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Using the forest as carbon storage - and get payed for it?

Started by Nils Jonsson, January 20, 2021, 03:03:53 AM

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Nils Jonsson

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is a big theme here in Europe. The fact that the forest binds a lot of CO2 is used as an excuse to manage your forest well, and get environmental "points". But can a forest owner get money out of it? Not as far as I know, but according to an article I read, it should be possible. The article is here and is based on a calculation of the total emission from the transport sector and the CO2-taxes in Sweden. Theoretically it seems that it should be profitable for the forest owners - if the authorities would go for it, which is not likely to happen. My question is:
Is there anywhere in the World a system where the "carbon sink" has a financial value for the forest owners? 
In a reply to my post in that other forum, someone claims that New Zeeland have something ... but it's a bit unclear to me exactly what they have. (Here is my forum post )

barbender

My understanding is that UPM is receiving a payment for carbon credits on there extensive forest land in northern MN, though I don't know the specifics 
Too many irons in the fire

SwampDonkey

I have only seen 'organizations', such as Community Forest International, make a claim that they have sold $300,000 in carbon credits to the rest of Canada. That was off a 700 acre woodlot. That was a 'one of' as far as I have seen. There seems to be a very limited small market for it.

UPM, was a company here that continued to harvest and export wood off public land while closing down their mill they acquired from REPAP in Miramachi. They claimed over production on the market spurred the move, yet continued to harvest wood for export. ::) If they look good in one corner of the globe, they don't shine too brightly in others. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Nils Jonsson

Quote from: SwampDonkey on January 20, 2021, 04:51:29 AM
I have only seen 'organizations', such as Community Forest International, make a claim that they have sold $300,000 in carbon credits to the rest of Canada. That was off a 700 acre woodlot. That was a 'one of' as far as I have seen. There seems to be a very limited small market for it.

UPM, was a company here that continued to harvest and export wood off public land while closing down their mill they acquired from REPAP in Miramachi. They claimed over production on the market spurred the move, yet continued to harvest wood for export. ::) If they look good in one corner of the globe, they don't shine too brightly in others. :D
We have some kind of carbon emission exchange system here where companies have "emission rights/shares" that they can sell if they don't use them. That means that an industry that have low emissions can make money on that. I guess UPM and such companies are using something like that? Or using a balance between their industries and their forests (that bind CO2)?

nativewolf

This is actually very very common.  It is carbon tax credit trading.  The constraint is usually that the forest has to be guaranteed to stay as forest for 100 years.  This pretty much removes the ability to do this in a tropical country, don't tell big carbon tax credit trading banks like goldman sachs that though.  Anyway, in the US this is a big business and going to get larger.  Our state has two pilot programs, one in our county, that aggregates small parcels so they the landowners can bid on carbon tax bids at scale.  

It is a business we are exploring.  Googling carbon tax credit and forest and you'll find many links.

Constraints:

Long term commitment
Must prove forest would otherwise be converted to other use or move non forested lands into forest.
Usually you compete in a bid process to provide forest carbon tax credits and you may be competing with entities in warm climates  ;D that have faster rates of carbon sequestration.
Certification can be expensive, you have to model and have documentation regarding the sequestration rates.  It can force reliance on fast growing low value trees (cottonwood vs white oak).
Can't convert native forests.
Age constraint can hinder ability to put land into pine plantations that must be around 100 years.  You could do a mixed pine/hardwood forest but that impacts some industrial silviculture.
It is not a panacea for undervalued slow growing forest unless they are impacted by development.

Barely scratching the surface, I encourage any that is interested to do your own research.  
Liking Walnut

Don P

In reality though, if reality matters, plants store carbon for a relatively short period, a few years, a hundred years, we are thinking in that time scale. The carbon that this is supposedly offsetting has been stored deep within the planet for hundreds of millions of years. These are feel good programs rather than real solutions. Purchase a forest and bury it deep underground, now you are sequestering that carbon.

mike_belben

I will withhold 99% of my thoughts on the matter to stay on target and say only that i speculate it will go like most other government savior efforts.  normal joe will be unlikely to get paid for sequestering carbon, while politically connected special joe will potentially make a fortune at it.  Like solar farm programs. 
Praise The Lord

Tacotodd

Trying harder everyday.

nativewolf

Mike is spot on actually, it is a giant feel good scheme.  However it may lock up a few hundred thousand acres of Mississippi delta in something other than pine crops.  

Don, I think that the biggest forest planting need is to offset the loss of the Amazon which will be almost completely lost within 20 years.  Huge amounts of sink gone.  Electric cars are going to move transport to electrons and solar will supply most of that.  So carbon problem is goi g to be no sink vs sequester those fossil fuels.  Just my opinion but I think leadership is lagging vs trend which is accelerating at over 40% year on year.  

