Thread: carbon tax affect on sawmillers

Same for me if I make furniture from reclaimed timber do I get carbon credits? We should but I don't like our chances.

Good idea charlsie love your work, sad thing is once againa we are having change for the sake of change I am not apossed to a carbon tax and in a way its a good thing. Just wish they d include more bio stuff. We ve all talked about our sawdust waste and how to use it but there are things avalibe to us that arnt being shared with us as much , ie Pellets But how do we convince people to try them.
For the people who say no other county is doing any thig is BS they just arnt doing it the way the Government wants too
Wood heat fights to be a bigger player | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram
I was sent a link to this artical from Timber daily News Timberbiz | Daily Timber News

claw, the only credit you will get is from the people that appreciate your furniture,which is a shame.how good would it be to actually get a credit that you could sell for money to grow your business(creating employment) or to lower your taxes so therefore to make your product cheaper so it could compete with brand new furniture.from what i see though,furniture made from reclaimed timber is a growing business,as is mine,driven by people that do care about the planet and do want to recycle. itsposs, there's some good reading in those links.seeing how the governments can completely wreck an industry overnight with a pen and ruler (ie; live cattle export) i don't see much chance of small operators like us getting a kickback from the government unlike our solar industry participants.how good would it be to get a rebate on a sawdust pellet making machine!

Well I reckon if 'we' as sawmillers, get directly charged this carbon tax then yeah the fact that we reclaim logs from having the carbon released into the environment should be a 'credit' on our part.

BUT....

if you believe the spin - it'll only be big industry users that are getting taxed and as 'we' (general consumers) will more than likely have it added onto our products in some way, then we'll be getting rebates or payments to offset the passed on taxing..... that's IF you believe it.... ok enough from me

Yeah I think your dead right there Sigidi its great in theory but you just know they are going to stuff it.

I don't think the scale of our enterprises will put us in the 500 big polluters so there won't be a direct tax to pay. We will, however, pay indirectly through increased prices in just about all of our inputs - fuel, electricity etc.
With regard to credits there are set guidelines (determined buy a new boffin called an environmental accountant) that outliine how you can get credits.From memory they talk about reasonable scale and activities that would not have happened anyway. So you can't claim the forest on your property for credits as it would continue to store carbon anyway. You could do a plantation but that must remain locked up for 100yrs. Can't see myself qualifying for any credits.

cheers
steve

The biggest problem with the idea charlsie is that mobile mills are dirty bloody things that spew a lot of greenhouse gases into the air while cutting the log. It's hard to get green credits for doing something based on dirty technology.

If mills were gasifying their waste and using the gas to power their mills, that would be a different thing. About 20-30% of your mill's fuel requirements could come from woodgas without any significant loss of performance. It was one of the things I would have got to if I'd kept milling. I might even do it anyway.

There is interest in gasification from the power generators, but only large-scale stuff like coal-seam and municipal waste. There are commercial gasification plants available, but once again, larger scale than would be useful for a small miller.

Google FEMA gas generator for some info if you're interested.
Wood gas generator - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hey Craig, good to see ya

Looks like sawmill waste products do qualify here. So why not everywhere?

"One person indicated that biomass produced at sawmills is already eligible under the state’s RPS."
Biomass Transition Team Priorities (Comments) - Governor-elect John Kitzhaber

Originally Posted by sgschwend

Looks like sawmill waste products do qualify here. So why not everywhere?
Biomass Transition Team Priorities (Comments) - Governor-elect John Kitzhaber

Steve

Is that the same in all US states? I suspect there will be a wide range of rules and regulations across America.

Stopper

I don't think the plantation restriction is quite as onerous as 100 years as the carbon capture occurs in the early years of plantation life. However I will have to check my facts on this one.

Regards
Paul

bit hhard with 2 stroke s but we can clean our 4 strokes up admitedly at a price I saw some gas coverted 22hp briggs engines running off 9 kg gas bottles while getting a quote for the F250 the other day. I ll have to look more into that

I don't think the plantation restriction is quite as onerous as 100 years as the carbon capture occurs in the early years of plantation life. However I will have to check my facts on this one.

Regards
Paul[/QUOTE]


Hi Paul,
Pretty sure it's 100 years which is apparently the life of CO2. My reading leads me to believe that to qualify for carbon credits the reafforestation guidelines run along these lines:
Area to be reafforested cannot have been a forest in the last 5yrs. ie must be clear land.
Self seeding doesn't count. You have to actually plant it with seedlings.
You can't harvest it - it is a carbon bank and must remain so.
Thinnings must be left on the site.
It can be grazed by livestock but only occasionally, not permanently.

However you can take a bit of firewood for domestic use (not commercial) from fallen debris.

Looks like if you want to claim carbon credits you have to lock up carbon.

cheers
Steve

some of the stuff in the quotes are very interesting.craig,would a small gasification plant work or save any money in small operations? from reading it doesn't look like it.but would be good to run a generator and possibly hydronic heating

If your reprocessing creates a usable fuel that can replace diesel or gasoline then there is a Federal level $.50/gallon tax incentive. So that would be a good direction to go. If you create a heating product then you would be on the state level (which means 50 different looks).