Eriksson, Gunnar and Athanassiadis, Dimitris and Bergström, Dan and Nordfjell, Tomas and Bergsten, Urban
(2012).
Production costs and markets for pellet chips : case studies in northern Sweden.
International Journal of Forestry Research. 2012
:302014
, 1-12
[Research article]
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/302014
Abstract
Increasing use of woody fuels requires that nontraditional types of raw materials are exploited, including logging residues and small-diameter trees. Although medium-scale combustors often use pellets, they could conceivably use dried chips of sufficiently narrow size distribution (henceforth pellet chips). The influence of the following factors on the relative cost-effectiveness of producing pellets and pellet chips was investigated for three plant sites in northern Sweden: (1) harvesting and transporting of forest residues; (2) the potential of existing energy plants to supply drying heat in periods of capacity surplus; (3) the distance to potential end-users. Data from the national forest inventory were used to estimate raw material costs. The resulting production costs were 144–176 $ per oven-dry tonnes (OD t) for pellets (27.4–33.5 $ MWh−1) and 143–173 $ OD t−1 (27.2–33.0 $ MWh−1) for pellet chips, with harvesting, forwarding, chipping, and transporting of logging residues to the sites amounting to 114–122 $ OD t−1 (21.7–23.2 $ MWh−1) for both fuels. Even though the differences in production costs were minor, the production of pellet chips requires significantly less electricity input per OD t of produced fuel. For cost reductions improved methods for wood fuel procurement, compacting and transporting of chips, small-scale low-temperature drying and foliage and bark separation are needed.
Authors/Creators: | Eriksson, Gunnar and Athanassiadis, Dimitris and Bergström, Dan and Nordfjell, Tomas and Bergsten, Urban | ||||
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Title: | Production costs and markets for pellet chips : case studies in northern Sweden | ||||
Series Name/Journal: | International Journal of Forestry Research | ||||
Year of publishing : | 2012 | ||||
Volume: | 2012 | ||||
Number: | 302014 | ||||
Page range: | 1-12 | ||||
Publisher: | Hindawi Publishing Corporation | ||||
ISSN: | 1687-9368 | ||||
Language: | English | ||||
Publication Type: | Research article | ||||
Refereed: | Yes | ||||
Article category: | Scientific peer reviewed | ||||
Version: | Published version | ||||
Full Text Status: | Public | ||||
Agris subject categories.: | E Economics, development, and rural sociology > E16 Production economics K Forestry > K50 Processing of forest products P Natural resources > P06 Renewable energy resources | ||||
Subjects: | (A) Swedish standard research categories 2011 > 4 Agricultural Sciences > 401 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries > Forest Science | ||||
Keywords: | bioenergy, supply chain, fuel wood, wood products | ||||
URN:NBN: | urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-e-789 | ||||
Permanent URL: | http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:slu:epsilon-e-789 | ||||
Additional ID: |
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ID Code: | 9344 | ||||
Department: | (S) > Dept. of Forest Resource Management (NL, NJ) > Dept. of Forest Resource Management | ||||
External funders: | Kempe Foundations | ||||
Deposited By: | Skogsbiblioteket Umeå | ||||
Deposited On: | 14 Dec 2012 15:15 | ||||
Metadata Last Modified: | 02 Dec 2014 10:54 |
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