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by mrob 2523 days ago
Even if there's no demand for wood, the trees should still be harvested because they can be pyrolized to produce fuel gas/oil and biochar. About 50% of the carbon can be converted to biochar, which is both a valuable soil amendment and a way to long-term sequester carbon such that it can't be easily extracted. And the carbon released by burning the remainder would have been released to the atmosphere away as the trees decayed, so it's better it does something useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar

1 comments

Do you say its an efficient battery for solar power?
My guess is probably not, because photosynthesis is not very efficient. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynthetic_efficiency

But if the trees are already grown then I think we should use them, and not just leave them to rot.