Housing Remains Deflated
Housing starts in May fell to 975,000, the lowest seasonally
adjusted annual rate since 1991. This was down from slightly over 1
million housing starts in April. In May 2007, housing starts were
about 1.426 million, about 32% higher than this year. Starts of
buildings with 5 units or more fell from 313,000 in April to
280,000 in May. This June marks our 23rd year in providing services
to our clients from our office in Manning. As anyone with more than
just a few years experience in the forest industry knows, the
industry is a cyclic one. Typically, the higher the peaks, the
deeper the valleys. Better days for the housing industry are
certainly in store, but many analysts feel that the recovery period
may not begin until 2009. It then will likely be a slow recovery,
which may be more beneficial than the "boom and bust" markets of a
couple of years ago. In Clarendon County, Grant Forest Products has
stopped construction on its oriented strand board mill near Alcolu.
A severe downturn in the demand and price for OSB has caused the
delay. Meanwhile, the sister plant at Allendale, SC has been up and
running for a number of months. Grant officials say that they are
waiting on an upturn in the housing market to resume activities at
the Clarendon facility.
Wood - Whats not to like?
While tree farmers and foresters know the benefits of wood, it's
always nice to hear it from someone else. At this year's National
Association of Home Builders Green Building Conference in New
Orleans, many manufacturers and companies talked about "going
green" and "becoming green". According to Richard Wallace, SFPA
Vice President of Communications, "Southern Pine is the original
green building product; it's not just recyclable, it's naturally
renewable, too. Our life cycle analysis is second to none and the
energy required to manufacture southern pine lumber is
exponentially less than alternative products. It's a win-win
situation all the way around." Southern pine and wood overall stand
tree tops above the rest and here is the why: Jamestown, almost 400
years ago was the site of the first sawmill in America. Thus, wood
has centuries of experience as a green building material. Wood is
the only naturally renewable building product on the market.
Southern Pine can be recycled and regenerated, unlike the vast
majority of other options. Our U. S. forests are healthy, thriving,
and doing their part to remove carbon monoxide from the air we
breathe. More trees are planted each year than are used as lumber.
Our forests are actually larger and in better shape than they were
a century ago. In a life cycle analysis of building materials,
southern pine is unmatched. The product begins naturally and ends
naturally. Studies show that wood is superior to steel and cement
in almost every environmental impact category. While wood accounts
for 46% of all industrial raw materials world-wide, it uses a mere
4% of the energy required to turn raw materials into useful
products. Wood is the best insulator against heat and cold, making
it a highly effective material for controlling home energy bills.
Wood is 400 times less conductive than steel. From harvest to home,
southern pine products are the most environmentally sustainable and
regulated products in the world. They are manufactured and
distributed above and beyond forest certification standards. To
learn more about southern pine, visit www.southernpine.com and
click on the green building option.
Wood, Not just for Houses
According to Science Daily, within 5 to 7 years fast growing
trees and grasses might become economically viable alternatives to
corn as a source of the renewable fuel ethanol. "Ethanol from
cellulose, whether from trees or other sources will be the way to
go in the very near future," says Dr. Gopi Podila, a University of
Alabama biologist who has been conducting research on high yield
trees for more than a decade. Trees are cheaper to raise than corn,
have a high and competitive yield and they don't need as much of
the fertilizers that are causing all the problems in the Gulf of
Mexico. Due to rising demand for ethanol, farmers in the U.S.
planted more corn this year than in any other year since World War
II. Corn is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen based
fertilizer. An estimated 210 million pounds of those nitrates are
not absorbed by the corn, run off into streams and rivers, and are
carried to the Gulf of Mexico each year, where it causes a massive
"bloom" of algae. When the algae dies, it sinks to the bottom,
where it absorbs oxygen as it decays. In recent years that oxygen
depletion has created an aquatic dead zone covering about 8,000
square miles, in which fish, shrimp, oysters and crabs cannot
survive. Podila, who chairs the biological sciences
department, states that some trees such as poplar
and aspen can be harvested every 5 to 6 years. However, he points
out that these trees would need to be planted only every 30 to 40
years because they grow back from the roots. Podila goes on to
state that many trees and grasses such as switch grass will grow on
land that might be marginal for farming. He states that there are
vast areas of marginal land in the U.S. that can be used for fiber
production without having an impact on other crops. Because they
absorb tons of carbon dioxide from the air, trees are also one of
the most efficient tools available for combating rising levels of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and man-made global warming.
