051 The Future of Wood: New Markets, Healthy Forests, and an Old Natural Resource

Wood may be one of humanity's oldest building materials, but we may only be beginning to understand what we can do with it.

For thousands of years, people have used trees for shelter, heat, tools, furniture, ships, paper, musical instruments and countless everyday objects. Today we are learning how to take wood apart at the microscopic and even molecular level and use its components to make entirely different materials.

That creates an intriguing possibility for the future of our forests and the people who work in them.

Could new uses for wood create new markets for trees that currently have little economic value — while also helping us manage healthier forests, improve wildlife habitat, support rural communities and give forest landowners another reason to keep forests as forests?

For those of us who have spent time around logging, sawmills, woodworking and forests, this isn't merely an interesting technology question.

It could become a very important question about the future of the forest itself.

A Changing Forest Economy

The forest-products industry has always changed with its markets.

A tree has economic value only when someone has a use for it. If a sawmill can sell oak flooring, oak logs have value. If a paper mill needs pulpwood, smaller and lower-grade trees have a market. If a manufacturer needs pallet lumber, another class of logs becomes useful.

But when a mill closes or a market disappears, the trees don't disappear with it.

Suddenly a species, size or grade of tree that had value yesterday may have very little value tomorrow.

This affects much more than the logger.

It affects truckers, sawmills, equipment dealers, mechanics, landowners, foresters, manufacturers and entire rural communities. And eventually it can affect the forest.

This is an important point because forestry and logging are sometimes discussed as though the only choices are to cut trees or protect trees.

Good forestry is much more complicated than that.

A Healthy Forest Sometimes Needs Trees Removed

A forest is a living community, not a museum.

Trees germinate, compete, mature, decline and die. Storms open areas. Insects and disease change the composition of stands. Young trees wait beneath an older canopy for enough sunlight to grow. Wildlife species depend on everything from mature trees and standing deadwood to young forest, brush, openings and fallen logs.

Thoughtful forest management can sometimes improve that system by removing selected trees.

A harvest may release healthier trees from competition. It may remove damaged or diseased trees. It can create openings for regeneration. It can encourage a different mixture of species and age classes. Depending on the forest and the management objective, it can also help create habitat needed by wildlife.

But there is an economic reality behind all of this:

Someone has to be able to use the trees that are removed.

If the only trees with meaningful value are the best sawlogs, the economics can work against good forest management. There can be an incentive to take the best and leave everything else.

New York's Department of Environmental Conservation specifically cautions forest owners about this problem. Removing only the highest-quality trees can leave a stand overcrowded with defective and lower-value trees, potentially reducing future productivity for decades.

In other words, markets matter to forestry.

The Forest → The Logger → The Product

It is useful to think about the forest-products industry as a chain:

the forest → the logger → the mill → the manufacturer → the product → the customer

Every link depends upon the others.

A scientist can invent an incredible new wood product, but eventually somebody has to supply the wood.

Someone has to walk through the forest and determine which trees should be harvested. Someone has to fell them safely. Someone has to skid or forward them to a landing. Someone has to sort them. Someone has to truck them. A mill or processing facility has to be close enough to make transportation economical.

That means innovation in forest products doesn't really begin at the factory.

It begins in the forest.

What If We Found a Better Use for Every Tree?

Traditional forestry has already developed different markets for different portions of a harvest.

A beautiful straight hardwood log might become furniture or flooring. Another might become railroad ties, pallets or industrial lumber. Smaller material might become pulpwood, firewood, chips or biomass.

But imagine taking that idea much further.

Instead of asking simply, "Is this a sawlog?" we might someday ask:

"What is the highest and best use for this particular piece of wood?"

The answer might be lumber.

But it could also be an engineered structural panel, thermally modified siding, cellulose fiber, packaging, a composite material, biochar, a chemical derived from lignin or even microscopic cellulose reinforcing another material.

That is where the future becomes especially interesting.

Mass Timber: Building Bigger With Wood

One of the most developed new markets is mass timber.

