaves, so you can see its form in all its majesty, a triumph of natural architecture. And if you half-close your eyes and dream a little, you can also see its roots, stretching deep beneath the grass, much as its branches and twigs stretch outwards towards the buildings and upwards towards the sky.

Trees figure in our mythologies and metaphors — the tree of life, the tree of knowledge — and we often imagine them to harbor spirits and sprites. They also figure in a big way in our reality: forests (still) cover about 30 percent of the planet’s land, and may make up as much as 80 percent of Earth’s biomass. That is, if you were to put all the organisms on the planet on a giant set of scales, trees would account for 80 percent of the total.

Better yet, trees harbor plenty of non-imaginary beings. Birds like starlings or blue tits nest in tree holes; others, like magpies and crows, build their nests high in the branches. Chimpanzees sleep in trees. A number of fungi — truffles, anyone? — associate with tree roots. Insects like wasps make houses (galls) in the leaves. And so on.

 
Monica Almeida/The New York Times  
A giant sequoia tree in California.

Some trees — sequoias and eucalypts, for instance — can be prodigiously tall, reaching heights of 90 meters (295 feet) or more. And some are prodigiously old. Plenty of species can live for four, five or six centuries, and some can keep going for several thousand years. The oldest living tree — which is also one of the oldest living beings — is thought to be a bristlecone pine, Pinus longaeva. It is certainly more than 4,600 years old, and by some reckonings, it celebrates its 4,842nd birthday this year. But however you count, when it was a sapling, the great pyramids of Giza had not yet been built.

Yet although trees are familiar to all of us, many aspects of their biology remain enigmatic: because they grow slowly and live for so long, they’ve been hard for us to study in the laboratory. Which is why they are my nomination for Life-form of the Month: April.

Unlike the Life-forms of the Month I’ve nominated so far (dinoflagellates, ciliates and grasses), trees aren’t a natural group. That is, the term “tree” refers to their lifestyle, not their ancestry. To put it another way, beings that we call trees have evolved several times from different ancestors, whereas beings like ciliates, grasses or (for that matter) primates have evolved only once. Palms evolved into trees independently from species like oaks, for example. Moreover, plant species that exist as herbs or shrubs on a continent often evolve into trees when they find themselves on islands. On some of the Galápagos islands, for example, the prickly pear cactus — which is usually low to the ground — has evolved a tree-form. It is tall, with a woody trunk and its leaves high in the air. The island of Socotra, off the coast of Yemen, is home to a species of cucumber that has become a tree.

What, then, is a tree? Precise definitions vary, but most of them mention the words “tall” and “woody,” and add that a tree has a single self-supporting stem (i.e., a trunk) that branches well above the ground. The first trees appeared more than 375 million years ago, in several different plant lineages, in a burst of evolution that some authors have termed “the scramble for the sky.” If you’d been walking through the Earth’s early forests, you might have seen club mosses that were 40 meters (131 feet) tall, as well as giant horsetails. Both types of tree are now extinct. But what’s interesting about them is that they made wood differently from, say, pine trees. Pine trees grow outwards, forming a solid woody cylinder. In contrast, the trunks of tree-horsetails were hollow tubes, like bamboo. Tree-club mosses produced trunks with a hard outer casing, and a softer interior. Meanwhile, tree-ferns evolved a fourth type of woody structure: they grow several stems that are bound together by other tissues.

(Trees, incidentally, have an excellent fossil record: just think of the vast petrified forests of Arizona, or Patagonia, each of which covers more than 37,000 hectares — more than 90,000 acres. The study of tree growth patterns give us insights into past climates. Early scientists, however, were not sure whether petrified trees were living trees that had become stone, or stones that were becoming trees.)

So what forces produce trees, and could any plant, in principle, evolve into one? The answer to the second part of the question is, maybe. Genetic experiments on the botanists’ lab rat — a weedy little plant called Arabidopsis — have shown that you can make it grow wood by turning off a few key genes. If this is true for other plants too, then growing into a tree may be a matter of a few mutations and the right circumstances.

So what circumstances are those? The evolutionary advantages of being a tree include an ability to get light — especially in dense forests, plants compete for light, and the tallest individuals have the most access to direct sunlight. In addition, their longer lifespan gives them many more chances of reproducing. In places like islands, where there are few trees, plants that were previously living as shrubs may find that the tree habit gives them an edge.

