Changyou Sun

Utilization of forest derived biomass for energy production in the U.S.A.: status, challenges, and public policies

SUMMARY Due to various environmental and economic benefits, renewable energy has been developed rapidly in the United States over the past several decades. In this study, the status, challenges, and public policies related to the development of bioenergy products from forest-derived woody biomass were reviewed. At present, existing utilization of forest biomass for energy purpose in the United States has been dominated by the forest products industry in generating heat and power for internal use. Proposed forest biomass utilization for energy has focused on producing motor biofuels. Key conversion technologies for woody biomass are still undergoing research and development and are not yet fully viable for commercial production. Other challenges for forest biomass utilization include high harvesting and transportation costs, overlapping demand for some forest biomass, and market promotion for new bioproducts. Since the 1970s, many laws and polices have been passed to help and guide the development of bioenergy in the United States. Woody biomass utilization has received increasing attention and assistance in recent years.

Assessing Time-Varying Oligopoly and Oligopsony Power in the U.S. Paper Industry

The U.S. paper industry has become increasingly concentrated and therefore been suspected of imperfect competition. In this study, the new empirical industrial organization approach is employed to measure the degree of oligopoly and oligopsony power in the U.S. paper industry simultaneously. The model is estimated by iterative three-stage least squares using annual data from 1955 to 2003. The results reveal that there has been significant oligopoly and oligopsony power in the U.S. paper industry, and the oligopoly power has been consistently lower than the oligopsony power.

Analysis of Import Demand for Wooden Beds in the U.S

The market of wooden beds in the U.S. has been flooded with imports from China and Vietnam in recent years. Static and dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System models are used to assess the import demand for wooden beds from the top seven supplying countries. The analyses reveal that the antidumping investigation on China has some temporary trade depression effect on China, but trade diversion occurs to Vietnam, Indonesia, Canada, and Brazil. The formal implementation of antidumping duties since 2005 has not shown any significant effect on the trade pattern. U.S. consumers spend more on beds from newly industrialized countries and there are moderate degrees of substitution among wooden beds from most countries.

Assessing the distribution patterns of wildfire sizes in Mississippi, USA

Wildland fires can produce dramatic ecological and economic impacts. The objective of this study was to analyse the temporal and spatial distribution patterns of wildland fires using 64 474 fire records in Mississippi, collected between 1991 and 2007. The methodology employed was descriptive statistics and extreme value statistics. The analyses were conducted for all the fires combined, and also by year, period, ecoregion and cause separately. Wildland fires occurred most frequently between February and May, with more than half of all the fires occurring in that period. The ecoregion of outer coastal plain mixed-forest province had more fire occurrences and the ecoregion of south-eastern mixed-forestry province had more catastrophic fires. By fire cause, debris and incendiary fires combined were responsible for 89.6% of the area burned. The top 10% of the largest fires burned 58.8% of the total area. The extreme value statistics revealed that wildfires in Mississippi displayed a generalised Pareto distribution. Based on predictions from the peaks-over-threshold models, the largest wildland fire in Mississippi within the next 10 years could burn 2171 ha. These outcomes can help landowners and government agencies make better decisions related to forest investments, fire suppression and budget planning.

Assessing Administrative Laws for Forestry Prescribed Burning in the Southern United States: A Management-Based Regulation Approach

SUMMARY Prescribed burning in forestry is a valuable land management tool that has been extensively used in Australia, Eurasia, and North America. Nevertheless, fire is inherently dangerous and may impose risk upon humans, properties, and other natural resources. With the case of southern United States, the objective of this study is to assess the trend of administrative law reforms for forestry prescribed burning within the theoretical framework of management-based regulation. A key finding is that existing regulations focus on the production and management process of prescribed burning to identify and reduce risk. They demand moderate resource commitments, and many are related to the planning stage of a burn rather than the implementation stage. These results will assist the public in comprehending the rationale and trend of administrative law reforms for prescribed burning. Countries facing similar challenges in achieving a sustainable growth of forest resources can also learn from these legal reform experiences for forestry prescribed burning in the United States.

Timber Restrictions, Financial Crisis, and Price Transmission in North American Softwood Lumber Markets

Competition among the South, the West, and Canada as major softwood lumber production regions has been affected by timber resource endowments, public land policies, and the general economy. To assess spatial price linkages, a threshold vector error correction model is applied on softwood lumber prices from 1978 to 2011. Price transmission is found to be nonlinear and asymmetric. The South is more adaptive to price disequilibrium. Short-term price adjustments are more sophisticated over the period of 1991 to 1993 related to the federal timber restrictions than over the period of 2008 to 2009 related to the global financial crisis. (JEL C32, Q23)