Jouni Martiskainen, Project Development Manager with Svante — a Vancouver-based carbon capture technology company with approximately 270 employees and nearly 20 years of development history — presented on the commercial case for carbon capture at pulp mills, covering the financial mechanisms available to support it, the technology the company has developed, and the specific projects underway in the forest products sector. …A central point in Martiskainen’s presentation was why pulp mills are particularly well positioned for carbon capture. The kraft pulping process produces black liquor, which is combusted in the recovery boiler — generating the white plume of steam visible at any kraft mill.
Jouni Martiskainen
That stack gas contains CO2 at a concentration of approximately 15%, compared to roughly 400 parts per million in ambient air. That concentration is a byproduct of the process rather than any deliberate design, but it makes pulp mills among the most efficient biogenic CO2 concentrators in the industrial landscape, significantly reducing the energy and capital required to capture and purify that CO2 to near 100% concentration for storage or utilization downstream.
The May newsletter has these headlines and more:
The highly anticipated summit between US President Trump and his Chinese host Xi Jinping has begun – and Europe is watching from a distance. Yet, whatever the outcome is, there is little Brussels can be optimistic about. For Europe, the Trump-Xi summit is not just about US-China relations. It’s about whether the European Union ends up squeezed between two superpowers cutting tactical deals over trade, technology, energy and security – while European interests are treated as secondary (if at all). In fact, Europe might be watching the summit from a lose-lose position. The most immediate concern in Brussels and Berlin is probably nothing less than industrial survival – and it comes in the form of rare earths. …European officials fear a US-China arrangement could prioritize American access to Chinese rare earths while Europe remains vulnerable to shortages and export restrictions — effectively making it collateral damage.
PORTLAND, Oregon — Green Building Initiative (GBI) is announcing the planned departure of its CEO, Vicki Worden. Worden is leaving to take a new CEO role after serving as GBI’s chief executive since 2015. GBI is an international nonprofit organization and ANSI accredited standards developer that operates virtually with a 30-member staff. …Sumayyah Theron, Chair of GBI’s Board of Directors and CEO and Founder of Avant-garde Sustainable Solutions, said “Under Vicki’s leadership, GBI evolved from a US-focused organization into a truly global presence, now serving members in more than 20 countries. Her vision and dedication helped GBI’s green building standards reach more than one billion square feet of certified commercial and multifamily space worldwide.” …Worden’s departure is slated for late June 2026, and a consulting firm will be engaged to manage the search for Worden’s permanent replacement. …For the transition period, GBI’s Board has appointed The Honorable Stephen T. Ayers, FAIA, as GBI’s Interim CEO.
US President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday asked a US court to pause its ruling against the administration’s 10% global tariff while the federal government pursues an appeal. Last week, the US Court of International Trade ruled that the president’s 10% temporary global duties were unjustified under a 1970s trade law. But the court only blocked the levies for two private importers and the state of Washington. The court ruled that Trump’s imposition of the tariffs under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 was misguided. In February, Trump imposed the so-called global tariff of 10 per cent after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down some tariffs the U.S. president had implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. CUSMA-compliant Canadian exports heading to the U.S. were exempt from the global tariff.
President Trump said federal agencies “must buy American”, doubling down on his push to prioritize the use of products manufactured, developed and produced in the US. …Government agencies are generally required to buy American-made products under the Buy American Act of 1933, which mandates that federal agencies acquire domestic end products for public use. However, there are several exceptions to the law including unreasonable cost, product unavailability and if domestic preference would be inconsistent with the public interest. Trump has long criticized government agencies for signing too many waivers. In a March executive order entitled “Ensuring Truthful Advertising of Products Claiming To Be Made in America,” Trump pushed forward efforts to crack down on false claims of American-made products.
WASHINGTON, Georgia — A sawmill that once stood as the largest east of the Mississippi River in the 1990s has reopened, offering relief to Georgia’s timber industry as it struggles with mill closures, Hurricane Helene damage and recent wildfires. Wilkes Lumber has brought the old mill back online in Washington, a small mill town surrounded by endless pines along Highway 78. The facility is already operating in phase one with about 50 workers, with more hiring expected as phase two comes online in the next few weeks. The mill shut down because of the cost and capability of getting rid of chips, according to Mack Winfrey. …At a time when Georgia’s timber industry is fighting to hold on, Washington is getting back something it lost a quarter-century ago: jobs, a market and a little more hope.
At a time when the nation is facing a severe housing shortage, more multistory apartment buildings would offer more homes to more people. And there’s a big added benefit: Residents would be much safer from fires. A new study by 
The Bureau of Land Management has repealed the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, commonly referred to as the Public Lands Rule, which put conservation on equal footing with mining, logging, and grazing of public lands. The rule required science-based decision-making, conservation considerations within multiple land uses and a focus on sustaining public lands for the long-term benefit of wildlife and the American people. “Today’s repeal of the Public Lands Rule abandons progress at the same moment climate change, chronic drought and accelerating habitat loss demand better stewardship from BLM,” said Maddy Munson, senior planning and policy specialist for federal lands at Defenders of Wildlife. …“This fits a pattern of brazen attempts to sell off and sell out our shared public lands at the expense of public access and conservation,” added Beau Kiklis, associate director of energy and landscape conservation at the National Parks Conservation Association.
