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A fifth of Finland’s energy is derived from wood |
Bioenergy is energy derived from biomass. Biomass includes all plants and plant-based material, such as logging residue and wood, wood residue and wood-based waste liquors from the forest industry, community bio waste and cultivated plants. They can be used in energy production as such or processed into pellets and briquettes, for example.
A fifth of the total energy consumption in Finland is derived from wood-based fuels, approximately a half of which are waste liquors from the forest industry, such as black liquor. In the Finnish forest industry, the significance of wood-based fuel is even greater. Since 1999, its share of the fuel used by the forest industry has been over 70 percent.
Some 5.2 million cubic metres of wood and a million cubic metres of wood residue are burned to heat private houses, farms and holiday cottages. This covers some 40 percent of the heating energy used in private houses. On average, a detached house uses less than two cubic metres per year and a farm some 10-20 cubic metres.
Forest energy is stumps, branches and stems
Forest energy usually means energy from logging residue and stumps; these are called energy wood. Forest energy is only a part of wood-based energy. About five percent of the total consumption of energy comes from forest energy.
Stems, stumps and branches are usually chipped before use and are then called forest chips. The use of forest chips in energy production has increased considerably. Only as late as in 1997, 0.2 million cubic metres of forest chips were collected from forests. Since 2005, the use has exceeded three million cubic metres. Nearly 90 percent of forest chips are used in heating and power plants, the rest in private houses.
Climate change promotes the use of forest energy
The energy sector causes about 80 percent of Finland’s greenhouse gas emissions. Using renewable resources is important, as greenhouse gases are produced especially by the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal. When coal and oil are burned the carbon dioxide contained in them is released into the atmosphere.
Wood is considered as neutral with regard to carbon dioxide emission, as the carbon released into the atmosphere with the decaying of wood is absorbed into growing trees.
For more information about forests and climate change in forest.fi, click here.
Share of wood in energy production to increase
Both the European Union and Finland want to increase the share of wood in energy production.
Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen’s Government aims to significantly increase the share of renewable resources in energy production, currently at 25 percent. One of the most important tools in achieving this is the National Forest Programme, which aims to increase the use of forest chips to five million cubic metres per year by 2010. The goal for 2015 is eight million cubic metres.
The goal of the European Union is that by 2020 one fifth of the energy used in the member states would come from renewable resources. The goal allocated to Finland in January 2008 was 38 percent.
The 20-percent goal is ambitious, as in 2005 the share of renewables in energy production in the Union was seven percent. The share of bio fuels used in transport is to rise to ten percent by 2020 in all member states.
It is feared that the targets adopted for the use of renewable energy sources will raise the price of wood in Finland and channel wood into burning instead of pulping. The Finnish forest industry considers it more sensible to refine wood into paper and furniture first and to burn it only at the last stage. The Finnish forest owners consider that they have the right to sell their wood to whoever pays the best price.
For more information about wood's use as energy in forest.fi, click here.
Read also about forest-based energy's
 Availability
Gathering and employment
Effect
Energy content
Graphics:
 Felling and regeneration methods 25,19 Kb
Mill fuels of the forest industries in Finland, 1992-2007 25,24 Kb
Solid wood fuel consumption in 2005 30,34 Kb
Use of forest chips and its raw materials 2000-2007 25 Kb
Share of renewable energies in some EU countries 25,5 Kb
Use of fossil fuels and fuelwood loggings in 1885-2005 25,42 Kb |
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