This summer’s fires were a grim reminder of the need to clean our forests. Also, the futile efforts of half dead trees to stay alive uses up an unnecessary amount of our water supply. As announced in the local media just recently, the Forest Service is burning dead trees at various locations. Ideally, this material should go to a biomass plant for energy production, wood pellets for export and other possible uses. But inhibiting this possibility the Forest Service makes two assumptions that I question.
First, they say that hauling this stuff out of our forests doesn’t pencil out. The material doesn’t contain enough value to support individuals or businesses to do this. Given the need for a decent wage, benefits, depreciation on chain saws, a truck, etc they are right. But they are assuming that this is a full cost business. I submit that it works as a marginal cost business. Most of the firewood for sale in our county is produced as a marginal cost business. Enterprise such as this occurs when someone is out of work, between situations in their life or just wants to pick up some extra money. While an individual may not do this for very long, there is always a supply of new people taking their place. A retired person buying and selling knick-knacks from their home could be an example. The jitneys of the post WW1 period, where people with cars picked up passengers just before the crowded street cars arrived, is a classic example. These still survive is some cities, and have been resurrected in the form of Uber and the other new technologies disrupting the overpriced taxis. They are very worthwhile for their participants. Someone I know of recently made over $500 on a weekend evening in San Francisco. Given this context, I think that hauling biomass from our forests would work economically.
The Forest Service also states that the other inhibitor of economically cleaning our forests is the remote locations of the about to be wastefully burned material. In some situations this is undoubtedly true. But in how many real locations is this true? Given the American can do spirit this is only a challenge, not a problem. What better satisfaction is there in knowing that you did something that someone else told you that you couldn’t do? How many rusty tractors did we haul out of dangerous ravines in 1942 to feed our steel mills when our nation was under attack? We won back then, but have we given up now? This spirit of resignation that grips us today is seemingly given official expression when the Forest Service says too remote. Maybe we would all be better off in damp Atlantic coastal cities all still drinking English Tea and reading amusing books about the fall of Rome?
I certainly believe that there are many sincere people in the Forest Service, but there also appears to be some that think that documenting the situation for bigger appropriations next year is more important than cleaning out our forests now.
First, they say that hauling this stuff out of our forests doesn’t pencil out. The material doesn’t contain enough value to support individuals or businesses to do this. Given the need for a decent wage, benefits, depreciation on chain saws, a truck, etc they are right. But they are assuming that this is a full cost business. I submit that it works as a marginal cost business. Most of the firewood for sale in our county is produced as a marginal cost business. Enterprise such as this occurs when someone is out of work, between situations in their life or just wants to pick up some extra money. While an individual may not do this for very long, there is always a supply of new people taking their place. A retired person buying and selling knick-knacks from their home could be an example. The jitneys of the post WW1 period, where people with cars picked up passengers just before the crowded street cars arrived, is a classic example. These still survive is some cities, and have been resurrected in the form of Uber and the other new technologies disrupting the overpriced taxis. They are very worthwhile for their participants. Someone I know of recently made over $500 on a weekend evening in San Francisco. Given this context, I think that hauling biomass from our forests would work economically.
The Forest Service also states that the other inhibitor of economically cleaning our forests is the remote locations of the about to be wastefully burned material. In some situations this is undoubtedly true. But in how many real locations is this true? Given the American can do spirit this is only a challenge, not a problem. What better satisfaction is there in knowing that you did something that someone else told you that you couldn’t do? How many rusty tractors did we haul out of dangerous ravines in 1942 to feed our steel mills when our nation was under attack? We won back then, but have we given up now? This spirit of resignation that grips us today is seemingly given official expression when the Forest Service says too remote. Maybe we would all be better off in damp Atlantic coastal cities all still drinking English Tea and reading amusing books about the fall of Rome?
I certainly believe that there are many sincere people in the Forest Service, but there also appears to be some that think that documenting the situation for bigger appropriations next year is more important than cleaning out our forests now.
Copyright 2014, Mark L. Bennett
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