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Sawdust Shock:A Shortage Looms As Economy Slows[06' $25 Ton, now $100]
WSJ ^ | 03 Mar 2008 | JOEL MILLMAN

Posted on 03/03/2008 2:53:01 AM PST by BGHater

Home Building Drops, And Wood Waste, Too; The Manure substitute

Ernie Johnson figured $100-a-barrel oil was bound to happen someday. But the 58-year-old businessman Missoula, Mont., never thought he'd see sawdust at $100 a ton.

The price of sawdust has soared since 2006, up from about $25 a ton to more than $100 in some markets. Blame the housing slump: Fewer new homes mean fewer trees cut for use in construction, which leads to less sawdust and other wood waste, driving up the price.

"I've never seen sawdust so hard to find. We're having to go 400 miles to get it," says Mr. Johnson, the president of Johnson Brothers Contracting, which sells everything from chopped bark for landscapers to wood chips for pulp mills.

Sawdust may seem like a lowly commodity, but it is widely used in today's economy. Farms use sawdust and wood shavings as cozy and clean bedding for horses and chickens. Particle-board makers devour it by the boxcar to fashion a cheap building material. Auto-parts manufacturers blend a finely pulverized sawdust called "wood flour" with plastic polymers to make a lightweight material to cover steering wheels and dashboards.

The shortage of sawdust and wood shavings has boosted the cost of boarding horses at the Lazy E Ranch in Guthrie, Okla. Two years ago, the Lazy E paid $950 per load of wood shavings for its horse stalls. Last month, Butch Wise, who manages the ranch, paid $2,650 a load. The ranch needs three loads a week.

"You'd think sawdust would be in plentiful and cheap supply, but it's not," he says.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy
KEYWORDS: economy; sawdust; wood

1 posted on 03/03/2008 2:53:02 AM PST by BGHater
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To: BGHater

Good. I hope concrete comes down as well.
Building materials are ridiculously priced.


2 posted on 03/03/2008 3:00:29 AM PST by mylife (The Roar Of The Masses Could Be Farts)
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To: BGHater
Fewer new homes mean fewer trees cut for use in construction...

This is all too true. For the second year in a row, I'll be postponing my tree harvest.

3 posted on 03/03/2008 3:07:00 AM PST by Rudder (e)
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To: BGHater

This is also bad news for the James Brown Impersonator industry. People don’t realize how much sawdust it takes to get through a jammin’ “I Feel Good”.


4 posted on 03/03/2008 3:28:40 AM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: BGHater

Buy rice hulls. California has a surplus ad they are better for the animals less problems with bugs and infection.


5 posted on 03/03/2008 3:36:51 AM PST by Shirerwasright (Liberalism continues to erode the foundations of America)
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To: BGHater

So much for pellet stoves being the latest magic bullet in home heating. Corn seemed like a good idea for a bit until pellets got good momentum with low pricing and an endless supply of cheap fuel.

Are we at peak sawdust?


6 posted on 03/03/2008 3:53:29 AM PST by sbMKE
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To: BGHater

Sawdust used to be free 25 years ago.


7 posted on 03/03/2008 3:55:51 AM PST by Rb ver. 2.0 (Global warming is the new Marxism.)
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To: BGHater
I'm rich, I'm rich! I'm going to spend the whole week making sawdust!

Framing and trimming out a new basement for a customer... :O)

8 posted on 03/03/2008 4:20:34 AM PST by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: Shirerwasright

“Buy rice hulls. California has a surplus ad they are better for the animals less problems with bugs and infection.”

A good idea for certain uses on the farms. But rice hulls contain large quantities of silicon ... not appropriate for a replacement of sawdust in industrial uses.


9 posted on 03/03/2008 4:48:19 AM PST by ChiefJayStrongbow
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To: BGHater

We are so doomed. Oh, wait...it’s an election year. Everything sucks more than usual. Everything is too expensive and we’re running out of everything!

But when The Beast is in charge, miraculously, there will be no sawdust shortage and there will be free sawdust for all!


10 posted on 03/03/2008 4:51:36 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: mylife

And a big reason for that is all the stuff we are ‘donating’ to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, sorry to say.


11 posted on 03/03/2008 4:51:58 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion)
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To: ChiefJayStrongbow
Buy Sawdust futures
12 posted on 03/03/2008 4:53:28 AM PST by Defendingliberty (www.gulagthebear.com, www.DraconEarthsavers.org)
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To: Rudder

I presume that at $100 a ton, that’s still not enough to justify chopping down unusable trees and simple running them through a grinder for sawdust?


13 posted on 03/03/2008 5:22:37 AM PST by CharlesWayneCT
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To: CharlesWayneCT

You mean like old christmas trees that most areas just use to create mulch.


14 posted on 03/03/2008 5:37:18 AM PST by pas
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To: ChiefJayStrongbow

Yes would not work well in particle boards but will help the farmers. South Dakota pig farmers buy tons of it and there are many more tons in the Gold Valley.

Also I hear there is an entrepenuer up tha way working on a way to solve the silcon issue for particle board, something called MDF.


15 posted on 03/04/2008 4:44:55 AM PST by Shirerwasright (Liberalism continues to erode the foundations of America)
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