I wonder if this is a good or a bad thing. When it becomes mainstream and the process becomes common and cheap, will every building use this process? If so, how do we sustain it and be competitive. We could do everything to grow new stock, but poor countries can use slash/burn techniques to win contracts on wood stock. It would continue the deforestation's we are already seeing. I would like to see local wood farmers who are doing it right, lobby for laws that make this movement a green path as well, then I am all in.
World forest coverage has almost stablized, and is increasing in wealthier countries. Presumably, it will finish turning around in the next decade or so as developing countries become less poor.
Wood that is grown, cut, and then used in a way that resists decomposition contributes as a non-negligible carbon sink.
That's what I mean by "almost stabilized". Global forest coverage is still decreasing, but at a rate that is clearly slowing. And since we see that coverage increases in rich countries, we tentatively conclude that the rate of global decrease will not equilibriate at some negative value, but rather will continue flattening and then turn upward as poor countries become rich. Furthermore, the low point of this process is not particularly bad; it forms a trough that bottoms out at ~4% decrease compared to current levels.
A lot of this timber is made from pine, which grows insanely fast in some areas of the world (e.g. New Zealand).
That's what's so great about engineered timber, rather than relying on the innate properties of the timber from a particular tree, we can engineer the timber to make up for deficiencies.
