专家建议
Calculating the 碳 Stored in Wood Products
There are many complex elements associated with carbon accounting and life cycle assessment (LCA). 幸运的是, the amount of carbon stored in wood is a straightforward calculation that remains consistent for each wood species.
就像一棵树在生长, it absorbs carbon 二氧化物。 from the atmosphere, stores the carbon in its wood fibers, and releases the oxygen back to the air through the process of photosynthesis.
碳 storage is a unique attribute of wood that does not occur in other structural materials. It’s a natural process available to us now—without waiting for new carbon capture and storage technologies to be developed—allowing us to meet near-term carbon reduction goals and transforming our built environment into carbon sinks instead of sources.1
多少碳 是否储存在我的木制品中?
Although it varies slightly by species, wood is roughly 50% carbon by dry weight. Thus, if you know the density of the wood in question, you can easily calculate its stored carbon.
例如:
At 15% moisture content (MC), Douglas fir-larch weighs 34.5磅/英尺3. To determine the dry weight, divide by 1.15:
Dry Douglas fir-larch weighs 30 lb/ft3
Half of that dry weight is carbon:
Every cubic foot of Douglas fir-larch contains 15 lb of carbon.
This is true for all Douglas fir-larch, regardless of where or how it is grown. A similar calculation can be made for other species, depending on their density.
多少碳 二氧化物。 是否储存在我的木制品中?
碳 二氧化物。 isn’t stored in wood, per se. 碳 is stored in wood—and if that carbon were released into the atmosphere, it would combine with oxygen to form carbon 二氧化物。. Therefore, we can calculate and report an 等值 of carbon 二氧化物。 stored in the wood.
碳 has a molecular weight of 12. Oxygen has a molecular weight of 16. Therefore, carbon 二氧化物。—one carbon and two oxygens—has a molecular weight of 44.
So, for every 12 pounds of carbon we’re storing in wood, that’s equivalent to 44 pounds of carbon 二氧化物。 that would otherwise occur in the atmosphere. Our calculations above showed that one cubic foot of Douglas fir-larch contains 15 lb of carbon. 多少碳 二氧化物。 is this equivalent to?
Every cubic foot of Douglas fir-larch stores the equivalent of 55 lb of carbon 二氧化物。!
A summary of this data for common structural wood species is provided in the table below. For reference, burning one gallon of gasoline produces about 20 lb of carbon 二氧化物。.2
改编自:
Dovetail Partners公司. (2013). 碳 in Wood Products – The Basics.
1 认为木材. 碳 Source to 碳 Sink: Redesigning the Built Environment for Climate Change.
