USDA Helps Veterans Find Forestry Jobs

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USDA Helps Veterans Find Forestry Jobs

Veterans sometimes face impeccable difficulties in the job sector since many organizations and businesses view them as high risk employees.  Yet lately, veterans as a workforce have been gaining positive attention and are even sought after in government sectors because of their work ethics, skills, and discipline.  The USDA is one of the government sectors that puts a lot of emphasis on finding job placements for veterans and it is currently estimated that they make up for about 12 percent of the Forest Service workforce.

Soldiers prepare to mobilize as Task Force 340th to serve as hand crews putting out wildfires around the state. (U.S. Army National Guard photo/Sgt. Ian M. Kummer/Released)

Wildland Firefighter Apprenticeship Program

This employment method consists of a two-part program that veterans can join to improve their chances of getting job opportunities in the Forest Service.

  • The first part of the program involves completing 500 hours of work experience during which veterans get the opportunity to work on fuel reduction and wildfire projects. They also learn various other skills like crew organization, chainsaw management, and wildland firefighting safety.
  • Once the 500-hour program is completed, veterans will become eligible for the Wildland Firefighter Apprenticeship Program, an accredited educational program for fire and aviation management, which could lead to lucrative careers within the Department of Agriculture.

Why the Forest Service workforce is perfect for veterans

Forest Service work is often considered a dirty job, however, it is purpose driven.  Many of the jobs are for trail maintenance and improvements, watershed protections, biomass removal to prevent wildfires, and infrastructure improvements. Forest work has a lot to do with safety and security and veterans are sought after in this particular sector due to their extensive experience in survival training, combat training, ethics, discipline, and security.  In effect, it appears that military training makes them ideal candidates to serve and protect national parks and forests.

Who funds it?

The Forest Service has formed a partnership with the California Conservation Corps.  As of June 2017, they have raised $20 million dollars which would make available 4,000 jobs to veterans and young people. Their goal, however, is to invest $40 million by the end of the year to create 11,000 jobs total. They view the Wildland Firefighter Apprenticeship Program as a win-win because both veterans and natural forests benefit from these programs.  Veterans have access to good career opportunities with benefits.  The Forest Service benefits because they have access to a workforce with training and experience that could be used to enhance the safety and preservation of national parks and forests.

The North American forest industry works arduously to protect our forests and ensure that each year, more trees are planted than are harvested. Maintaining the safety of national parks and protecting watersheds are key to preserving national parks and trails. Nature’s Packaging is committed to North American forest sustainability so that forests continue to be safely explored and enjoyed.

 

References

India Plants 50 Million Trees In One Day

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India Plants 50 Million Trees In One Day

Climate change is a serious concern to all of us, but people in India are doing what they can to fight it. In 2016, the country set the world record for most trees planted in one day by planting 49.3 million saplings on July 11, breaking the record of 847,275 trees that was set by Pakistan in 2013.

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The effort is a part of the commitment made by India at the Paris Climate Conference in December 2015. The agreement, which was signed on Earth Day 2016, called for India to spend $6 billion to reforest 12 percent of its land. This would bring the total forest cover to 235 million acres – or 12 percent of the country’s territory – by 2030.

The massive tree planting was undertaken by a reported 800,000 volunteers from Uttar Pradesh, who worked tirelessly for 24 hours to plant 80 different species of trees on public land and along roads and railways. The saplings themselves were raised in local nurseries.

Sequestering Carbon Dioxide

The reason why massive plantings such as this help combat climate change is because trees sequester carbon dioxide from the air, which in turn reduces the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. India has lost much of its forest cover over the past couple of centuries as people have cut down trees for firewood, pasture, and urban development.

Naturally, the effort to reforest much of the world and reduce greenhouse gases is not just limited to India. In December 2015, several African countries vowed to reforest 100 million hectares of land, and a wide range of stakeholders signed the non-binding New York Declaration of Forests that same month. The New York Declaration of Forests would half deforestation by 2020 and hopefully end it altogether by 2030. The declaration also seeks to reforest 350 million hectares of degraded land.

All of this is definitely good news, but there is still a long way to go before we know if these efforts will make a difference. Tree saplings are very susceptible to disease and require watering and care if they are to have the chance to grow. The mortality rate of massive plantings such as the one in India is reportedly as high as 40 percent.

