IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/forpol/v169y2024ics1389934124002193.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Enhancing the economic feasibility of fuel treatments: Market and policy pathways for US Federal Lands

Author

Listed:
  • Wear, David N.
  • Wibbenmeyer, Matthew
  • Joiner, Emily

Abstract

The cost of fuel removal needed in the western United States exceeds available federal funding; therefore, meeting fuel treatment goals may require engaging the private sector to market treatment biomass. To assess the economics of fuel treatments in the western United States, we develop a spatially explicit model of the revenues and costs of fuel removal in Idaho and Montana. We find that fuel treatment sales would not be economically feasible across most of the study region unless prices of small-diameter material were to rise significantly. However, the area of feasible treatments could be dramatically expanded under current market conditions by bundling treatments with sawtimber harvest or subsidizing fuel treatment sales, perhaps through the allowance for negatively priced sales. In many places, required subsidies would be much lower than the cost of noncommercial alternative fuel treatments, indicating their potential to extend the impact of appropriated funding.

Suggested Citation

  • Wear, David N. & Wibbenmeyer, Matthew & Joiner, Emily, 2024. "Enhancing the economic feasibility of fuel treatments: Market and policy pathways for US Federal Lands," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124002193
    DOI: 10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103365
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389934124002193
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.forpol.2024.103365?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:forpol:v:169:y:2024:i:c:s1389934124002193. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/forpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.