stopburningourtrees

[roseyweb]

Hmmmm Surely rising timber prices are great, bringing timber prices up making it worthwhile to bring neglected woods back into management, more money in the forestry system means more planting and forest cover.

 

Chip timber used to go to Kronespan for furniture now it goes to biomass its just another market.

I doubt much cord sized hardwood goes into chip but I stand to be corrected but I dable in timber marketing and its not something I would do.

[tommer9]

I stand corrected.

I only wrote my post as i was asked to supply graded larch last year and a local mill who knew how to grade and stamp etc etc explained that it couldnt be done with uk grown jap larch. It could have been more specifically soiuth west grown though i suppose.

[Chris Sheppard]

Hmmmm Surely rising timber prices are great, bringing timber prices up making it worthwhile to bring neglected woods back into management, more money in the forestry system means more planting and forest cover.

 

 

Yes and no. Whilst it's great for us that more and more woods are coming on line to bring back into rotation, a lot of landowners still think that they are going to make a shedload of money out of it, not realising how much non productive work can need to be done to actually get any timber out of a neglected/unmanaged stand.

[roseyweb]

True

I had a lengthy conversation with a landowner today along the same lines,

[rovers90]

Don't shoot me down in flames on this one but a friend in the know told me recently if all the biomass power stations that are planned were actually built, the UK demand for timber would be 58million tons per year. Current output is 9 million tons per year so where is the extra going to come from and how green does that make biomass?

[StephF]

Don't shoot me down in flames on this one but a friend in the know told me recently if all the biomass power stations that are planned were actually built, the UK demand for timber would be 58million tons per year. Current output is 9 million tons per year so where is the extra going to come from and how green does that make biomass?

Exactly why we should be doing something about it, some very big companies are backing this petition, they have put adverts in national papers for past 2 weeks, and hope to get a debate at government level soon. The timber needed is being imported from abroad, and uk forests are being put under massive pressure to supply bio mass plants / and the industries the timber was originally planted for ( trees are not randomly planted but careful thought was given 20-30 yrs ago to the needs of today eg: building), bringing under managed woodlands into operation would be a drop in the ocean needed to feed power stations now built, is economically unviable, most are unmanaged because of poor access and site conditions.

[slasherscot]

i taken it u mean hardwood woods are unmanaged because of poor access and site conditions..........only guessing here but i would think that over 90% of wood going to biomass is softwood..ie coming from FC and the other woodland managemnt companies, generally their woods are well managed and accessible, though sometimes a fair distance to the mill.

At the end of the day wood is worldwide commodity and prices of homegrown timber can only rise to a level thats equal to imported timber.

Edited November 21, 2011 by slasherscot

[MattyF]

i taken it u mean hardwood woods are unmanaged because of poor access and site conditions..........only guessing here but i would think that over 90% of wood going to biomass is softwood..ie coming from FC and the other woodland managemnt companies, generally their woods are well managed and accessible, though sometimes a fair distance to the mill.

At the end of the day wood is worldwide commodity and prices of homegrown timber can only rise to a level thats equal to imported timber.

 

No the government Subsidies going to reach the targets they have unrealasticly looking at are for mainly soft wood plantations going as biomass.

[MattyF]

And read rovers post are current production is 9 million tons how will they reach 58 million??

[StephF]

the building of biomass plants, was not thought through from the start, (this is what I have been told by people who were involved in the decision making); that they were asked for input into the decisions that were being made, and basically ignored when they had serious doubts uk would be able to supply the expected quotas towards the 58 million, expectations included figures that were the S/W and unmanaged woodlands.