But being a tree has challenges, too. Trees are more vulnerable to wind and lightning than shrubs and herbs. And longevity itself creates difficulties. In the course of centuries, situations change: droughts and fires may come and go, soil may erode, water tables may rise and fall. Worse, other organisms — especially enemies — can evolve far faster, because they can go through hundreds of generations during the tree’s life. How can trees avoid succumbing to diseases? Especially as they don’t have an immune system like ours: you can graft tissue from one tree to that of another (think apples and olives) without the kind of rejection that a mammal would experience. Part of the answer may be that many trees have evolved associations with other, fast-evolving organisms, like fungi and ants, that can protect them to some extent.
With all this in mind, I think I’ll go and hug another tree.

---

Notes:
The estimate that forests cover 30 percent of the planet’s landmasses comes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, 2005 Forestry Report. The Earth’s total biomass, and that proportion made up by trees, is a number that is hard to pin down. I took my estimate from Wikipedia. A higher estimate (90 percent) is given by Petit, R. J. and Hampe, A. 2006. “Some evolutionary consequences of being a tree.” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 37: 187-214. However, I was unable to verify the source of their claim. This paper presents an interesting analysis of the pros and cons of the tree lifestyle, as well as several (rather similar) definitions of the word “tree.”

For the heights of the tallest trees, see the Wikipedia entry on trees. For some of the traits that help trees to live for a long time, see Lanner, R. M. 2002. “Why do trees live so long?” Ageing Research Reviews 1: 653-671. Tracking down the age of bristlecone pines is a difficult business. The authority that is usually cited is Schulman, E. 1958. “Bristlecone pine, oldest known living thing.” National Geographic 113: 355-372. However, this paper simply says that the oldest tree so far found is more than 4,600 years old, and that a more precise estimate is not possible. A far more precise age, of 4,842 years, is given on the Gymnosperm Database entry for the species. However, the author’s source for this more precise age is not entirely clear.

For an excellent and clear account of different forms of wood, as well as the importance of petrified forests in reconstructing the plant fossil record, see chapter three of Kenrick, P. and Davis, P. 2004. “Fossil Plants.” Natural History Museum, London. This book also gives the account of early scientists wondering whether petrified trees were once trees, or were stones coming to life (see page 58). These authors also describe the “scramble for the sky” (page 68).

For a wide-ranging account of the evolution of trees in different plant lineages, see Groover, A. T. 2005. “What genes make a tree a tree?” Trends in Plant Sciences 10: 210-214. For trees in lineages extinct and extant, as well as a more detailed discussion of the evolution of wood, see Donoghue, M. J. 2005. “Key innovations, convergence, and success: macroevolutionary lessons from plant phylogeny.” Paleobiology 31 (supplement to issue 2): 77-93.

For the genetics of Arabidopsis and wood, see Melzer, S. et al. 2008. “Flowering-time genes modulate meristem determinacy and growth form in Arabidopsis thaliana.” Nature Genetics 40: 1489-1492.
For wind as a problem for trees, see Ennos, A. R. 1997. “Wind as an ecological factor.” Trends in Ecology and Evolution 12: 108-111. For trees being protected from enemies by other organisms see, for example, Arnold, A. E. et al. 2003. “Fungal endophytes limit pathogen damage in a tropical tree.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 100: 15649-15654 and Heil, M. and McKey, D. 2003. “Protective ant-plant interactions as model systems in ecological and evolutionary research.” Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 34: 425-453.

Many thanks to Nicholas Mott and Jamie Shreeve for help in tracking down estimates of bristlecone pine ages, to Martin Espindola for suggesting the root-dream, and to Jonathan Swire for insights, comments and suggestions.
 

The timber recovery is happening

March 24, 2010

New lumber forecast predicts slow, steady recovery for sawmills
By Western Wood Products Association

PORTLAND, Ore. – Lumber mills are starting to emerge from the worst downturn in the history of the industry and recovery will be slow yet steady, according to a new forecast released by Western Wood Products Association. The lumber trade association’s forecast calls for modest gains in housing, lumber consumption and U.S. production this year after setting modern lows during 2009. While markets are expected to improve in the coming years, lumber demand and housing construction will remain far lower that what the industry saw in the mid-2000s.

Demand for lumber in the U.S. is expected to increase 6.1 percent in 2010 to 32.9 billion board feet, ending consecutive 20-percent-plus declines recorded the previous two years. WWPA anticipates lumber demand to rise to 36.1 billion board feet in 2011, up 9.7 percent.

More housing construction will help boost lumber demand. Housing starts plummeted to 554,000 units in 2009, the lowest annual total since 1945. For 2010, total housing starts are forecast to increase 11.9 percent to 618,000 and then climb again in 2011 to 719,000 units.

