You can't count all 103 tons. The Empress wood is really just substituting for other wood that grows more slowly and less efficiently. So, if you grew Empress

You can't count all 103 tons. The Empress wood is really just substituting for other wood that grows more slowly and less efficiently. So, if you grew Empress trees that yielded 10M board feet, there would be less of some other tree grown. Since the Empress is so efficient you could use less land to grow those 10M board feet worth of trees. And if that land which you wind up not needing to grow plantation trees on instead becomes undisturbed forest, then you could count that portion as a net reduction in carbon emissions. It also possible that Empress is so efficient that the market for wood expands more than it would otherwise. Say you use more wood to replace concrete in buildings [1]. That would also count as a reduction. But in neither scenario would you be able to count all 103 tons per acre per year. A confounding factor, can it really compete on a mass scale with existing lumber? > Paulownia trees take a lot of work to manage. They require pruning twice a year to establish a clear timber trunk. They need particular growing conditions, and don’t like wet feet or strong winds. [2] Is this why the industry is not already growing the tree? [1] http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190717-climate-change-wooden-architecture-concrete-global-warming http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190717-climate-change-wood... [2] https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-the-power-of-paulownia-the-fastest-growing-tree-in-the-world/ https://thisnzlife.co.nz/how-a-small-waikato-farm-harnesses-...