An economic analysis of the potential contribution of forest biomass to the EU RES target and its implications for the EU forest industries

Author

Moiseyev, A.^a , 

Solberg, B.^a, 

Kallio, A.M.I.^b, 

Lindner, M.^c

^a  Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Science, Ås, Norway
^b  METLA (Finnish Forest Research Institute), Vantaa, Finland
^c  European Forest Institute, Joensuu, Finland 

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Abstract

This study addresses the effects of increasing energy wood prices on the EU forest sector and on the use of wood biomass for energy. We examine different energy wood price levels under two contrasting scenarios of future global development, defined by the A1 and B2 storylines of IPCC. A1 depicts increased globalization and rapid economic growth. In B2, the economic growth is more modest, and the world is more environmentally conscious and regionally oriented. The analysis carried out using the global forest sector model EFI-GTM shows that as energy wood prices increase, the wood imports and reallocation of wood from competing industrial users such as board manufacturers or the pulp and paper industry also increase strongly. The quantity of wood directed from the forest industry to the energy sector would at most be around 20Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent) in terms of energy, given a price of 100€/m³ of energy wood. Still, this would cover only around 8% of the European Union's RES target for 2020, and an even lower share for 2030. For some forest industry sectors like production of pulp and panels that would mean an important output reduction, around 20-25%. Additional felling could be an important source of wood for bioenergy in the near future, when utilization of the forest resource potential is still not very high. However, toward 2030, forest resource utilization is projected to increase and might become a limiting factor for additional biomass potentials. Given the relatively high economic growth assumed in the scenarios and the rather strong development in the demand for forest industry products, there is a considerable chance that the supply of wood biomass for energy will be largely limited to logging residues in the long run. © 2011.

Author keywords

Biomass; Forest sector model; IPCC scenarios; Wood supply

Indexed keywords

Bio-energy; Biomass potential; Board manufacturers; Economic growths; Energy sector; Energy wood; European Union; Forest biomass; Forest industry; Forest resources; Forest sector model; Forest sectors; Global development; Industrial users; IPCC scenarios; Limiting factors; Logging residues; Pulp and paper industry; Storylines; Wood biomass; Wood imports; Wood supply

Engineering controlled terms: Biomass; Costs; Ecology; Economic analysis; Forestry; International trade; Pulp; Wood

Engineering main heading: Paper and pulp industry

GEOBASE Subject Index: bioenergy; biomass; economic analysis; economic growth; European Union; forest resource; forestry production; globalization; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; logging (timber); timber industry

PaperChem Variable: Biomass; Costs; Ecology; Economic Analysis; Foreign Trade; Forestry; Pulps; Wood

ISSN: 11046899Source Type: Journal Original language: English

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfe.2011.02.010Document Type: Article

  Moiseyev, A.; Department of Ecology and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Science, Ås, Norway;
© Copyright 2011 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

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