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The time is ripe to exploit wind energy to improve the sustainability of timber production. On a recent visit to Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, I noticed a painting of a sawmill-studied landscape, powered by windmills. Painted by Claude Monet in 1871, Mills in the Westzijderveld near Zaandam pictures the polder landscape with its many characteristic sawmills and their adjacent sheds.

There were once more than 200 wind-driven sawmills in the Zandaam area near Amsterdam, turning it into one of the world’s earliest industrial zones: the sawmills enabled large-scale shipbuilding, making a crucial contribution to Dutch colonial trading.

Although water-powered sawmills have been around since Roman times, the wind-powered variety was only invented in 1594 when Dutchman Cornelis Corneliszoon applied a crankshaft to a windmill, which converted a turning motion into a back-and-forward motion to power the saw. Prior to this, commercial sawing was slow and laborious, using a whipsaw operated by two strong men in a saw pit.

Today, wind-powered sawmills have all but disappeared in Europe. Merely a handful remain in Holland, notably the restored Salamander mill at Leidschendam. The only surviving wind-driven sawmill in the UK is Buckland Windmill in Surrey. Sawmills powered by renewable energy were eventually displaced by steam power. In the last century, the introduction of electricity and high technology transformed sawmill operations into the massive and expanded facilities we see today.

With sustainably felled timber deemed carbon neutral – even though it’s mostly imported and converted into usable timber by non-renewable energy – it’s time to make timber production more environmentally sound.

One solution is to convert kinetic energy from wind or water flow into power for sawmills. Modern wind turbines are highly efficient and are a growing source of commercial electric power. They can be used to propel a wind-powered sawmill renaissance. In the move towards increasingly sustainable timber production, renewable energy sources can play a significant part by cutting greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing the overall sustainability of wood.

Other resources: The potential for water-powered sawmills.

Windmills around the world.

Why is the timber used for UK construction deemed carbon neutral when it’s usually imported all the way from Scandinavia, Siberia or North America and converted into usable timber by non-renewable energy sources?

On a recent trip to Poland, I came across a truly zero carbon operation: locally felled trees that are cut into planks at a water-powered sawmill and consumed by the community.

Open on 2 sides, the sawmill serves a rural community in which some buildings are still made of spruce or hardwood and local timber is widely used for roof structures, doors, windows and internal details.

The sawmill is between Bialka and Bukowina Tatrzanska in the foothills of the Tatra mountains. Although the small undershot wheel doesn’t generate a great deal of power, it’s enough to drive a band saw which can plank a whole tree within minutes.

It struck me that it’s not only the Poles who like to save money, energy and the environment. As we move towards zero carbon housing in the UK, we could build new scaled-up water mills and restore derelict mills to produce sustainable timber for local consumption, using small-scale renewable energy. So the technology already exists to slash emissions in timber production to zero without having to buy carbon credits.

We have used water as a renewable energy source for thousands of years, mainly for milling corn. Did you know there are a handful of historic water-powered sawmills here in the UK? Indeed, the restored Gayle Mill in Wensleydale has 3 working water turbines. Some others are at Simonsbath on Exmoor and Gunton Sawmill in Norfolk. The only water-powered sawmill in Scotland is at Kirkdale near Dumphries.

Generating power from river flow for local sawmills could play its own small part in changing the landscape of timber production. It helps to cut greenhouse gas emissions to zero, saves money and enhances the overall sustainability of wood. I am interested to learn of other examples of sustainable production technology.

Water-powered sawmill

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Wind-powered sawmill renaissance

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