Mike the cost of residential solar is only 1/2 of what is was 5 years ago.  In 10 years the average joe will not need a grid connection for other than charging the car and not even that if they have enough roof/ land area to get good production.  Today we rely on utilities to provide our energy,  natural gas or electricity or liquid fuel products.   All of those industrial activities are completely in the air.  

Wall Street know this.  Follow the money.  Oil is going to be gutted and that is great for average joe having energy independence.  
Liking Walnut

SwampDonkey

I've been connected with woodlot organizations for years, and all I have ever seen was talk. In fact, not even 1% of private woodlots (excluding industrial freehold) have been certified for anything in 25 years here in New Brunswick. That would be the first step before your even considered for these other schemes. Current survey results indicated that N.B. woodlot owners don't want anyone to have any say in how they manage their woods, ~25% neutral, ~ 45% are against it, ~ 25% would allow it, ~5 no response. There's some folks living in the clouds, let them carry on. ;D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Ron Wenrich

I've been seeing where there are some forestry firms going around and trying to sign up landowners in certain areas.  They were offering the typical free mgmt scheme, so I looked into it a little deeper.  Seems like they are sort of like the Nature Conservancy, but for profit.  They sign up landowners, get their land into compliance, and they sell the carbon credits to companies that need to offset them.  The landowner doesn't see much of the money, if at all.  They also have their fingers in any timber removals.  I didn't look into it deep enough to get past the basic scheme.

I also read an article where forestry companies were looking to convert lands over to plantations, mainly in the south.  Again, the jist of the scheme is to plant for free, sell the carbon credits.

One big problem for all these programs is what happens when technology catches up and carbon credits aren't necessary?  What practices can the landowner opt out of as a mgmt technique?  No cutting at all is a mgmt option.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

woodroe

There is recent "talk" here in Maine about paying landowners to grow trees
instead of cutting them . Notice I said "talk".
I'll be 1st in line for them to pay me to grow trees instead of cutting them.
Here is the most recent article on the subject of carbon storage.

"In December, the Maine Climate Council, a panel convened by Gov. Janet Mills to create a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045, called for the formation of a group to develop a voluntary forest carbon program. The program would provide financial incentives for the state's 86,000 woodland owners with between 10 and 10,000 acres to "increase carbon storage in Maine's forests" while "maintaining current timber harvest levels."

Read the entire article here at Bangor Daily news:

Maine wants to pay landowners to fight climate change with their trees
Skidding firewood with a kubota L3300.

barbender

SD, UPM isn't doing the Blandin Paper Company up here any favors, either.

I think the whole sequestration and carbon credits scheme is a bunch of BS. Kinda reminds me of someone visiting a brothel and then giving money to charity to make themselves feel better.
Too many irons in the fire

Cruiser_79

I know there are companies in Europe that plant trees in remote areas. I'm not sure but I think they sell CO2 storage/rights to the big companies. So probably they get paid by the companies, and receive income from the European Union and several governments. Sounds like a good business model. But I'm afraid that most landowners or logging companies are too small and miss the network and connections to governments and the big multinationals. For an example;


https://landlifecompany.com/

mike_belben

Planting trees in an area so remote that the no one checks if you planted anything at all sounds like a great gig. 


What area of fertile soil on the planet doesnt simply plant itself?  


Its a year round job for me to keep the forest from reclaiming everything that isnt paved, which is none.

Praise The Lord

Cruiser_79

Yeah, I have been in the Amazon few times. If you just leave a skidtrail a few weeks you can't even find it anymore. And still people give money to organisations who replant the rainforests. All those animals, wind, water etc will seed it anyway imo. But growing trees on poor, not fertile soil is interesting. Cause of the shade there should be less evaporation so it could turn into fertile soil after a long enough period. That could be a good way to store carbon. 

moodnacreek

Quote from: Don P on January 20, 2021, 07:50:06 AM
In reality though, if reality matters, plants store carbon for a relatively short period, a few years, a hundred years, we are thinking in that time scale. The carbon that this is supposedly offsetting has been stored deep within the planet for hundreds of millions of years. These are feel good programs rather than real solutions. Purchase a forest and bury it deep underground, now you are sequestering that carbon.
Feel good programs?  It may be the right time.

