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As competition for wood increases or when there are no more trees, then won’t the price of wood become more expensive?

Last Updated: December 16, 2009

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It depends on your definition of wood. The value of wood for lumber is an order of magnitude (10 times) more valuable than wood for biomass energy. Even though the appetite for energy is beyond the available wood supply, harvesting wood for energy is unlikely to have a huge effect on the cost of lumber unless the cost of energy greatly increases. Wood for mulch or other low value uses is more likely to be affected, but “no more trees” is not likely to occur as land owners want fair compensation for their trees. It is more likely that as the value increases, trees to be thinned and used for energy can pay their way out of the forest resulting in a healthier forest with faster growing large trees.

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