An environmental impact assessment of exported wood pellets from Canada to Europe

Published Date
Biomass and Bioenergy
March 2009, Vol.33(3):434–441, doi:10.1016/j.biombioe.2008.08.016

• Author 

• Francesca Magelli ^a
• Karl Boucher ^b
• Hsiaotao T. Bi ^b,,
• Staffan Melin ^c
• Alessandra Bonoli ^a

• aDepartment of Chemical and Mineral Engineering (DICMA), University of Bologna, Italy
• bClean Energy Research Centre, University of British Columbia, 2360 East Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z3
• cDelta Research Corp., Delta, Canada

Received 9 November 2006. Revised 12 August 2008. Accepted 29 August 2008. Available online 29 October 2008. 

Abstract

There have been increased interests on exporting wood pellets from Canada to Europe to meet the increased demand on biofuels in European countries. The wood pellet industry in Canada, especially in the west coastal region, has grown at an annual rate of more than 20% averaged over last 5 years due to the steady supply of wood residues. This paper attempted to analyze the fuel consumption and air emissions associated with the wood pellet production in British Columbia and export to Sweden based on a streamlined life cycle analysis, starting from tree harvesting for wood residue production to the shipping of wood pellets from Vancouver to Stockholm in Sweden. The results showed that about 7.2 GJ of energy is consumed for each tonne of wood pellets produced and shipped to Europe, representing about 39% of the total energy content of the wood pellets. Among those energies consumed over the life cycle, about 2.6 GJ is associated with long-distance ocean transportation. The ocean transportation is also the major contributor to environmental and health impacts, followed by the pellet production processes. The fossil fuel content, which quantifies the amount of fossil fuel consumed over the life cycle, for exported wood pellets ranged from 19% to 35%, depending on whether natural gas or wood residue is used in the drying operation during the wood pellet production stage. To reduce the fossil fuel content and the environmental impacts, wood residues should be used in the drying operation and, if possible, local market should be explored to reduce the energy consumption associated with wood pellet transportation over long distances.

Keywords

Wood pellets

Fuel consumption

Fossil fuel content

Greenhouse gas emissions

Air emissions

Life cycle analysis

Impact assessment

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