Carbon Pools in Wooden Products and Substitution Effects

1. Carbon Pools in Wooden Products and Substitution Effects Bernhard Zimmer and Hannes Schwaiger COST Action E9,Final Conference in Hamburg, 29th of November

2. Content • Background • Carbon sinks and carbon pools • LCA – a method to calculate carbon pools • Carbon pool „wood and wood products“ • Conclusion

3. Background • The important role of forests and their inherent potentials does not receive adequate recognition at international and national levels. • So far, the protection and economic use of forests and the importance of wood utilisation and wood use in the context of sustainability have not found sufficient consideration, nor has been translated into concerted political action. • The same goes for the contributions of forests, forestry and wood towards the fulfilment of the Kyoto-commitments.

4. Aim and Scope • Present LCA methodology as a tool to estimate the carbon pools of wooden products • Show the link between „LCA on Forestry and Forest Products“ and the climate change discussion

5. Carbon Pools and Annual Flows data according to Houghton (1997) and Schulze (2000)

6. Wood and Timber Utilisation • 3.6 billion cubic metres of timber are currently being used per year; • almost half of this amount is used in wooden products and not directly as fuelwood;

7. Life Span of Wooden Products

8. Carbon Pool „Wood Products“

9. Forest destruction every year also signifies the loss of about 3.7 billion cubic metres of wood that is no longer available for material use nor for controlled use as an energy resource. • In the final essence, this causes the release of about 1 Gt carbon per year from the destruction of wood mass alone.

10. Carbon Pool „Wood Products“

11. LCA, tool to estimate carbon pools

12. The cradle of a wooden product is the forest

13. Composition of Wood One ton of woodotro: • 500 kg carbon • 430 kg oxygen • 60 kg hydrogen • 10 kg other elements

14. Wood production through photosynthesis Photosynthesis: 6 CO2 + 12 H2OC6H12O6 + 6 O2 + 6 H2O Theoretical approachto the calculation of material flows in the wood formation process: 8,4 CO2 + 12 H2O C8,4H12O5,4 + 8,7 O2 + 6 H2O

15. carbon dioxide1851 kg water1082 kg solar energy 19100 MJ wood productionthroughphotosynthesis water541 kg water oxygen 1392 kg nutrientsN, P, K, Mg, Ca wood atro(softwood) 1000 kg

16. Forestry

17. Roundwood

18. Transports

19. Sawn timber

20. LVL – Laminated Veneer Lumber

21. GWP for production of 1 m³ LVL (Kerto)

22. GWP for the production of a timber frame building (Haas)

23. Conclusion • LCA is a valuable tool to calculate the carbon pools in products on condition that carbon dioxide is included as a elementary flow; • Therefore wood cannot be assessed as CO2-neutral and all CO2-emissions have to be mentioned in the GWP-Calculation

25. Thank you very much for your attention