Burning fuel ethanol made from trees recycles carbon dioxide that
was recently taken from the atmosphere. There are some technical
challenges that need to be solved before wood and grass pulp become
economically viable for making ethanol. The biggest bottleneck is
developing a cost effective process to convert wood pulp into
sugars. In November 2007, Range Fuels, Inc. announced the ground
breaking of the nation's first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant
located near Soperton, GA. Range Fuels is one of six companies
selected by the Department of Energy for financial support in
building a commercial cellulosic ethanol plant and is the first
company to break ground. Range Fuels' Soperton plant will use wood
and wood waste from Georgia's pine forests and mills as its
feedstock and will have the capacity to produce over 100 million
gallons of ethanol per year. Construction of the first 20 million
gallon per year phase is expected to be completed during 2008. As
part of its $76 million technology investment agreement with DOE,
Range Fuels will receive $50 million based on the project
construction schedule for its first 20 million gallon per year
phase at Soperton. The remainder of the grant will be provided for
construction of the next phase of the project. Range Fuels selected
Georgia for its first plant based on the state's robust wood
products industry supported by Georgia's vast sustainable and
renewable forest lands. The state's environmental sensitivity and
responsible stewardship of its forest lands have created resources
that allow Georgia to support up to 2 billion gallons per year of
cellulosic ethanol production. Range Fuels, Inc. does not use food
products such as corn, but rather uses waste material and other
non-food sources. The company's innovative technology uses wood
chips, the municipal waste, paper pulp, olive pits and more and
converts those materials to ethanol. The company is privately held
and funded by Khosia Ventures, LLC. Range Fuels' vision is to
introduce the world to a fuel that is renewable, sustainable, and
eco-friendly in its production. The new farm bill that passed in
May should greatly boost investments in cellulosic ethanol and
biomass crops, according to the Department of Energy. Section 9003
provides for grants covering up to 30% of the cost of developing
and building demonstration-scale biorefineries for producing
advanced bio fuels. It allows for long guarantees from up to $250
million per project for building commercial scale biorefineries.
The bill funds $75 million for fiscal year 2009, increasing to $245
million by 2010. The bill also establishes a new tax credit for
producers of cellulosic bio fuels at $1.01 per gallon. Wood energy
projects across North America may transform both forest management
and the forest industry experts predict. Esti Estimates are that
new energy plants could consume as much as 50 million tons by 2012.
By 2020, forecasts are for this number to rise to more than 100
million tons of wood energy. The next several years will be
interesting for tree farmers as new markets emerge for trees. Wood
grown for the bio fuel industry will likely require different
forest management practices and may result in shorter rotations for
tree growing.
In Search of the Town of Ferguson
The ospreys stand as sentinels perched in the top of cypress
trees whose growth has been stunted by 60 years of standing water.
The birds reluctantly leave, screeching as we approach the island.
They seem perplexed to see us approach on foot rather than by boat.
The worst drought in 50 years has dried up many portions of Lake
Marion. Boats sit on dry land, hundreds of yards from any water and
four-wheeler caravans roam where bass boats usually ply the shallow
waters. My son, Seth, and his wife Patty are with me as we search
for the town of Ferguson, established around the turn of the last
century, abandoned, and flooded by the waters of Lake Marion in
1940. The record drought provides a once in a lifetime opportunity
to explore the abandoned site. In 1890, two Chicago businessmen, B.
F. Ferguson and Francis Beidler, formed the Santee River Cypress
Lumber Company. The company had extensive timberland holdings along
the Wateree, Santee and Congaree River basins. Ferguson, born in
1839 in Columbia, PA., grew up in his father's lumberyard business.
In 1865, he went to Chicago and worked again in the lumber
business. In 1867, he went into business for himself and became
associated with Jacob and Francis Beidler. The partners had
extensive and flourishing lumber yards in Chicago and Tonawanda,
NY. The operations extend into the South and Ferguson became
president of the Santee River Cypress Lumber Company. The town of
Ferguson was built around a band sawmill to process the timber
harvested from company lands. Lumber from the mill was moved by
rail to the village of Cross. In addition, logs were brought into
the mill by barges and rafts. At full production, the sawmill cut
80,000 board feet per day, which even by today's standards is a
high production mill. Like many operations, the company town was
largely selfsustained. There was also a hospital located at the
site to treat residents for malaria, a constant threat in the river
swamps. When Ferguson died in 1905, Beidler bought his interest in
the sawmill and ran it until 1920 when it was closed. Beidler died
in 1924 and little information remains about the town and mill
after that date. Plans to construct the Santee Cooper lakes were
finalized in the late 1930's. Holly Hill Lumber Company was given
the job to harvest any remaining timber around Ferguson. The town
disappeared beneath the lake waters around 1940. Remaining today
are the remnants of the dry kiln, a large building lined with
ceramic tiles where lumber was dried.