WWPA Economic Services Director David Jackson said there are too many obstacles for a more robust recovery in housing.     “Our country hasn’t really resolved the key problems that led to this downturn,” said Jackson.

Western mills may finally see some relief in the markets, with production in the region expected to rise 7.1 percent to 11 billion board feet this year. Output from Western sawmills should rise again in 2011 to 11.8 billion board feet.

The latest downturn further reduced the number of lumber mills operating in the West. The region has fewer than 170 sawmills producing lumber today, compared to 287 mills operating a decade earlier. During the peak year in 1987, when production totaled 23.9 billion board feet, there were 702 mills in the West.

Lumber production in the Southern U.S. is forecast to increase at a slower rate in 2010, but still remain above Western volumes. Mills in the South should produce 11.7 billion board feet of lumber this year, about the same volume as 2009. Next year, production volumes in the South should rise to 12.5 billion board feet.

The volume of lumber imported to the U.S. dropped precipitously in 2008 and 2009, falling by nearly half.     Lumber imports, mostly from Canada, are forecast to increase 10.7 percent to 9.8 billion board feet.

Assuming the U.S. dollar will weaken, giving foreign lumber producers some exchange rate advantages, import totals could grow to 12.6 billion board feet by 2011. Despite such an increase, the volume of foreign lumber entering the U.S. will be far below the record 24.7 billion board feet imported in 2005.

Western Wood Products Association represents lumber manufacturers in the 12 Western states. Based in Portland, WWPA compiles lumber industry statistics and delivers quality standards, technical and product support services to the industry.

#  #  #

WWF hopes to find $60 billion growing on trees

The carbon credits scheme would make WWF and its partners much richer, but with no lowering of overall CO2 emissions, writes Christopher Booker.

By Christopher Booker
Published: 4:53PM GMT 20 Mar 2010

Tumucumaque in northern Brazil has been designated a 'carbon sink'

If the world’s largest, richest environmental campaigning group, the WWF – formerly the World Wildlife Fund – announced that it was playing a leading role in a scheme to preserve an area of the Amazon rainforest twice the size of Switzerland, many people might applaud, thinking this was just the kind of cause the WWF was set up to promote. Amazonia has long been near the top of the list of the world’s environmental cconcerns, not just because it includes easily the largest and most bio-diverse area of rainforest on the planet, but because its billions of trees contain the world’s largest land-based store of CO2 – so any serious threat to the forest can be portrayed as a major contributor to global warming.

If it then emerged, however, that a hidden agenda of the scheme to preserve this chunk of the forest was to allow the WWF and its partners to share the selling of carbon credits worth $60 billion, to enable firms in the industrial world to carry on emitting CO2 just as before, more than a few eyebrows might be raised. The idea is that credits representing the CO2 locked into this particular area of jungle – so remote that it is not under any threat – should be sold on the international market, allowing thousands of companies in the developed world to buy their way out of having to restrict their carbon emissions. The net effect would simply be to make the WWF and its partners much richer while making no contribution to lowering overall CO2 emissions.

WWF, which already earns £400 million yearly, much of it contributed by governments and taxpayers, has long been at the centre of efforts to talk up the threat to the Amazon rainforest – as shown recently by the furore over a much-publicised passage in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC’s claim that 40 per cent of the forest is threatened by global warming, it turned out, was not based on any scientific evidence, but simply on WWF propaganda, which had wholly distorted the findings of an earlier study on the threat posed to the forest, not by climate change but by logging.

This curious saga goes back to 1997, when the UN’s Kyoto treaty set up what is known as the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). This allowed businesses in the developing world that could claim to have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions to make billions of pounds by selling their resulting carbon credits to those firms in the developed world which, under the treaty, would be obliged to cut their emissions. In 2001 the parties to Kyoto agreed in principle that trees in the southern hemisphere could be counted as “carbon sinks” for the benefit of CO2 emitting firms in the northern hemisphere. In 2002, after lengthy negotiations with WWF and other NGOs, the Brazilian government set up its Amazon Region Protected Areas (Arpa) project, supported by nearly $80 million of funding. Of this, $18 million was given to the WWF by the US’s Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, $18 million to its Brazilian NGO partner by the Brazilian government, plus $30 million from the World Bank.

