[dmurray]

No, it's considered neutral because you plant more of it to replace the trees you cut down (not because you are trying to save the world, just because you have some land that's suitable for growing a sustainable commercial forest).

Over the life cycle of the tree from planting to burning, it's carbon neutral, though the shape of it for any given tree is 20 years of carbon sequestration followed by 20 minutes of carbon release.

[kspacewalk2]

The issue with that is two-fold:

1. Not nearly enough trees are being planted to offset the ones being cut down.

2. Neutral on a scale of 30 years doesn't much matter when we have to reduce the degree to which we're accelerating a highly non-linear climate change process right now.

[TwoHeadedBeast]

But also perfect is the enemy of good. If wood pellets stop us burning coal in the short term while we transition to a carbon-neutral future, then that's surely a good thing.

[chrisco255]

I'm not sure about in Britain, but in the U.S. we do sustainably farm trees used for timber and have done so for the past 100 years.

[belorn]

That is the point where someone bring up photos from almost 100 years ago and make comparison photo of today and notice the obvious: there is a lot more trees in the old photos.

[chrisco255]

Not 100 years ago, maybe in urban areas that got converted to buildings, but overall, forest acreage in the U.S. has been flat for the past 100 years. If you go back to early 1800s, that would have been a time when acreage was about 25% higher: https://www.fia.fs.fed.us/library/brochures/docs/2012/Forest...

[belorn]

Talking globally, deforestation results in a net decrease in forest biomass and been like that for a very long time.

Talking US specific, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_St... gives peaks and valleys depending on which time frame but a distinct decrease each year since 1963 with exception during the year of 1997. It is not flat.

[chrisco255]

Obviously I don't mean perfectly flat, when we're talking an organic, dynamic system. The trend is flat. See page 7 of the document I linked from the USDA. Even the page you link shows: 766,000,000 acres (3,100,000 km2) in 2012 and 721,000,000 acres (2,920,000 km2) around 1920. Note: "The majority of deforestation took place prior to 1910"

[jschwartzi]

What kind of vehicles do you use to move the lumber from the farm to market, how are the pellet factories powered, and what kind of vehicles are used to move the bulk pellets from US to UK ports?