Second Kate and Jacob’s comments about efficient use of resources being the key. regional conditions and the ebb’n flow of industry makes wood byproduct tricky and emphasizes the regional temporal issues that are difficult to model or baseline.
The Alliance for Green Heat has good resources defending biomass heating and have been very active in the policy initiatives. They work with heater efficiency which is of course a mandatory piece of the puzzle and where a lot of policy has been directed.
As fuel size increases (pellet>stick>cord) the reliability of burn efficiency decreases, emphasis on reliability, as some cord wood heaters have tested at pellet efficiency in EPA labs. This matters because for rural households with existing homes. The availability of stick and cord wood is readily available and the reliability of it’s good sourcing goes up. Possibly a high efficiency cord or stick wood heater in rural areas can offset the lack of dependable pellet sourcing in the near term until the industry is more carbon regulated.
With new built homes high insulation is preferred which makes fiber combustion for heat difficult to balance heater efficiency and heat demand, as hot fast burns are the most efficient but the insulated house wants stable low heat inputs to prevent over heating. Hydronic buffer tanks with low temp hydronic distribution can help that balance as can mass heaters but there is a cost and carbon challenge that those beefed up heaters present. The low temp distribution with a buffer tank approach provides flexibility where multiple heat sources can be alternated to maximize other renewable sources or swapped in the future without disturbing the distribution system. Thus a cord wood heater could be used now in combo with a solar tied air-to-water heat pump (new to the US market), and swapped for pellet when the pellet sourcing becomes carbon credible.