Sequestering Carbon with Forest Products

FPL's contributions to a changing world

Biomass and bioenergy

• Fundamental research on genetics and physiology of white rot fungi, which play an important, if not pivotal, role in the carbon cycle and significantly influence forest health.
• Research on engineered wood- and bio-based composite technologies using low-value and problematic timber, which sequesters great amounts of carbon, often promotes new vigorous timber growth following harvest (sequestering additional carbon), and mitigates uncontrollable release of carbon into the environment by forest fire.
• Research on improved energy efficiency of wood composite manufacturing process using innovative cold-press cooling method that will reduce total energy requirement, recover heat energy, improve dimensional stability of panels, and improve productivity.
• Research on forest biomass to energy production and use.
• Estimates of carbon emission offsets due to annual net additions to carbon stored in wood and paper products for the annual EPA greenhouse gas emissions and sinks report (the U.S. report under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change).
• Collaboration with CORRIM to conduct life cycle assessments of carbon offsets due to forest treatments, fire emission reduction, wood product storage, wood energy offset of fossil fuels emissions, and emission offsets due to substitution of wood for products that emit more carbon in production and use.
• Collaboration with CORRIM to increase wood use in structures to offset carbon emissions of materials that emit more carbon in production and use.
• Collaboration with NCASI to estimate the carbon emissions/carbon emissions offset footprint of the U.S. forest products industry.
• Evaluating impact of increased wood biomass use for energy on forest products markets using USFM and GFPM models (for 2010 RPA Assessment).
• Estimating county-level forest biomass supply (including costs) for a revision of the USDA/DOE Billion Ton Biomass Supply Study.
• Economic evaluation of business cases for making biofuels using selected biochemical and thermochemical technologies.
• Evaluation of the economic effectiveness of projects funded under the Forest Service Biomass Utilization Grants program.