Deforestation has long been a problem all over the world, and it is one of the major contributors to climate change. Even if as many as 40 percent of the saplings planted in India do not survive, efforts such as this will hopefully continue. If nothing else, the record set by the 800,000 volunteers who planted these trees will hopefully inspire others to act. We all know that our environment is in trouble, so any effort to slow down climate change and reduce the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is a welcome one.

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Recycling Wood Pallets Reduces Carbon Emissions

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Recycling Wood Pallets Reduces Carbon Emissions

As large companies like Citi, Shell, and Walmart commit to sustainability, it’s clear that big businesses will continue to invest in sustainability and renewable resources. Walmart recently announced its intention to reduce their company’s carbon footprint through Project Gigaton. Walmart’s pledge is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by one Gigaton of CO2 emissions between now and 2020 through its supply chain, which is the equivalent of taking more than 211 million passenger cars off the roads in the United States for one year.

How does recycling wood pallets help take cars off the road?

According to the article Pallet Re-Use and Recycling Saves High Value Material from Landfills published in 2010, 357 million pallets are recycled each year. We designed this carbon calculator based off the EPA Waste Reduction Model to demonstrate. Simply put, every 10 wood pallets recycled is equivalent to taking 1 car off the road.

Recall that Walmart’s goal is to remove from its supply chain the equivalent of taking 121 million cars off the road. According to the aforementioned research, 357 million pallets are recycled each year. According to our EPA approved calculator, this is the equivalent of taking more than 34 million cars off the road. To put this in perspective, if 357 million pallets have been recycled every year between now and 2010, then the requirements for Walmart’s Project Gigaton will be fulfilled by January 1st, 2018.

These numbers are too big to ignore.

Wood pallets are often overlooked by purchasing agents as an expensive shipping cost. However, fifty percent of the net weight of a wood pallet is carbon. That carbon was sequestered from the atmosphere during the tree’s growth phase and will remain in that product throughout its life. Without having a place to store that carbon, it would simply be re-released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Storing carbon in wood products and continuing to recycle wood products like pallets will continue to have a tremendous impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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Forest Management Technology

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Forest Management Technology

Up to now, forest management has had to take a very hands-on, personal inspection kind of approach, so that specific trees could be marked for cutting and removal, and the forest in general could be culled of unhealthy specimens. However, the onslaught of forest fires over the past decade has virtually overrun this old-school method of management, and hastened the advent of a more high-tech solution.

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Forward-thinking managers at The Nature Conservancy are now in the process of testing out a solution which holds great promise for faster, cheaper, and more accurate management of forest lands. This comes in the nick of time, with forest fire disasters mounting up, and millions of acres of prime land being consumed recently by raging conflagrations.

The new technology

The problem faced by solution seekers was a daunting one – how to retain much of the same individual inspection capability, but on a much larger scale, so that dying and dead trees could quickly be removed. Those trees provide much of the fuel for forest fires which get out of control, and take down enormous stands of healthy trees with them.

Enter the Digital Restoration Guide (DRG). This software program offers the same kind of direct approach as painting dead trees, while capitalizing on the speed of computers to cover much larger territories in much less time. A forester equipped with a mobile computer loaded with DRG software can patrol large areas on an ATV, entering relevant information about specific GPS coordinates of areas, and the health of trees contained within those sectors. Later, tree harvesters can use the map created by the DRG software and the information recorded by the forester, to know which trees need to be culled.

In the first full-blown pilot test of the software, a target area of 327 acres was used to see how the new technology compared to more traditional methods of forest management. Supporters were gratified to find that the process was roughly five times faster than the time needed by the walk-and-paint method, and it cost less than half as much to execute.

Those aren’t the only benefits – the recorded information can be used in other ways as well, to estimate tree numbers, sizes, and the interspace between trees. In the past, separate trips would have to be made to gather such information when it was needed, and that resulted in additional cost and expenditure of time.

Future usage

With the unquestioned success of the new tree-mapping software, it has been approved for surveying tracts of land in the thousands of acres. It also seems likely that usage will be expanded into even more productive and more all-encompassing arenas. Already, tech gurus are considering how to get the software airborne to conduct very large survey missions, and extend the reach and the effectiveness of modern forest management.

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Wood-Based Concrete

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Wood-Based Concrete

Many people think of concrete as the complete opposite of wood when it comes to building material, but researchers have found a way to combine the two materials into a new building material that could change the way homes are built.

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According to the program “Resource Wood,” Swiss researchers have developed a new load-bearing concrete that is composed largely of wood. In many of the blends that they’ve developed, the volume fraction of the wood is over 50 percent. Although this is not the first cement-bonded wood product to be developed, it is the first load-bearing product. Previous products have been used for insulation and other purposes that, while important, were never meant to bear the load of a building structure.