Instead of relying entirely on large solid timbers, engineered wood products can combine smaller pieces of wood into very large structural components. Cross-laminated timber, commonly called CLT, is one example.

Layers of wood are arranged in alternating directions and bonded together to create large structural panels. Other mass-timber systems create beams, columns, floors and walls.

This allows wood to enter construction markets that historically depended heavily upon concrete and steel.

The U.S. Forest Service is actively researching mass timber and notes several potential advantages, including rapid prefabricated construction, relatively low weight and the ability of sustainably sourced mass timber to have lower life-cycle carbon emissions than conventional concrete and steel systems.

Most mass timber currently uses softwoods.

But here is where things become particularly interesting for the Northeast:

Researchers are investigating hardwood mass timber.

That raises the possibility of creating structural products from hardwood species and grades that currently have limited markets.

Low-Value Hardwood Could Become a High-Value Product

This idea turns conventional thinking upside down.

A lower-grade hardwood log might not produce the clear boards desired by a furniture maker.

But an engineered product doesn't necessarily need a flawless twelve-inch-wide board.

It needs wood with predictable engineering characteristics.

If manufacturers can use smaller pieces and lower grades while still producing a certified structural product, trees that struggle in traditional lumber markets could potentially become raw material for buildings.

That would be a remarkable transformation:

low-value tree → engineered wood → high-value building component

Research has already explored cross-laminated timber manufactured from low-value Appalachian and other hardwoods.

This is no longer merely a sketch on someone's drawing board. The question is increasingly whether these products can become economical at commercial scale.

Thermally Modified Wood: Changing the Wood Instead of Rejecting It

Another fascinating opportunity is thermal modification.

Wood is heated under controlled conditions, changing its physical characteristics. The treatment can improve dimensional stability and moisture resistance while also darkening the wood.

Why does that matter?

Because a locally abundant species that isn't naturally considered ideal for an exterior application may become much more useful after modification.

Forest Service-supported work has specifically investigated thermally modified products made from low-value and underutilized hardwoods.

Potential uses include siding, decking, flooring, doors, window components, moulding and outdoor furniture.

Rather than saying, "This isn't the right species," technology may increasingly allow us to ask:

"Can we modify this species so that it becomes the right material?"

Taking Wood Apart: Cellulose and Lignin

Then we reach an entirely different way of thinking about wood.

Stop looking at the board.

Stop looking at the growth rings.

Stop even looking at the wood fibers.

Go smaller.

Wood is largely built from cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Modern material science can separate and manipulate these components, turning a tree into a source of raw materials for products that may not look like wood at all.

This is where the distinction between a "wood product" and a "biomaterial" begins to disappear.

Nanocellulose: Enormous Possibilities From Tiny Fibers

Cellulose provides much of the structural framework inside wood.

When cellulose is processed down to extremely small dimensions, researchers can create cellulose nanomaterials.

The U.S. Forest Service's Forest Products Laboratory is actively researching these materials and operates facilities devoted to their development.

Potential applications include packaging, composites, building materials and infrastructure.

One especially surprising application is concrete.

Researchers have found that cellulose nanomaterials can be added to cement-based materials to improve certain properties and potentially reduce environmental impacts.

Think about what that means.

A small-diameter or low-value tree that might once have struggled to find a market could potentially be processed into microscopic cellulose particles and eventually become part of a bridge, road or building.

A tree doesn't necessarily have to look like wood in the final product to remain a forest product.

Wood Instead of Plastic

Packaging could become another enormous opportunity.

Modern society uses extraordinary quantities of petroleum-derived plastic for products that may be used for minutes and remain in the environment for decades or much longer.

Cellulose-based films, fibers, coatings and composites offer opportunities to replace some of those materials with renewable forest-derived alternatives.

Forest Service researchers have studied wood-derived fibers in food packaging, including applications that can reduce plastic use while helping food remain fresh longer.

If even a small percentage of today's disposable packaging eventually shifted from petroleum-derived plastic to responsibly sourced forest fiber, the scale of the potential market could be substantial.

