Planting forests increases the overall amount of carbon stored in biomass, but the forestry program is also designed to harvest trees for use as fuel or buildin

Planting forests increases the overall amount of carbon stored in biomass, but the forestry program is also designed to harvest trees for use as fuel or building material (from the main article linked in the post): > "In the meantime, Iceland’s forests have begun to produce wood for a small timber market. Forests planted between 1950-1970 are now supplying around 5,000 square metres of wood per year: miniscule compared to industries abroad, but a start. The Icelandic birch, Siberian larch, Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine and balsam poplar are producing quality wood of equal or superior quality to that which Iceland imports from abroad. Yet an overwhelming 80% of the trees felled are burned as fuel in silicon smelting." Iceland has a silicon production industry, which relies on geothermal electricity interestingly enough. The wood is included to grab the oxygen from silicon dioxide to produce elemental silicon metal (being emitted as carbon dioxide). Overall, if they could eliminate the coal from the mix, this would be a carbon-neutral fossil-fuel free silicon production system: https://www.pcc.is/ https://www.pcc.is/ > "Silicon metal is extracted from quartzite, aided by the addition of wood chip and coal, in electric arc furnaces at temperatures of around 2,000 degrees Celsius. The new plant obtains its key raw material quartzite primarily from PCC’s own quarry in Zagórze, Poland. However, the related logistical costs are more than outweighed by the advantages of electricity procurement. And the dust emissions generated during silicon metal production are almost completely removed from the ambient air by high-performance filter systems installed in the PCC plant. Taken as a whole, therefore, the production process offers exceptional sustainability credentials."