Cedarman

Why not make biochar out of carbon based products, grind it, and incorporate it into soils on farms, gardens and forests?  Charcoal will stay in the soil for hundreds of years and make the soil better for growing.
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

WDH

I looked at it when carbon credits first became available, but the amount of money being offered to tie up the property for a hundred years was a pittance. 
Woodmizer LT40HDD35, John Deere 2155, Kubota M5-111, Kubota L2501, Nyle L53 Dehumidification Kiln, and a passion for all things with leafs, twigs, and bark.  hamsleyhardwood.com

Ed_K

 There's a farm down the road from me that contracted with a bio-generator / elect Co to bury the ash leftover. They've been hauling in there for over 2 yrs. They pay the farmer to take the stuff, and  have a dozer,loader and a 6wheel drive end dump to do the dirt work. The corn field their working on now looks like it's 8' 10' higher than it use to be. Rumor is that they make more $$$ than they do milking 140 head.
Ed K

Don P

Quote from: Cedarman on January 21, 2021, 06:51:40 AM
Why not make biochar out of carbon based products, grind it, and incorporate it into soils on farms, gardens and forests?  Charcoal will stay in the soil for hundreds of years and make the soil better for growing.
There are probably ways to do it clean but charcoal production is typically a pretty dirty operation. When you see that greenish/yellow smoke rolling off you're releasing, not burning, methane, which is much worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Although we tout the virtues of biochar there are some considerations. It is light and floats up and out of the surface layer of soil, which puts it into the waterways. I have not seen studies on what the long term effects of that are as it works its way down through the rivers and into the oceans.

Burying ash is not the same as burying the carbon, they burned the carbon for fuel and are burying the mineral ash, carbon is high quality fuel. It is hard to let go of that energy.

The problem is real and serious, what I'm saying is that our responses need to be well thought out. So far I haven't seen a great deal of non self interested thinking going on. The wood products folks tell me that when I build a house of wood that it is a good thing, I'm sequestering tons of carbon. Meanwhile I put them on hold while I call the concrete truck and order the foundation materials  ::).

Faster rotation plants seem to do a better job of grabbing carbon and sticking it in the ground. Rotationally grazed pasture pasture for instance. But, like biochar it is putting that carbon in the surface soil, that is not really sequestration.

Make no bones about it, when we dig up long term really sequestered carbon and release it into the atmosphere it is going to take the planet a long time to put the genie back in the bottle. I have no worries for the planet, it can and will do that. My concern is more whether the accompanying conditions will tolerate us. During the triassic period dinosaurs could survive because they had a more efficient respiratory system than we do as far as extracting oxygen from a much higher CO2 atmosphere, we would not have survived in that environment. Being smart is not the same thing as being wise.

Southside

Quote from: Ed_K on January 21, 2021, 07:53:01 AM
There's a farm down the road from me that contracted with a bio-generator / elect Co to bury the ash leftover. They've been hauling in there for over 2 yrs. They pay the farmer to take the stuff, and  have a dozer,loader and a 6wheel drive end dump to do the dirt work. The corn field their working on now looks like it's 8' 10' higher than it use to be. Rumor is that they make more $$$ than they do milking 140 head.
If that's clean wood ash they are burying that's really a shame.  When top dressed the potash will increase forage growth tremendously and increase soil health, which creates more efficiency when it comes to producing food.  Isn't better use of the resource the actual merit here?  
As far as long term sequestration of carbon, I wonder what the comparison is to say when the volcano in Hawaii goes off for a year straight and output is measured in cubic miles of material displacement.     
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farmfromkansas

Here in Kansas, we farmers spend a lot of time and money keeping our grass lands from growing up to the intrusive trees brought in by the feds during the dust bowl days to control wind erosion.  Cedar trees and chinese elm come up everywhere, and we must spray these trees or cut them yearly to keep up, or we will have scrub brush instead of grass. Last year was finally given a formula to add to the common spray that seems to actually kill the elm. I got ahead of the hedge trees a few years ago, but those elm and cedar are tough.  Only way to kill a cedar is to cut it below any green.
Most everything I enjoy doing turns out to be work

quilbilly

I believe a native tribe in alaska just signed a long term agreement. Took like 100k+ acres out of logging. They are getting far less $ but decided it was better for their land. Some company in cali paid for it. I wonder if you could sign a new 100 year agreement to just basically manage on a 100 year rotation. Still thin and cut out diseased trees. 
a man is strongest on his knees

Runningalucas

Makes sense, sequester the carbon in the forest...... until it burns.  The last several years, so much of that sequestered Co2 has been ruining our Summer in the Northwest, lol.   It makes me angry that they let it burn every year so bad it feels like a re run of 'The Road'.  So the forests burn, but during the winter, to burn a wood stove is often taboo in any given jurisdiction.  
Life is short, tragedy is instant, it's what we do with our time in between that matters.  Always strive to do better, to be better.

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