Per hectare per decade
A historical hybrid-poplar replacement-rotation model used roughly 100 tonnes of carbon fixed per hectare per decade, equivalent to about 367 tCO₂ entering biomass.
Scale and material pathways
From one tonne of wood to a million hectares.
Plant biotechnology becomes climate-relevant when biological gain, land area, management, and material use operate as one physical system.
The arithmetic begins with carbon entering wood. Deployment determines how widely improved biology operates; product choice and residual-biomass treatment determine what that carbon becomes next.
What scale looks like
Per-hectare improvement becomes a landscape-scale carbon flow.
Three connected cases show how a biological improvement moves from a mixed stand into a broader systems-design trajectory.
More per hectare
A 25% biomass gain carried by half the trees in a mixed stand adds 12.5% at stand level. At the historical baseline, that is about 45.8 tCO₂ per hectare per decade.
Per hectare per decade
The larger design case combines optimized coppicing, photosynthesis enhancement, and durable carbon pathways including biochar and bio-oil.
Improve the organism
Increase photosynthetic carbon assimilation and biomass production.
Improve management
Use coppice rotation—periodically cutting trees near the base so new stems regrow from the established root system—to increase fixation across time.
Design carbon fate
Direct harvested wood and residual biomass into useful products, reuse, biochar, or bio-oil.
A tree is also a material stream
Atmospheric carbon becomes structures, goods, fibers, composites, and residual-carbon pathways.
Growth determines how much atmospheric carbon enters the stream. Product choice, durability, reuse, and residual-biomass treatment determine how long that carbon continues to do physical work.
Biogenic carbon embodied in materials1 dry tonne wood ≈ 1.83 tCO₂
Next unit of scale1 million dry tonnes ≈ 1.83 MtCO₂
Structural systems
Sawn timber, cross-laminated timber, glulam, plywood, structural framing, and engineered bamboo.
Durable goods and interiors
Furniture, cabinetry, molding and millwork, frames, and other manufactured wood products.
Fiber and composite products
Pulp and paper, wood-fiber products, and plant-based composites capable of displacing fossil-derived materials.
Residual streams
Biochar and bio-oil made from slash, bark, small stems, offcuts, and biomass outside higher-value products.
Material pathways carry different service lives, reuse opportunities, processing inputs, and end-of-life outcomes. Lifecycle measurement connects embodied biogenic carbon to net climate performance.
Sources and model lineage
Follow the arithmetic into the underlying work.
- For Carbon Removal, Scaling Is More Critical than Permanence — mixed-stand arithmetic and the 25% improvement assumption.
- A New Idea to Optimize Forestry to Maximize Carbon Removal — hybrid-poplar baseline, coppicing, photosynthesis enhancement, and integrated systems model.
- Wood as a Sustainable Building Material, U.S. Forest Service — dry-wood carbon fraction and carbon embodied in wood products.
Research direction
Connect biological improvement to physical outcomes.
Carbocene integrates plant development, propagation, field evidence, management, measurement, and productive material use.