What is woodchipping?
Forests in the furnace
Activists Corner
What's New

Home

FACTS AND FIGURES

 

{
CO2 is released when soil is disturbed


►Forest Carbon in NSW

 

Make Green Carbon Count  t What the experts say

Almost $1 million a day is the carbon cost of native forest logging to supply the Eden chipmill.
At $20 a tonne of CO2, as recommended by Professor Ross Garnaut, the carbon cost is $362,293,600 per year.

Native forest logging generates almost 10 percent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions and yet is being treated in the Green Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme as if it were carbon neutral.
Recent scientific research has enabled us to calculate more accurately the cost of carbon pollution generated by native forest logging for the Eden chipmill.
Professor Brendan Mackey’s “Green Carbon - The role of natural forests in carbon storage” released by the Australian National University in August 2008, provides figures on the carbon carrying capacity of SE Australia’s eucalypt forests.
From this data we can calculate that over 18 millions tonnes of CO2 is generated every year by logging for woodchips in SE NSW and East Gippsland.             Bookmark and Share  
calculation 
leaflet
This is equivalent to:

Gold Recessed ArrowMore than every car in Sydney or Melbourne off the road for a year from just the NSW logging.

Gold Recessed Arrowapproximately 20 times the greenhouse emissions saved by the whole of Australia per year from the recently announced ban on the incandescent light globe (source: media statement, then Environment Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, 20 February 2007 which says the ban will save 800,000 tonnes per year from 2008 to 2012).

Gold Recessed Arrow257 times the greenhouse emissions saved by the Bega Valley Shire Council moving to renewable electricity or giving up electricity altogether (source: CleanEnergyForEternity plan: 7,211 tonnes CO2 per year generated by BVSC).

In addition to direct CO2 and/or equivalent emissions, there are also major greenhouse emissions such as:

  • 14.5 million truck kilometres per year for log deliveries to the chipmill, a further 2 million tonnes.

  • The power used to chip and process the logs

  • Post logging burning
  • Shipping of chips to Japan, approximately 0.5m tonnes per year.
    [back to top]

Post logging burn in Badja Forest

Sendai Paper Mill, Japan
 

LINKS

Woodchipping Sux: campaign materials on forests and global warming.
http://www.woodchippingsux.net.au/global warming.htm

Zero Emission Network - Forest and Climate Change
http://www.zeroemissionnetwork.org.au/facts-and-figures-forests

Vote Climate
http://voteclimate.org.au/

Australian Greenhouse Office http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/ http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/nav/databases.html

Rising Tide Australia Grassroots climate action
http://www.risingtide.org.au/


Clean Energy for Eternity http://thebegavalley.org.au/cefe.html

Australian Conservation Foundation http://www.acfonline.org.au

Green Carbon Counts  http://www.naturalnativeforests.org/

 

 

 

 

[back to top]



How does woodchipping compare with other big GHG polluters such as driving a car or household elecricity use? The Worst Polluter is an animated quiz show that helps the viewer understand the relativities of Greenhouse gas emissions. View


"Simulations of carbon storage suggest that conversion of old growth forest to young fast growing forest will not decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) in general, as has been suggested recently. During simulated timber harvest, on-site carbon storage is reduced considerably and does not approach old growth storage capacity for at least 200 years. Even when sequestration of carbon in wooden buildings is included in the models, timber harvest results in a net flux of CO2 to the atmosphere." Effects on Carbon Storage of Conversion of Old-Growth Forests to Young Forests, Mark E. Harmon; William K. Ferrell; Jerry F. Franklin Science, New Series, Vol. 247, No. 4943. (Feb. 9, 1990), pp. 699-702. click
back to top]



INTERNATIONAL AND GLOBAL
Ecological Internet, Inc. http://www.ecologicalinternet.org/
 
New version 2.0 sites:
Climate Ark Climate Change and Global Warming Portal
EcoEarth.Info Environment Portal   http://www.ecoearth.info/
Water Conserve: Water Conservation Portal   http://www.waterconserve.org/
Rainforest Portal  http://www.rainforestportal.org/
Forests.org  http://forests.org/

Solve Global Warming  www.solveglobalwarming.com