Traditional concrete is composed of a coarse aggregate bonded together with cement. This aggregate is usually made up gravel or crushed rocks such as limestone or granite along with sand and other finer materials. With this new wood-based concrete, the aggregate is composed of finely ground wood. In other words, sawdust is mixed in with cement. The result is a concrete that is lighter and more flame-resistant than many other building materials. Thanks to the wood content, the concrete can double as an insulator and a load-bearing building material. Because it is so much lighter than traditional concrete, some of the new concrete mixes can even float in water.

Concrete as a Renewable Resource

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of wood-based concrete is that it is more environmentally-friendly than traditional concrete thanks to being made largely from renewable resources. Concrete that is no longer needed can be dismantled and used as a heating or insulating material. Even though the substance conforms to fire protection standards, the wood content can be burned in a waste incinerator.

Despite its lighter weight and reliance on wood over stone, this new concrete has been shown to be suitable for slab and wall elements. It is also ideal for prefabricated building elements since it can be produced and transported relatively easily.
It is unclear when we’ll be seeing homes and other buildings composed of this new wood-based concrete. As of right now, researchers are looking into ways to manufacture the concrete quickly and easily enough to make it a viable option for new construction projects. They are also trying to find the best applications of this new material.

Concrete is by far the most common man-made building material in the world, and this new wood-based product does present some exciting possibilities. It might not completely replace traditional concrete, but its lighter weight and reliance on a renewable resource are some very good reasons for the construction industry to take notice. Only time will tell if we will be seeing more of this substance in our homes, though.

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Benefits of Renewable Energy

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Benefits of Renewable Energy

Earth and our solar system provide us with renewable energy sources like solar and wind. When harvested in the right locations, the sun’s rays and wind can be converted to electricity. In California, solar and wind farms have been erected in places like San Lois Obispo and Tehachapi that are capable of producing a great deal of power. The Alta Wind Energy Centre in Tehachapi is the largest wind farm in the world and it capable of producing 1,020MW. Additionally, the Topaz Solar Farm in San Luis Obispo is one of the world’s largest solar farms and is capable of producing 550MW.

Image by Flickr; Distributed under a CC BY 2.0 License

How renewables create energy

Solar energy itself can be used to generate electricity through a principle known as the photoelectric effect. When the sun’s rays strike a surface specially treated to receive them, the resulting excitation is captured and converted into electricity for any number of commercial and residential uses. Heat from the sun is also responsible for driving the winds on our planet, and those winds can be harnessed by wind turbines, which in turn power generators for electricity.

Solar heating also causes water to evaporate, and this water returns to earth in the form of rain or snow, which can then be used as a source for hydroelectric power. All the plants growing in our forests and elsewhere use sunlight for their development, and when this biomass begins to decay in forests, it can be harvested and used as a fuel source for the production of electricity.

Benefits of renewable energy

There are a number of ways that renewable energy sources provide tremendous benefit to our environment, and to humans as well. By their very nature, renewable energy sources constitute a virtually inexhaustible supply of power, and with an ever increasing thirst for power from individuals and businesses on earth, this becomes a crucial point.

As specific industries grow around renewable energy sources, a great many new job opportunities have been created and a vast array of new products have come onto the market which are powered by renewable energy sources. These two facts contribute to growing the economies of nations which make the most use of renewable sources, because they are all new jobs and products. One of the most notable job creators is Tesla, as they strive to invent new products powered by solar technology and have grown from 899 employees in 2010 to 14,000 in 2016.

With several alternatives for electrical energy now available, energy prices have become more stable and more competitive, because there are more options to choose from, rather than the relative monopoly utility companies enjoyed in the past. In addition, renewable energy sources represent a more reliable way of generating electricity because their power source is seemingly endless. Both the environment and the inhabitants of Earth benefit tremendously from widespread use of renewable energy sources, with better health enjoyed by humans and less pollution of the environment.

References

How Co-Generation Works

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How Co-Generation Works

Cogeneration is an efficient way to generate electricity. The conventional method calls for burning a fossil fuel in an enormous furnace to release heat energy, which is then used to boil water, which makes steam. That steam powers a turbine which drives a generator, and the generator is what actually produces electricity. However, the water used to make steam and drive the turbines must be cooled back down before being released into the atmosphere, which constitutes an enormous waste.

