Dominik Röser

Sustainable Use of Forest Biomass for Energy

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Sustainability impact assessment of increasing resource use intensity in forest bioenergy production chains.

price are net prices, subject to local VAT. Prices indicated with * include VAT for books; the €(D) includes 7% for Germany, the €(A) includes 10% for Austria. Prices indicated with ** include VAT for electronic products; 19% for Germany, 20% for Austria. All prices exclusive of carriage charges. Prices and other details are subject to change without notice. All errors and omissions excepted. D. Röser, A. Asikainen, K. Raulund-Rasmussen, I. Stupak (Eds.) Sustainable Use of Forest Biomass for Energy

Policy And Economic Aspects Of Forest Energy Utilisation

Changing forest management practices towards more intensive biomass utilization for energy purposes will affect the sustainability of resource management. The Tool for Sustainability Impact Assessment was applied to evaluate the environmental, social, and economic sustainability impacts of the stepwise increased extraction of forest biomass of three typical Scandinavian Scots pine bioenergy production chains (BPCs). The assessed sources of the woody biomass were pellets as a by‐product of the sawmilling industry, wood chips deriving from early whole‐tree harvesting, and residues from final cuttings. Three commercially practiced BPCs were compared. By the additional extraction of biomass for heat production, the employment increased by 0.6 person‐years 1000 m−3 solid wood chips, while there was a decrease in the costs and greenhouse gases emitted per unit of heat consumed. Furthermore this practice did not only add positive socio‐economic but also positive environmental impacts on sustainability, particularly on the greenhouse gas balance and the energy efficiency ratio (input to output ratio along the BPC), which was determined to be 1–24. Potential drawbacks, on the other hand, include decreasing nutrient returns to the soil and the associated potential reduction in future stand productivity. Fertilization might be needed to maintain sustainable forest growth on poor sites.

Reengineering business processes to improve an integrated industrial roundwood and energywood procurement chain

Bioenergy projects must be economically viable for the different actors in the value chain. Forest biomass used for energy purposes must be able to compete with other uses of the biomass, and at the same time the energy produced from biomass must be as cheap as or cheaper than energy produced from competing energy systems. The costs in these calculations are changing all the time; in particular the cost of fossil fuels shows large variations. As the risk is high and the economic margins in many cases are low, there is a tendency that investors are reluctant to invest in bioenergy projects. On the other hand, prices of wood based fuels have been rising modestly compared with e.g. oil and gas, which reduces the economic risk when investing in a

ENERTREE - DECISION SUPPORT TOOL TO ANALYSE FOREST BIOMASS EXTRACTION SCENARIOS

Procurement systems and supply chains for industrial-scale forest fuel recovery are still immature. Business process improvement techniques can significantly improve system performance. The present study applies business process modeling and reengineering approaches to an integrated industrial roundwood and energywood supply chain in Germany. The existing business process was reengineered. A new business process for integrated industrial roundwood and energywood procurement and two new business processes for future biomass procurement operations were designed using proven best practices. The improvement potential of the new business processes was investigated by determining the organizational and managerial workload of all actors using discrete-event simulation. The results of the discrete-event simulation were then used as a basis for a comprehensive cost calculation. Finally, the cost-saving potential relative to the current practice was determined. The redesign of the current business process provides a cost-saving potential of 20–39% (–2.64 to –5.25 USD/m3). The first biomass procurement process involves a saving potential of 12–53% (–1.60 to –7.20 USD/m3), while the second might even increase the costs by 13% if the probability of failures is high. With decreasing probability of failures, the costs can decrease by up to 32% (+1.76 to –4.27 USD/m3). The study demonstrates that simple and low-cost measures can improve business processes in forest supply chains and achieve considerable cost savings.

Sustainable utilisation of forest biomass for energy - possibilities and problems: policy, legislation, certification, and recommendations and guidelines in the Nordic, Baltic, and other European countries.

Traditional use of forests and forest management planning have concentrated on the production of saw logs and pulpwood as raw material for forest industries. During the last twenty years, noncommercial values like recreation and biodiversity have also been taken into consideration in forest management planning (Kangas & Niemelainen 1996). Together with such changes in values, information technology has developed very fast, thereby enabling the creation of solutions and tools to support multicriteria forest management planning processes. Besides wood production for forest industries, small diameter wood from plantation cleanings and thinnings as well as residues from logging operations have been used for firewood in households for centuries. The commercial production of