Maintenance of Forest Contribution to Global Carbon Cycles
People rely on forests, directly and indirectly, for a wide range of goods and services. Measures of forest productive capacity are indicators of the ability of forests to sustainability supply goods and services over time. An ongoing focus on maintaining productive capacity of forests can help ensure that the use of forest resources does not impair long term forest productivity even though the goods and services expected from forests may change over time due to social, economic, or technological trends.
In 2007, the equivalent of 2 percent of the energy consumed in the U.S. came from wood combustion by industrial (1.3 percent), residential (0.4 percent), utility (0.2 percent), and other (0.1 percent) users.
Less than 1 percent of U.S. electric power is generated from wood.
The quantity of sequestered carbon in forests
generally increases as the volume of live trees
increases. The volume of timber in the region has
increased substantially in the past 50 years. (See
also Wood volume, item 10.)
Carbon sequestered in
Carbon is sequestered in forest products.
Regionally about 1.5 billion cubic feet of wood
is converted annually to long-lived products.
Another 0.9 billion cubic feet is used to produce
pulp and paper products. This is a substantial
quantity of wood products and associated
sequestered carbon, but it is below the region’s
capacity. Since 1986, the annual volume of
roundwood products has decreased. (See also
Wood volume and Wood growth and removals,
items 10 and 11.)
biomass for energy
Annually about 0.6 billion cubic feet of wood
harvested in the region is used for fuelwood
(including residential heating). This is a small part
of the region’s energy needs, but utilization of
woody biomass for energy is increasing. Use of
fuelwood often offsets consumption of fossil fuels
that would be used instead.
Maps and Figures
When and where carbon occurs in a typical forest—a composite summary for all northern forests showing average carbon by forest age and forest component; note that about 16 percent of live tree carbon is coarse roots
Aboveground live tree biomass for Northern States
Location and amount of avoided carbon dioxide emissions from electric utilities that were using wood as a power source, 2007, based on expected emissions from using coal.