Lignin: From Sawmill and Pulp Byproduct to Raw Material

Lignin is another intriguing part of the tree.

It acts somewhat like a natural binder within wood, helping give trees their rigidity.

Historically, lignin produced during industrial processing has often been treated primarily as a byproduct or burned for energy.

Researchers are now investigating higher-value uses.

Forest Service scientists have studied lignin-based resins for 3D-printing materials and lignin-derived compounds with ultraviolet-blocking properties.

This points toward a future in which a forest-products facility might resemble a refinery as much as a traditional sawmill.

Instead of producing only boards, chips and sawdust, a future "wood refinery" could separate wood into streams of useful materials:

We have spent more than a century learning how many products can be derived from petroleum.

Perhaps the coming decades will teach us how many can be derived from trees.

Biochar: A Lower-Tech Idea With Nearer-Term Potential

Not every innovation has to involve nanotechnology.

Sometimes a relatively straightforward technology may solve a very practical problem.

Biochar is produced by heating woody material under limited-oxygen conditions. Depending upon the feedstock and production process, the resulting carbon-rich material can have applications in soils, environmental treatment and other uses.

One of its intriguing characteristics from a forestry standpoint is the possibility of processing material that otherwise has little value.

Branches, tops, small trees and other woody material can be expensive to move long distances because so much of their volume has relatively little economic value.

Portable or regional processing could change that equation.

Instead of hauling bulky low-value material hundreds of miles, perhaps more of the initial processing could someday occur close to the forest.

What About Sawmill Residues?

We should also stop thinking only about logs.

Every sawmill produces material besides lumber.

There is bark.

There are slabs and edgings.

There are chips.

There is sawdust.

There may be short pieces and low-grade material.

Traditionally these materials have found uses ranging from paper and fuel to mulch, bedding and particle products.

Future technology could make some of these residual streams considerably more valuable.

Forest Service research into nanocellulose specifically identifies small-diameter trees and sawmill residuals as potential raw materials.

That creates another important possibility:

The sawmill of the future may make more money by wasting less rather than simply sawing more logs.

Could We Develop More Local and Regional Products?

High technology isn't the only answer.

There may also be opportunities to rediscover relatively simple wood products and manufacture them regionally.

Why couldn't more Northeast wood become:

Not every new forest market requires inventing a new molecule.

Sometimes innovation is simply finding a better way to manufacture, market or distribute something we already understand.

The Northeast Has an Extraordinary Hardwood Resource

The forests of New York, Pennsylvania and the greater Northeast contain a remarkable diversity of hardwood species.

We tend to assign familiar values to them.

Black walnut? Valuable.

Cherry? Valuable.

Hard maple? Valuable.

Good oak? Valuable.

But what about lower-grade maple?

Aspen?

Yellow-poplar?

Cottonwood?

Willow?

Beech affected by disease?

Small-diameter hardwoods?

Crooked trees?

Trees with defects that make them unsuitable for conventional high-grade lumber?

Perhaps the problem isn't always the tree.

Perhaps sometimes we simply haven't developed the right product for it yet.

Markets Can Help Us Practice Better Forestry

This may be the most important part of the entire discussion.

Suppose a forester walks through a stand and identifies trees that should be removed to improve the growth and quality of the remaining forest.

If those trees have no market, removing them costs money.

If those same trees are worth something, management becomes easier to justify economically.

That creates a powerful relationship:

better markets → more management options → healthier forests

It doesn't mean every forest should be harvested.

It doesn't mean every low-value tree should be removed.

Dead trees, hollow trees, declining trees, brush and woody debris can be extraordinarily important wildlife habitat. Forests also need biological diversity, structural complexity, old trees and unmanaged areas.

The objective should never be to "clean up" a forest as though it were a lawn.

The objective is thoughtful management.

Healthy Forests Are Wildlife Habitat

Forestry discussions sometimes overlook another member of the forest-products story:

wildlife.

Different animals require different forest conditions.

Some thrive in mature forest. Others need dense young regeneration. Some depend upon cavities in old trees. Others need brushy edges, openings, berries, seeds, insects or fallen woody material.