The aim was that the NGOs, led by the WWF, should administer chunks of the Brazilian rainforest to ensure either that they were left alone or managed “sustainably”. Added to them, as the largest area of all, was 31,000 square miles on Brazil’s all but inaccessible northern frontier; half designated as the Tumucumaque National Park, the world’s largest nature reserve, the other half to be left largely untouched but allowing for sustainable development. This is remote from any part of the Amazonian forest likely to be damaged by loggers, mining or agriculture.

So far all this might have seemed admirably idealistic. Despite the international agreement that forests could be counted as carbon sinks, there was as yet no system in place whereby the CO2 thus “saved” could be turned into a saleable commodity. In 2007, however, the WWF and its allies in the World Bank launched the Global Forest Alliance, with start-up funding of $250 million from the Bank, to work for what they called “avoided deforestation”. A conference in Bali, under the auspices of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which administers the CDM, agreed to a scheme called REDD (reducing emissions for deforestation in developing countries). Hailed as “the big new idea to save the planet from runaway climate change”, this set up a global fund to save vast areas of rainforest from the deforestation which accounts for nearly a fifth of all man-made CO2 emissions.

But still there was no mechanism for turning all this “saved” CO2 into a money-making commodity. The WWF now, however, found a key ally in the Woods Hole Research Center, based in Massachusetts. Not to be confused with the nearby Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, a bona fide scientific body, this is in fact a global warming advocacy group, headed by a board which includes fund managers responsible for billions of dollars of private investments.

In 2008, funded by $7 million from the Moore Foundation and working in partnership with the WWF on the Tumucumaque project, Woods Hole came up with the formula required: a way of valuing all that carbon stored in Brazil’s protected rainforests, so that it could be traded under the CDM. The CO2 to be “saved” by the Arpa programme, it calculated, amounted to 5.1 billion tons. Based on the UNFCCC’s valuation of CO2 at $12.50 per ton, this valued the trees in Brazil’s protected areas at over $60 billion. Endorsed by the World Bank, this projection was presented to the UNFCCC.

But two more obstacles had still to be overcome. The first was that the scheme needed to be adopted as part of REDD by the UNFCCC’s 2009 Copenhagen conference, which was supposed to agree a new global treaty to follow Kyoto. This would allow all that “saved” Brazilian CO2 to be turned into hard cash under the CDM scheme.
The other was that the US should adopt a “cap and trade” scheme, imposing severe curbs on the CO2 emitted by US industry. This would boost the international carbon market, sending the price soaring as US firms flocked to buy the credits that would allow them to continue emitting the CO2 they needed to survive.

As we know, the story hasn’t turned out as planned. Amid the shambles at Copenhagen in December, all that could be saved of the REDD proposals was an agreement in principle, with the hope of reaching detailed agreement in Mexico later this year. Also lost in the scramble to save something from the wreckage was the small print that guaranteed the rights of indigenous peoples in rainforests, whose way of life – to the concern of groups such as Survival International and the Forest Peoples Programme – has already been severely damaged by REDD-inspired schemes elsewhere, such as in Kenya and Papua New Guinea.

Just as alarming to the WWF and its allies, who were hoping to make billions from Brazilian forests, has been the failure of the US Senate to approve the cap and trade bill championed by President Obama. Since the EU has excluded the rainforests from its own cap and trade scheme, bringing the US into the net is vital for the WWF’s hopes of finding “money growing on trees”. The price of carbon on the Chicago Climate Exchange has just plummeted to its lowest-ever level, 10 cents a ton.

The WWF’s dream has been thwarted – but the revelation that it could even be party to such a scheme may have considerable influence on the way this richest of all environmental campaigning groups is viewed by the world at large.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7488629/WWF-hopes-to-find-60-billion-growing-on-trees.html
 

What's in the bill?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704117304575137370275522704.html
 

US Forest Service admits putting surveillance cameras on public lands

Charleston man surprised when he found one while camping with daughter

BY TONY BARTELME
postandcourier.com
Published Monday, March 15, 2010

Read more: http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/03/15/1173660/us-forest-service-admits-putting.html#ixzz0iLSHmeSV

Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled on it and followed it to a video camera and antenna.

The camera didn't have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.

He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service.

In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it had been set up to monitor "illicit activities." Jacob returned the camera but felt uneasy.

Why, he wondered, would the Forest Service have secret cameras in a relatively remote camping area? What do they do with photos of bystanders?

How many hidden cameras are they using, and for what purposes? Is this surveillance in the forest an effective law enforcement tool? And what are our expectations of privacy when we camp on public land?

Officials with the Forest Service were hardly forthcoming with answers to these and other questions about their surveillance cameras. When contacted about the incident, Heitzman said "no comment," and referred other questions to Forest Service's public affairs, who he said, "won't know anything about it."