WASHINGTON — The Intertribal Timber Council (ITC) expressed deep disappointment following the European Commission’s release of its EUDR simplification review, saying the package offers no meaningful relief for Indigenous Tribal Nations and leaves major concerns raised by Tribal forest managers unresolved. Despite months of engagement from Tribal representatives and repeated warnings about unintended impacts on Indigenous communities, the Commission declined to reopen the regulation and instead proposed only limited technical adjustments through implementing acts, FAQs, and guidance documents. As a result, compliance obligations affecting Tribal Nations in low-risk countries remain fundamentally unchanged. …US Tribal Nations manage 7.8 million hectares of forestland under sovereign governance systems. …The ITC is calling on the European Commission to recognize Tribal forests in the United States as low-risk, legally protected systems.
A new direction in the Tongass management plan gathered more than 300 comments from Southeast Alaskans, who asked the U.S. Forest Service to manage timber and mining, along with recreation, in the forest they call home. The Coeur Alaska Kensington Mine said the revised plan should recognize the Tongass National Forest as a mining district, not solely as a timber or conservation reserve. “The revised Forest Plan should affirm that responsible mineral exploration and development are fully compatible with ecological stewardship, subsistence values, and multiple use when properly planned and regulated,” wrote Steve Ball, general manager of the mine. He also wrote Forest Service’s Roadless Area Conservation Rule prohibitions should not be applied to mining operations. Others criticized the Trump administration and made a plea to protect old-growth forests and the wildlife that live there. Some criticized the Forest Service itself for a rushed process.
EUGENE Ore. – The Bureau of Land Management has proposed increasing timber harvest on 2.4 million acres of federal forest land in Oregon, sparking a renewed debate over logging, wildfire risk and the future of old growth forests. The plan would return harvest levels to 1 billion board feet annually on O&C Lands (Oregon and California Railroad Revested Lands), about four times last year’s yield. Supporters say it would restore jobs and reduce fire danger. Environmental groups warn it could undo decades of protections and say they will challenge the plan in federal court. The O&C Lands are checkerboarded across western Oregon. Once owned by railroad barons, the government reclaimed the land over 100 years ago and opened it up to logging. After new environmental protections were implemented in the 1990s, logging levels plummeted. Last year those same lands yielded about a quarter of the proposed target.
LAKE TAHOE BASIN, Calif. – A yearlong investigation by Mother Jones is casting new scrutiny on the use of glyphosate in California forests at the same time the U.S. Forest Service Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit plans to use the controversial herbicide across thousands of acres in the Lake Tahoe Basin. Glyphosate, commonly sold under the brand name Roundup, is widely used to kill shrubs and hardwood vegetation that compete with replanted conifers after fires and logging operations. However, the herbicide has long been controversial. In 2015, the cancer research arm of the World Health Organization classified glyphosate as a “probable carcinogen,” and manufacturer Bayer has paid more than $12 billion in settlements tied to lawsuits alleging the herbicide caused cancer.
El Niño is emerging even faster than expected in the Pacific Ocean and odds are increasing that it could become historically strong — a rare “Super” El Niño — by fall or winter. This is according to a just-released update from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center that says there is a 2 in 3 chance that El Niño’s peak strength will be strong or very strong. El Niño is a natural climate cycle that happens when the tropical Pacific Ocean warms enough to trigger shifts in wind patterns throughout the atmosphere, which has a ripple effect on weather conditions worldwide. Droughts and heat waves can flourish in some regions, fueling wildfire danger and water supply concerns, while others are swamped by flooding rainfall. El Niño’s far-reaching effects can also stymie the Atlantic hurricane season. On a larger scale, it causes already rising global temperatures from human-caused climate change to spike even higher. Stronger El Niños make all these impacts more likely.
Many US pellet exporters are evaluating new potential markets abroad to diversify their portfolios and adjust to evolving policy landscapes. At the same time, other countries around the world are increasing production and use of wood pellets as a coal replacement for power generation, as well as renewable heating option for residential heating systems and industrial utilization. From Vietnam to smaller markets such as Poland, global wood pellet production continues to grow. …US manufacturers produced over 11 million tons of wood pellets in 2025, including premium and utility pellets. A majority of that volume was exported—an estimated total of 9.37 million tons last year. Globally, pellet producers are experiencing a tug of war between increased biomass use due to decarbonization efforts and increased scrutiny from programs such as the European Union Deforestation Regulation and other countries’ evolving policy mechanisms. …Finding new substantial markets for US pellets may prove to be a challenge. 
Three years ago, two big new wood-pellet manufacturing plants were proposed along the Washington coast — the first of their kind in the Pacific Northwest. The British utility Drax planned a facility in Longview next to the Columbia River. Another company, Pacific Northwest Renewable Energy Project (PNWRE), proposed a similar plant in Hoquiam, Grays Harbor County. These plans are now unraveling. Last year, Drax suspended work on its Longview plant, citing weak demand for wood pellets it planned to export to overseas power plants. The year before, Enviva, Drax’s biggest competitor declared bankruptcy… What we’re learning is the wood pellet industry can’t compete without extensive subsidies. …These adverse economic headwinds should serve as a warning sign… Most likely, the project will fail economically, saddling Grays Harbor with a costly cleanup project instead of providing the promise of new jobs or local revenue. It would be better to cut our losses now — before this doomed project is built. [A Seattle Times subscription is required for full access]