A landscape containing forests of different ages and structures can provide a wider variety of habitat than a landscape where every acre develops in exactly the same way.

Thoughtful timber management can be one tool for creating that diversity.

And when a working forest remains economically useful to its owner, there may be another enormous conservation benefit:

the forest has a better chance of remaining a forest.

The Most Important Forest Product May Be the Forest

This sounds contradictory at first.

How can selling wood help preserve forest?

Because land has competing economic uses.

A forest owner pays taxes. Roads and boundaries require maintenance. Invasive plants may need control. Forest-management work costs money. Families inherit property. Financial circumstances change.

If owning forestland produces no economic return, selling or converting the property can become increasingly attractive.

But a well-managed working forest can periodically produce income while continuing to grow trees, protect soil, store carbon, filter water, provide recreation and support wildlife.

The Forest Service has specifically identified this relationship: stronger markets for forest products can make management more economically attractive to landowners and provide incentives to maintain forests for future generations.

That gives us a longer version of our original chain:

healthy forest → thoughtful management → logger → processor → useful product → viable rural economy → supported landowner → forest remains forest

And then the cycle begins again.

The Logger Has to Remain Part of the Future

There is an important human element here.

We can talk about nanocellulose, engineered timber and biorefineries, but none of those technologies replace the knowledge required to work safely and responsibly in a forest.

Logging is difficult, skilled work.

A good operator understands terrain, weather, soil, machinery and trees. The decisions made during harvesting can affect a forest for decades.

If society wants responsibly managed forests and renewable wood products, it also needs skilled loggers.

A forest-products future that invents wonderful products but loses the people capable of economically getting wood from forest to market has a serious missing link.

Supporting new markets therefore isn't simply about saving mills.

It can help preserve knowledge, equipment, infrastructure and a skilled rural workforce that is difficult to rebuild once it disappears.

The Biggest Problem May Not Be Technology

Many of these ideas sound promising, but we should resist the temptation to assume that every laboratory breakthrough will become a commercial market.

Inventing a product is only the beginning.

A new wood industry needs:

Transportation is especially important with lower-value wood.

A beautiful veneer log can economically travel a considerable distance because the material is valuable.

Low-grade wood cannot.

It makes little sense to spend more trucking a tree than the tree is worth when it arrives.

That means regional processing infrastructure may be every bit as important as scientific innovation.

Perhaps We Need the Sawmill of the Future

Imagine a regional wood-processing center designed around using almost everything that arrives.

The best logs are sawn into lumber.

Lower-grade logs become engineered structural material.

Small pieces become fiber products.

Chips feed cellulose processing.

Bark enters another product stream.

Sawdust becomes pellets, composites, biochar or chemical feedstock.

Special logs are separated for woodworkers and specialty markets rather than disappearing into commodity products.

Digital scanning identifies the best use for each log before it is processed.

Perhaps artificial intelligence eventually helps match incoming wood with current orders and markets.

Instead of asking:

"How many board feet did we saw today?"

the mill might ask:

"How much value did we recover from every ton of wood that entered the facility?"

That could be a very different forest economy.

Wood as a Renewable Materials Platform

For generations we have thought of oil as more than fuel.

Petroleum became the starting material for plastics, fibers, coatings, chemicals, adhesives and thousands of manufactured products.

Wood deserves some of that same imagination.

A tree is not merely a future two-by-four.

It is an incredibly sophisticated biological structure assembled largely from sunlight, water, carbon dioxide and nutrients.

Inside it are fibers, polymers and chemical compounds that science is increasingly learning to use.

That doesn't mean wood can or should replace everything.

But it does mean that the potential market for forest materials may eventually become much larger than traditional lumber and paper.

We Shouldn't Forget the Woodworker

There is also a much smaller-scale opportunity.

Woodworkers can help create markets for unusual and overlooked species.

One of the wonderful things about working with many species of wood is discovering that "low value" doesn't necessarily mean "poor wood."

Sometimes it simply means low commercial demand.

A species may machine differently. It may be softer. It may have unusual color. It may not meet the expectations of a commodity lumber market.