Heather Frebe, public affairs officer with the Forest Service in Atlanta, said the camera was part of a law enforcement investigation, but she declined to provide details.

Asked how cameras are used in general, how many are routinely deployed throughout the Forest and about the agency's policies, Frebe also declined to discuss specifics. She said that surveillance cameras have been used for "numerous years" to "provide for public safety and to protect the natural resources of the forest. Without elaborating, she said images of people who are not targets of an investigation are "not kept."

In addition, when asked whether surveillance cameras had led to any arrests, she did not provide an example, saying in an e-mail statement: "Our officers use a variety of techniques to apprehend individuals who break laws on the national forest."

Video surveillance is nothing new, and the courts have addressed the issue numerous times in recent decades. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and over time the courts have created a body of law that defines what's reasonable, though this has become more challenging as surveillance cameras became smaller and more advanced.

In general, the courts have held that people typically have no reasonable level of privacy in public places, such as banks, streets, open fields in plain view and on public lands, such as National Parks and National Forests. In various cases, judges ruled that a video camera is effectively an extension of a law enforcement officer's eyes and ears. In other words, if an officer can eyeball a campground in person, it's OK to station a video camera in his or her place.

Jacob said he understands that law enforcement officials have a job to do but questioned whether stationing hidden cameras outweighed his and his children's privacy rights. He said the camp site they went to -- off a section of the Palmetto Trail on U.S. 52 north of Moncks Corner -- was primitive and marked only by a metal rod and a small wooden stand for brochures. He didn't recall seeing any signs saying that the area was under surveillance.

After he found the camera, he plugged the model number, PV-700, into his Blackberry, and his first hit on Google was a Web site offering a "law enforcement grade" motion-activated video camera for about $500. He called law enforcement agencies in the area, looking for its owner, and later got a call from Heitzman, an agent with the National Forest Service.

Read more: http://www.islandpacket.com/2010/03/15/1173660/us-forest-service-admits-putting.html#ixzz0iLSAWSZN
 

TREESEARCH

Check this out...

http://www.treesearch.fs.fed.us/

"Your onestop site for  Research & Development Publications online"
  

Burning wood as renewable power draws scrutiny in Oregon and nationwide

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
March 11, 2010, 8:08PM

EUGENE -- By the end of this year, Seneca Sustainable Energy plans to fire up a power plant that will convert about 700 tons a day of logging leftovers and waste from its nearby sawmill into enough electricity to power 13,000 homes.

The plant features West Coast-leading pollution controls endorsed by the Environmental Protection Agency. It's projected to release far less pollution than the usual practice of burning slash piles in the woods.

But it will also release more carbon dioxide and lung-damaging particulates than a comparable coal-fired power plant, according to a report for the Eugene Water & Electric Board, which is buying the power.

It will release more carbon, sulfur dioxide and smog-causing nitrogen oxides than a similar-sized natural gas plant. And it's expected to receive millions in Oregon tax credits and qualify to meet the state's renewable power goals, just like non-polluting solar and wind.

Burning wood, or in 2010 terms "wood biomass," is civilization's oldest form of generating energy.

In its modern incarnation, which includes multi-million-dollar pollution controls, it's seen as one of Oregon's best sources for generating reliable, home-grown electricity that doesn't come from fossil fuels.

Supporters, including state and federal leaders, say wood energy is effectively carbon neutral because the carbon emitted in burning it will be balanced by new trees that pull carbon from the atmosphere.

It will help boost the economic benefit from thinning fire-prone forests, they say, creating badly needed rural jobs and cutting the risks of out-of-control forest fires, insect infestations and disease.

But community and environmental activists are raising questions about the wisdom of treating wood energy as green power.

Burning wood is a high pollution way to generate electricity, they say. And encouraging it could cause a spike in greenhouse gas emissions that won't be fully absorbed for decades.

Opponents have emerged in 18 states, including Oregon.

The biggest battle to date is in Massachusetts. Concerns prompted the state to suspend classifying biomass plants as green power pending an environmental study. Activists also qualified an anti-biomass measure for the November ballot.

The Massachusetts Medical Society, publisher of the New England Journal of Medicine, is among the opponents. It says wood energy plants "pose an unacceptable risk to the public's health."

William Sammons, a Massachusetts activist, is lobbying Congress to end federal tax credits and incentives for biomass plants. He figures federal biomass subsidies will hit $20 billion a year if they aren't curtailed, and biomass plants will expand to account for more than 10 percent of U.S. carbon emissions by 2020.

