 As fossil fuel resources diminish, increasing attention is being paid to trees as sources of energy.In Italy, the Istituto per la Protezione delle Piante is (2012) in the process of releasing to commerce very fast-growing elm cultivars, able to increase in height by more than 2 m (6 ft) per annum.Elm bark, cut into strips and boiled, sustained much of the rural population of Norway during the great famine of 1812.