Image by Flickr; Distributed under a CC BY 2.0 License

In cogeneration, the big energy savings comes from capturing the hot steam after it drives the turbines. From there, it’s piped to locations where it can be re-used to power turbines. Also called CHP (combined heat and power), cogeneration makes use of the hot water which is normally wasted and supplies it to local businesses and residences as a heat source. When CHP power plants are setup instead of conventional ones, they use different heat engines to produce the steam which drives turbines to be even more efficient, and create the maximum capture of energy.

How forest biomass is used in co-generation 

A CHP power plant typically consists of an installation with an integrated power system that has three primary components: a unit which receives biomass and feedstock for preparation, a component for converting biomass into steam power generation, and the component for converting the steam into electrical power.

The materials used as input to the entire process are generally organic residues from forest production, coupled with food and fiber byproducts. These materials can include corn stalks, wheat straw, rice husks, sawdust, forest residue, and mill residues. Feedstock is considered to be those forests and grasses specifically grown for energy production, such as switch grass, hybrid poplars, and hybrid willows. In order to make the whole process to be economically viable, biomass sources must be relatively inexpensive to harvest, transport, and store prior to conversion into electrical energy.

Using forest biomass as a fuel source has great appeal because it makes use of materials that would be wasting away in forests and interfering with new growth. In many cases, one of the biggest expenses that Forest Management organizations incur annually is the removal of such forest biomass, as a means of reducing the number of forest fires, as well as the severity of such fires once they are underway. Putting that biomass to productive use constitutes a double savings – it helps to limit forest clutter and the fires which might result, and it can be used to fuel the generation of electricity.

References

 

Using Forest Biomass for Energy

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Using Forest Biomass for Energy

How Biomass Co-generation is Good for the Environment

All agencies and organizations involved with forest management are aware of the need to remove dead and fallen trees from forests as a means of reducing the likelihood of forest fires and of creating room for new growth. In the past, the removal of forest residues like this have been accomplished through harvesting and transporting to various landfills for incineration, or simply letting it naturally decay into the environment.

This approach has now been recognized as being extremely wasteful, especially in light of the fact that technology is now available for making advantageous use of all that previously discarded forest biomass. By making use of the forest biomass as a fuel source in power plants that generate electricity, a very useful end result can be achieved, rather than having that biomass simply dumped or burned at landfills.

Image by Flickr; Distributed under a CC BY 2.0 License

How the environment benefits from biomass co-generation

As mentioned above, since forest management became a widespread practice, the need for removal of large quantities of dead or dying trees has been recognized. During forest fires, all the fallen trees and branches on the ground are catalysts for spreading fire and for intensifying it, so enormous effort must be expended to remove this clutter.

As an example of how forest biomass is good for the environment, the University of Northern British Columbia in Canada was exploring ways in 2007 to reduce its massive carbon footprint and be kinder to the local environment. Within two years, the university became the first one on the North American continent to own and operate its own biomass fuel generation system. The biomass input used to fuel the system comes from an agreement made with the Lakeland Mills sawmill nearby, primarily consisting of sawdust and wood pellets.

No fossil fuels are burned in the process of creating steam to drive the turbines that power generators for the electricity production, so the university has been able to achieve its goal of significantly reducing its carbon footprint, while at the same time having a reliable and efficient source of electricity. Other universities and businesses have followed suit since that time, using forest biomass as input to power electricity generation, and the big benefactor is the environment.

National bioenergy initiative

The nation of India has made a huge commitment to saving the environment by targeting a 40% share of its energy production from renewable sources by the year 2030. In addition to solar and wind power, another fuel source included as part of this strategy will be biomass that would otherwise have been wasted.

The Indian initiative will also have the benefit of reaching rural areas remote from major cities, which lacked power sources in the past. In at least some of these locales, power plants fueled by biomass will come into production as part of the broad commitment to carbon footprint reduction, and a big boost will be given to the environment.

Forest biomass is a valuable resources and like all wood products, it should never be discarded in landfills. Forest biomass can be used to make mulch, sawdust, and many other things and it will continue to be a renewable resource as long as forests are sustainably managed.

Resources

 

 

Wood-Based Nanotechnology

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Wood-Based Nanotechnology

The need for the replenishment of our nation’s forests is critical to the overall conservation effort, and since forests provide so much oxygen for the atmosphere, they are also critical to the health and welfare of all living, breathing creatures. Woody biomass, which is comprised of all the excess fallen limbs, needles, etc. from dead or burned trees and it is constantly accumulating in forests around the world. Nanotechnology can come into play to help find a use for woody biomass because biomass can be processed into many useful things.