Under current rules that categorize biomass as carbon neutral, he said, none of the carbon emissions from those plants would be included as carbon emissions in the U.S. tally.

Ten years from now, Sammons said, "we'll measure carbon in the air and find out we haven't had a reduction at all."

Despite the concerns, wood energy is gaining momentum.

In Salem, the Legislature recently passed a bill allowing older wood energy plants to qualify as renewable power along with new plants. Dozens of wood energy plants have qualified for Oregon's Business Energy Tax Credit, including Seneca, which is on track for a maximum $10 million subsidy over eight years.

The Oregon Department of Energy is developing another credit that would give a $10 a ton credit for supplying forest fuel to biomass plants. ADAGE, a consortium of North Carolina power company Duke Energy and French conglomerate Areva, is trying to site plants throughout the Northwest, and just teamed with equipment maker John Deere to announce a new plant in Washington.

This week, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., touted the benefits of biomass in a hearing on his compromise bill for eastern Oregon forests, which directs the U.S. Forest Service to encourage the use of forest thinnings for biomass energy.

"It's going to be good for the forest," Wyden said, "it's going to be good for the economy."

Wood energy, like corn ethanol before it, appeals on environmental and business grounds, making for a powerful political combination.

Two unlikely allies on the Seneca plant: Ted Kulongoski, Oregon's Democratic governor, and Seneca founder and owner Aaron Jones, a big contributor to property rights measures and other conservative causes.

In total, about 6.3 million tons of woody biomass were used in Oregon in 2007 to fuel about 40 biomass plants. Most of that came from the residue from saw, paper and veneer mills.

Thinning public and private forests in Oregon and Northern California over 10 years could yield 6 to 12 million tons of wood for energy production, the Forest Service says.

That's enough to produce between about 500 to 1000 megawatts of power -- an amount comparable to Portland General Electric's Boardman coal-fired plant at the bottom end and Bonneville Dam's turbines at the top end.

Slash piles, a mix of tree tops and small limbs, are typically burned on logging sites without pollution control, biomass supporters note. And forest fires in overgrown forests send tens of thousands of tons of carbon into the air.

"It's not working against the health of the forests, it's working for it," said Norm Johnson, a professor and old growth forest expert at Oregon State University. Thinning would improve the health of most of the state's dry forests, he said.

But others question the benefits. The subsidies could spur more logging and thinning than pure ecological concerns merit, some environmental groups warn. And building roads and using heavy equipment for thinning can damage soil and foul streams.

Mark Harmon, an OSU forestry professor, said some key assumptions behind forest biomass are too simple.

The massive amount of thinning required to prevent fires would pull far more carbon out of the forest than the fires would release, he said, though unnaturally overgrown eastern Oregon forests could be an exception.

And carbon released by burning wood for energy takes decades to replenish through plant growth.

Calling wood energy carbon neutral "is sort of true, but very misleading," Harmon said. "Forests eventually gain the carbon back, but it takes them a very long time to do it."

The biomass debate played out in Eugene last year, and Seneca won.

Critics said that the Seneca plant, close to poor neighborhoods with high asthma rates, would be one of Lane County's largest industrial polluters.

Lisa Arkin, executive director of the Oregon Toxics Alliance in Eugene, unsuccessfully pushed for tighter pollution controls. She and other activists favor more energy conservation, subsidies for non-polluting renewable power and selective logging that can reduce logging waste and the need for open burning.

"Let's protect the public," Arkin said. "Let's look at how we're logging, let's make sure we're not investing tax credits where it's not environmentally sound."

Dale Riddle, Seneca's general counsel, said the company was taken aback by the opposition.

Seneca doubled the amount it was required by law to spend on pollution controls, he said, from $5.5 million of the roughly $50 million project to $11 million, mostly to cut back on particulate pollution.

Once other sources, including cars, residential fires and road dust, are included, the plant will account for less than 1 percent of particulates released in Lane County, and a similarly small fraction of other pollutants, consultants said.

A small portion of the steam generated at the plant will fuel lumber kilns heated by natural gas now, Riddle said, and the plant will emit far less pollution than burning slash piles at logging sites on Seneca's 166,000 acres of private timberland.

Oregon forest laws allow burning the piles to cut future fire hazards.

"After we build this plant," Riddle said, "the air in Lane County will be cleaner than what it is now."

-- Scott Learn and Matthew Preusch

http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/03/burning_wood_for_renewable_pow.html