I've emailed Gatherites with an interest, background or major in forestry with the following question: "If I were to cut the large aspens on my land, and left the trunks on the ground, would this cause a spurt of new aspen growth, resulting in a net capture of carbon (CO2) from the atmosphere? Keep in mind this scenario does not involve burning gas to haul the wood to market, and it's entirely possible to use a large electric chainsaw to fell the trees. I also know it would only temporarily tie up the carbon, which would be released as the trunk decomposes. I'd very much appreciate your take on this, and any resources written or human you might recommend."
First, a little background.
In my late 20s, I gave up cutting firewood for a living. I loved this work, but it was moderately dangerous, did not pay exceptionally well and, as a camp-based enterprise, it required me to spend a lot of time away from women. Not the least of my concerns was my growing belief that burning firewood put schmutz into the air, and was thus bad for the environment. Natural gas lines were being laid into the mountains, and that was a much "cleaner" fuel (or at least that was the conventional wisdom in the mid-80s). Solar energy seemed to be taking off also.
So, I quit the woods and for 20 years pursued a desk job, but what with the added weight I've put on (190 now vs. 135 when I worked in the woods), stress of workplace politics, and repetitive motion that almost lost me the use of my right arm, I've come to wonder if this is really any safer than working out in the fresh green woods. I am now married, and I'm about ten years away from having a tidy nestegg under my belt. While I have a plum of a job and have no intention of leaving it any time soon, I 
nonetheless look forward to an active retirement some 15 years down the road, and the thought of spending more time in the woods makes me smile.
Throw now into this mix of circumstances the new threat of global warming, and my hearing the other day that "firewood is carbon neutral." In the 80s, the environmental merits of fuel were measuerd by how clean it burned. The word "sustainable" was not then a household word, as it is today. This got me thinking about the possibility that my future hobby job in the woods could actually be a good thing for the planet. What if my "truck" (we're talking 2018 or 2023 here remember) generated electricity with its brakes as I made my way down to town; juice that could then generate power to supplement getting the empty vehicle back up to camp, and for running an electric chain saw?
God knows I don't miss gagging on the saw's oily smoke . . .
Selling the firewood may actually be an environmentally viable option - maybe, I'm not convinced - but that's not the question on the table.
Now the idea.
What if I'm financially comfortable enough that I dispense with the danger of hauling top-heavy loads down winding trails with deep cayons, dispense with the grief of cutting it into rounds and splitting it - and just left the whole trunks lying on the ground to release their CO2 slowly? What if I did this in a forest that quickly responded by sprouting younger, faster-growing, CO2 gobbling saplings? What kind of forest would do that?
I'm thinking an aspen woods may react in just such a way. Even though the large trunks would release their CO2 over the next hundred years or so - wood, even aspen, "rots" very slowly in the arid mountain west - it would still provide a temporary carbon repository, buying time for technology and the reduced use of fossil fuels to combine for a more lasting solution.
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I realize I'm likely to get it from both directions here. On the one hand, many with environmental sensibilities object to the cutting of any tree for any purpose, while others with a more conservationist point of view bristle at the idea of cutting a tree and having the materials "go to waste". I myself would object to cutting any old growth evergreens, but that's not what I'm proposing; what I'm talking about here are aspens. Nor am I proposing any sort of clear cutting, but rather the selective felling of the slowest growing trees.
Aspens are unlike most trees, in that a grove of hundreds or even thousands of apparently separate trees are really nothing of the sort, but rather all are "shoots" of a single organism that shares a common root system. It has been my observation that when you cut down the older, slower-growing aspens, the organism responds by sending up an abundance of smaller, fast-growing sprouts. So, right now it's just a curiosity of mine, and I need a lot more information before I can start seriously considering this idea.
Among the things I need to know:
1) Assuming a large aspen holds 1 to 1.5 cords of wood, how much CO2 is tied up in that tree? Yes, some of my aspens are that large or larger.
2) If I cut such a tree in the arid mountain west, how long would it take for the tree to release that CO2 into the atmosphere?
3) If I cut a large tree - or several large trees, or a hundred large trees - would the resulting spurt of new growth capture C02 at the same rate, or faster, than the older trees did?
4) If the new growth does indeed quickly replace the C02-capturing capacity of the older trees, is there an optimum percentage of trees you can cut to maximize the amount of carbon you are removing from the atmosphere? (Remember, I know I'm only talking about a temporary carbon storage method.)
5) Once the above questions have been answered, which would be a better solution,
a) to leave the trees lying on the ground releasing their CO2 slowly, or
b) making the wood available, at a reduced cost, to homeowners who agree to replace their fossil fuel heating with firewood?
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Again, thank you for any feedback you can give. I'll leave you with one more, perhaps unrelated, question. By halting all of the smaller fires that would have occurred naturally in our forests during the 20th century, we have created a woodland that is unnaturally overgrown and prone to catastrophic wildfires that release unimagineable tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every summer. Wouldn't it make more sense to thin those forests and use the firewood to replace the burning of non-renewable coal and natural gas?
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Comments: 8
I understand that anything that reaches deeper into the ground helps create deeper soil depths, and that rich soil holds a lot of CO2. So, it would make sense that your alder bushes would be good for the land.
Large chunks of cellulosic material are notoriously slow to break down. Any benefit the dead trunks would provide would be far, far in the future. Better to compost the fallen leaves from the trees and spread them to improve the soil.
Am I missing something here, Ron? Or is this piece tongue-in-cheek, and I am too dense to see the humor?
The intent is also to keep the aspen trunks for decomposing as long as possible. I've cut trees I knew to be dead for 80 years and the wood was still crisp. That's what I'd be shooting for as a carbon repository.
There is also the option of marketing the aspen firewood as an alternative to natural gas, but to do so would require getting the wood to market and cutting it up, both of which at this time use fossil fuels.
Perhaps neither is an option. I'm just wanting more information and if either option makes sense, I then want to spread the word.
There seems to be a natural spacing in most forests that gives each tree enough space to survive. So if you cut down a tree and replace it with multiple saplings, my guess is that over time, one of the saplings would become dominant, and the rest would die...or if not, they would all be too crowded to develop fully. Just my take on it. I could be wrong.
On the use of wood as a replacement for natural gas...I think it would contribute a lot of air pollution. Natural gas is about the cleanest burning stuff there is. And as you say, there is the problem of energy usage to harvest and transport the wood. I will admit to a bias here...the world is being deforested at an alarming rate, and any move to create a demand for firewood just scares the Hell out of me.
Bert, what a depressing and all to real concern. Thank you for that reality check. I will certainly take it into account as I think about this.
I also want to thank two persons who delivered wonderful responses off line. I'm learning a lot.