One advantage of our publishing cycle at WBPI is that we have to publish our Ligna review in this issue, rather than in June/July since that goes to press before the show. That means we can update the information after the exhibition and get a more accurate response. So strong was that response that we have, for the first time, dedicated two news pages to orders taken at the show.
My tour of Italian machinery makers, in June for our Focus on Italy, confirmed the good news from Ligna for the whole machinery sector, with order books full well into 2008. There is also good news for MDF as, in the second part of our survey of the world's industry, we report some dramatic expansion plans outside western Europe and North America, the like of which have not been seen for about 20 years, with world capacity quite possibly heading for 60 million m³ during the next two years! Of course, such dramatic rises in capacity are not necessarily good news for the existing mills, unless consumption also rises fast. However, there is more immediate bad news for them. The US Appeal Court decision against the Environmental Protection Agency's interpretation of the MACT rules (p5) is a body blow for all US panel producers, who will now have to comply with much stricter limits on hazardous air pollutants than they had expected - and a year sooner than they had expected. Add to that the California Air Resources Board ruling on formaldehyde (yet another over-the-top reaction from that state's legislature) and panel manufacturers have a problem. There is almost certainly no reason for those manufacturers in the rest of the world to feel smug either. I would bet these regulations will be adopted widely. More bad news came in EPF president Ladislaus Döry's presentation to its annual meeting. He spoke of 'the legend of the woody biomass reserve in Europe'; over-estimates of the amount available could boost the biomass-burning energy business. These three 'well-intentioned' moves are just going to damage an extremely sustainable industry - ours. When are the 'environmentalists' and politicians going to look at the bigger picture? Well I did at least start with the good news!