You’ve heard of “peak oil,” when the world starts consuming more oil each year than it can add to its discovered and proven oil reserves in the ground. Well, now there’s “peak lumber” — not everywhere, but at least in the Canadian province of British Columbia. The reason? Beetles. That’s according to a study released last week by a research team from three Canadian consulting firms in the timber industry.
“A new report on the mountain pine beetle epidemic describes it as one of North America’s largest natural environmental disasters that will put an estimated 16 major sawmills out of business in B.C. and lead to long-term lumber shortages in the United States,” the Vancouver Sun reported on March 18 (“Pine beetle epidemic will have continent-wide economic impact: report,” by Gordon Hamilton). “Canadian lumber production is not expected to recover for the remainder of the century, one of the report authors said.”
The full report, authored by experts from International WOOD Markets Group Inc. (in Vancouver), Management Decision and Technology Ltd. (in Ladysmith, B.C.), and Murray Hall Consulting (in Maple Bay, B.C.), is only available to subscribers (view a PDF brochure here). But the broad outlines are clear from press reports such as this story on bclocalnews.com (“Forest future gloomy: 100 Mile better shape,” by Joan Silver). “After some expected gains in the lumber markets between 2010 and 2013, the B.C. Interior lumber industry will need to begin reducing production and/or closing mills, and this impact on the U.S. market will soon be profound,” said study co-author Russell Taylor, adding, “It’s not doomsday, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow.” Co-author Gerry Van Leeuwen said, “The end result appears to be an almost 50 percent reduction in the long-term timber harvest and lumber production in the B.C. interior from its peak in 2005 — all from the mountain pine beetle epidemic.” In the short run, industries that rely on biomass and wood waste, such as wood-burning electric generation facilities or wood-based ethanol producers, may benefit; but in the long run, even those industries will be hurt by a drop in supplies of sawmill byproducts like chips and sawdust.
In the U.S., prices will likely rise. However, that effect will be moderated by industry trends toward the more efficient use of lumber. Value-optimized framing methods can reduce framing lumber requirements in a typical house by as much as 30% (see “Frugal Framing” in the February 2007 issue of Builder magazine). And for big members like floor joists and rafters, there’s always LVL and wood I-joist lumber. Weyerhaeuser, a major LVL supplier, has closed i-Level facilities in Southern and Western states in 2009 in an effort to adapt to slumping demand. But when demand returns and prices rise, companies like Weyerhauser are well equipped to meet the need from Southern and Eastern timber — produced by trees that are still putting on wood right now. (Trees, apparently, pay no attention to the economy.)
But for British Columbia, this is a catastrophe. This YouTube video explains the science reasonably well: climate change is bringing warmer winters to the region, allowing the bugs to overwinter and expand their range. As the beetles overpopulate the forest, what was a nuisance pest has become a forest killer. (The threatening, apocalyptic music in the video wasn’t really necessary — the plain facts alone are bad enough.)
This article originally appeared on Builder Magazine Online.