But in the hands of a woodworker, those differences can become character.

We should continue experimenting with local species, telling their stories and showing people what they can become.

A craftsman may never consume the volume of a pulp mill or mass-timber plant, but woodworking can help change the way people think about overlooked woods.

There Is No Useless Wood

Throughout our Know Your Woods series, we keep returning to a simple lesson.

Every species is different.

Basswood isn't oak.

Aspen isn't hard maple.

Willow isn't walnut.

And that's the point.

The goal shouldn't always be to make one wood behave like another.

The better question is:

What is this wood naturally good at?

At the woodworking scale, that might determine whether we carve it, turn it, bend it, build with it or simply admire its grain.

At an industrial scale, the same philosophy could guide an entirely new generation of forest products.

Perhaps there really is no such thing as useless wood.

There are simply woods for which we haven't yet found the right use.

The Future of Logging May Be About Value, Not Volume

When traditional markets struggle, the natural reaction is to ask how we can sell more wood.

Maybe the better long-term question is:

How can we create more value from the wood that good forestry already gives us a reason to harvest?

That distinction matters.

The future doesn't have to mean cutting more acres or removing more trees.

It could mean making better use of the trees that are harvested.

It could mean turning low-grade material into high-performance products.

It could mean recovering useful material from sawmill residues.

It could mean manufacturing more products regionally.

It could mean giving landowners more options when managing their forests.

And it could mean maintaining the logging, trucking, forestry and milling infrastructure needed to manage those forests responsibly.

The Forest Comes First

There is one principle that should remain at the center of all of this.

The existence of a market does not determine whether a tree should be cut.

Good forestry should determine that.

The market's job is to provide a useful and economically sensible destination for appropriate material after the management decision has been made.

That is a very different philosophy from simply harvesting whatever is most valuable.

First ask what the forest needs.

Then ask what wildlife needs.

Then ask what the landowner is trying to accomplish.

Then determine which trees, if any, should be harvested.

And finally:

Find the best possible use for what comes out.

From the Forest to the Future

I grew up with logging as part of my background, and I still have relatives working in the industry. Watching traditional markets change and sometimes disappear makes the future of logging more than an abstract economic question for me.

It also makes me wonder whether we are looking at this moment the wrong way.

Perhaps declining traditional markets don't mean society needs wood less.

Perhaps some of the products we will make from wood simply haven't been invented yet.

A century ago, few people looking at an oil well could have imagined every modern product that would eventually be made from petroleum.

Today we can stand beside a maple, birch, poplar, hemlock or pine and ask a similar question:

What else could this remarkable renewable material become?

Some answers are already emerging.

Buildings.

Insulation.

Packaging.

Advanced composites.

Biochar.

Textiles.

Cellulose nanomaterials.

Lignin-based products.

Even materials that strengthen concrete.

Other answers are probably sitting in laboratories today.

And some may still be waiting for someone to imagine them.

A Different Way to Think About Cutting Trees

The most exciting future isn't one in which we simply find more reasons to cut trees.

It is one in which forestry, wildlife, logging, manufacturing and conservation work together.

A healthy forest produces wood.

Responsible harvesting gives that wood a useful destination.

New products support loggers, mills and rural communities.

Those markets give landowners economic reasons to manage their property.

Managed forests can provide diverse wildlife habitat.

And economically viable forestland is more likely to remain forestland.

Then new trees grow.

The cycle continues.

the forest → the logger → the product → the economy → the landowner → the forest

And throughout that cycle are wildlife, clean water, stored carbon, recreation, jobs, craftsmanship and generations of people whose lives are connected to the woods.

Maybe that is the real opportunity before us.

Not simply finding more things to make from trees.

But building an economy in which the value of wood helps us maintain the value of the forest.

What if the future of logging isn't about finding more things to cut — but finding better uses for the trees a healthy forest needs us to cut?

That is a future worth exploring.

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Where the beauty of the wood does the work.

Brad Zehr | ZehrWoodartistry.com | brad@zehr.net

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