What is wood-based nanotechnology?

Nanotechnology refers to the science of researching the unique properties of materials at smaller than microscopic levels. By gaining an understanding of the chemistry and properties of the molecular elements in wood, scientists can find out ways which these properties may be used advantageously for new product development.

The promise of woody biomass nanotechnology also holds an enormous potential to transform the existing North American forest industry in every aspect of its current operation. Production processes can be improved upon, energy efficiencies can be gained, diverse products can be developed from paper and composite materials. Brand new products that are stronger and lighter than Kevlar and carbon fiber can be created from wood-based cellulose nanocrystals.

Previously, there has been very little market for decaying woody biomass on forest lands and with no high-value market for such material, it has not been economically feasible to remove or otherwise consume that biomass. Simply put, the supply of woody biomass is far greater than the demand. With the new uses of wood-based biomass being discovered through nanotechnology, those missing high-value markets are now becoming available, and woody biomass can be cleared economically from sustainably managed forests.

Aiding in fire prevention

With woody biomass being reduced from over-vegetated forest lands, the risk of forest fires is vastly reduced, and since over half the budget for the U.S. Forest Service is allocated to fighting forest fires, management of forests would be much more cost effective. A great deal of property and even a significant number of lives would also be saved by lowering the incidence and severity of forest fires, which now ravage woodlands having excessive biomass.

At the heart of these two important initiatives – developing new wood-based products, and reducing the risk of forest fires – are the discoveries being made possible by wood-based nanotechnology. And an even bigger benefit from it all might be that the health of forest land would greatly improve once more biomass is removed. According to the U.S. Forest Service, there would be a better habitat for wildlife, improved water quality, and of course, once a high value market is targeted for woody biomass, new jobs would be created. With healthier forest lands throughout the country, the well-being of animals and humans also stands to be positively impacted, with a more oxygenated atmosphere enriching the air we all breathe.

Resources

The Importance of Woody Biomass Products in Sustainability

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The Importance of Woody Biomass Products in Sustainability

There is a growing understanding and acceptance in this country about the huge role that woody biomass plays, both now and in the future, toward conserving resources and overall sustainability of the environment. The term ‘woody biomass’ references the totality of forest components such as trees, limbs, needles, wood wastes and residues, and even discarded wood waste from municipalities. Improved forest sustainability depends heavily on developing consistent uses for forest biomass.

Wood-based products contribute to sustainability

North American forests represent a renewable resource, unlike fossil-based fuels which will eventually run out and be completely gone. Trees sequester carbon from the atmosphere as they grow and they continue to store carbon throughout their life cycles. This is a big factor in the need for making greater use of woody biomass in as many products as possible which are in some way, used by humans. In many European countries, wood-based fuels are already being substituted for fossil fuels, as heat and electricity is generated from woody biomass in the form of wood pellets. There are a plethora of other uses for woody biomass, such as mulch, paper products, and even clothing. The enormous diversity of products which can be derived from wood has yet to be fully capitalized upon, but important new discoveries are encouraged by governments and the scientific community.

For instance, in 2016, three teen-aged girls from Dubai invented a wood-based fireproof foam which can be used as an insulator for construction purposes. After the country experienced a rash of headline-grabbing fires, the girls researched them and found that they were all made worse because polystyrene foam insulation was used in the buildings, and it was discovered this material actually stimulated the spread and intensity of the fires.

The girls’ innovative wood-based foam creation is cheaper to make from wood, is just as good an insulator, it acts as a fire retardant. Plus, it is a sustainable solution. This is the kind of innovative thinking which can take far greater advantage of woody biomass to create useful solutions for the future that take advantage of renewable resources.

Other advantages offered by woody biomass

Woody biomass contributes in a number of other ways as well to the more efficient usage of our country’s resources. According to its website, the U.S. Forest Service removes tons of biomass from forests each year. In rural areas, woody biomass is often converted to energy, but other benefits of removing woody biomass from forests include job creation, reduced dependence on fossil fuels, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved drinking water, forest fire prevention, and improvement to wildlife habitat.

It is no exaggeration to say that the considerable positive effects imparted by woody biomass extend deep into the social, economic, and environmental aspects of life in this country, and that influence will be felt even more in the coming years. Within the framework of sustainability, woody biomass is a prime example of resources critical to the future of global sustainability and reduced carbon emissions.

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