Forest biomass becomes surprise carbon hero—if industry can cut costs and scale up

The next time you buy a wooden table or burn a wood pellet, you may unwittingly be part of the largest untapped carbon-removal experiment on Earth. A data-rich review released 31 December in Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts argues that forest biological resources—everything from sawdust to resin—could offset up to 750 gigatonnes of CO₂ by mid-century if processing efficiency rises and green premiums fall.
Drawing on 200 peer-reviewed studies and FAO trade statistics, the paper tracks carbon from nursery to nail. Photosynthesis already pulls roughly 20 t CO₂ per hectare from the atmosphere in fast-growing poplar plantations; the trick is keeping that carbon locked in society rather than returning it via slash burning or short-lived paper towels. The authors calculate that engineered beams can store carbon for 50–100 years, biochar for centuries, while bioethanol distilled from logging slash offers a 74 % lifecycle GHG cut versus gasoline.
Yet the economic maths is brutal. Lignocellulose-to-ethanol plants yield only 40–55 % of theoretical output, and advanced bio-based chemicals sell for 1.3–3.0 times the price of their petro-counterparts. “We are paying Porsche prices for a technology that still behaves like a hand-built car,” said lead author Yingying Xu.
The review sketches a two-stage escape route. By 2030, hybrid organosolv-steam explosion pretreatments and two-step catalysis could push furfural and ethanol yields above 70 % while trimming capital costs 25 %. Longer term, AI-driven biorefineries that co-produce aviation fuel, lignin-based graphene and renewable natural gas could turn wood into a “dynamic carbon-regulation asset” whose output flexes with real-time grid intensity and carbon prices.
Geography matters. North America and Europe together control 54 % of global industrial round-wood but face saturated paper markets; Asia, led by China, already imports 8 % of world supply and could become the test-bed for residue-based refining. Finland’s national heating network gets 39 % of its energy from wood pellets, proving district-scale viability, while China’s 9-million-hectare afforestation reserve could anchor a 170-million-tonne bioproduct stream under selective-logging rules.
Policy, however, remains fragmented. Only 30 % of countries apply uniform carbon-accounting rules for harvested wood products, and subsidy schemes oscillate with oil prices. The paper urges governments to embed forest biorefineries in upcoming carbon-trading clauses, offer reverse auctions for negative emissions, and standardise life-cycle metrics so that a tonne of CO₂ removed in Sweden can be compared with one stored in a Canadian 2×4.
Without such moves, the climate opportunity is “a warehouse full of timber with no buyer,” the authors warn. Scale up the technology, stabilise demand, and forests could supply one-third of the cumulative CO₂ removals needed for 1.5 °C—while keeping the planet both housed and heated.