Harvest residue potential in Norway – A bio-economic model appraisal

Abstract

Use of harvest residues for bioenergy is minimal in Norway, and the proposed increase of 14 TWh in annual bioenergy use by year 2020 may thus to a large part be based on residues from conventional timber harvesting. To judge the potential of harvest residues for bioenergy both in the short and long run, we present cost-supply curves for residue harvesting at national and regional levels. We produce different harvesting scenarios using the detailed forest model Gaya/J and a representative description of the Norwegian forest area from Norwegian national forest inventory (NFI) sample plots including environmental restrictions. Forest information is sufficiently detailed to estimate necessary biomass fractions and calculate costs of harvest residue extraction at plot level. We estimate a maximum annual energy production of 5.3 TWh from harvest residues with the present harvest level, which is far from the official target. In principle, there are two solutions for achieving this target; increase harvests and thus the corresponding residue supply, or increase the use of roundwood for energy purposes on the expense of pulpwood. Scenarios with long-run increase in timber production shows an annual energy potential from harvest residues in the range 6Á9 TWh. Thus, to reach the political target roundwood must be used for energy production.

Impact of maximum opening area constraints on profitability and biomass availability in forestry – a large, real world case

“…As a scientific foundation for developing the "Living Forests standards" more than a decade ago, several comprehensive analyses quantified consequences of environmentally oriented constraints at national, regional and property level (Hoen et al 1998Eid et al 2001Eid et al , 2002. Later also Ask et al (2005) and Bergseng et al (2012Bergseng et al ( , 2013 performed similar analyses focusing on consequences of environmentally oriented constraints on forest management.…”

Systems Analysis of Ten Supply Chains for Whole Tree Chips

“…It is generally acknowledged that a supply chain wide approach is useful in providing insight into the consequences of decisions or actions taken at any point in the chain. Examples in the literature that take such an approach often apply a secondary over-arching methodology such as GIS analysis [1], business process mapping [2], optimization and ranking [3], or are reviews of the state of the art [4]. While it is known that point of comminution largely determines the efficacy of supply systems [5], and that this point varies for different feedstock types and physical settings, only limited work, e.g., Laitila [6] considers the productivity and cost consequences of these.…”

Combining backcasting with forest sector projection models to provide paths into the future bio-economy

“…For each of the ∼9000 National Forest Inventory plots that together cover the productive forest land base, growth and yield is simulated for various management options in the stand simulator Gaya (Hoen & Eid 1990) and fed into the optimization model. Forest owners harvest spruce, pine and non-coniferous sawlogs and pulpwood; logging costs are specified on the plot level given trees and site attributes (Bergseng et al 2013) and pulpwood share is a function of tree species, height and diameter (Blingsmo & Veidahl 1992). Sawlogs are processed into three types of sawnwood, pulpwood into two pulp and two board grades, five sorts of paper and three bioenergy carriers such that the objective function is maximized.…”