Proceedings World Bioenergy 2010

PROCUREMENT COSTS OF SLASH AND STUMPS IN SWEDEN
– A COMPARISON BETWEEN SOUTH AND NORTH SWEDEN.
Athanassiadis, Dimitris., Lundström, Anders & Nordfjell Tomas
Department of Forest Resource Management, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
S-90183 Umeå, Sweden
Dimitris.Athanassiadis@srh.slu.se, Tomas.Nordfjell@srh.slu.se, Anders.Lundstrom@srh.slu.se
ABSTRACT: Marginal cost curves were used to appreciate the amount of slash and stumps that could be harvested at
certain costs in Sweden as a whole as well as in two regions (Upper Norrland and South Sweden). The expected region
specific variations were quantified and region specific estimates on harvestable potentials of stumps and slash were made.
The results in this work were based on data collected in the Swedish Forest Inventory (SFI) from 2002 to 2006
Keywords: forestry residues, harvesting, resource potential
1 INTRODUCTION
The demand for use of wood as raw material for heat
and power generation has increased considerably at a
global level. Sweden is a leading country in the use of
bioenergy. According to the Swedish Energy Authority,
20% of the total energy use, comes from biofuels (incl.
peat) [1]. By-products from sawmills and the pulp and
paper industry account for the greatest part and are used
for the production of heat and power for the companies’
own needs or for the provision to consumers. The
introduction in 2003 of a green electricity certificate
system aimed in supporting electricity production using
renewable energy sources (solar energy, wind power,
hydropower and bioenergy) and peat. The main objective
was to increase the amount of electricity coming from
renewable resources by 17 TWh by year 2016 (base level
is year 2002 when 6.5 TWh of electricity from renewable
resources were produced).
The Swedish national forest inventory (NFI) indicates
a productive economic forest cover (designated for the
production of timber and non-timber forest products) of
23 million ha, 56% percent of the total land area of
Sweden. The total growing stock is about 3.2 billions of
forest m 3 [2]. Within the near future the demand on forest
woody materials is believed to get higher than the annual
growth.
In 2006, logging residues were extracted from 36%
of the 229 000 ha of regeneration fellings in Sweden.
Logging residues are today the largest assortment of
forest biomass available for energy production.
Depending on the level of ecological, technical and
economical restrictions the potential amount of branches,
tops and foliage resulting from regeneration fellings is
from 3.2 to 7.4 (no restrictions) million oven dry tons
(ODT) annually (for the time period 2010-2019) while
the potential from stumps with attached root system is 4.2
to 11.7 (no restrictions) million ODT annually and for the
same time period [3]. The corresponding annual figures
in thinning for branches, tops and foliage and stumps
with attached root system is 1,7 to 3,9 (no restrictions)
and 1,7 to 5,7 (no restrictions) million ODT annually
respectively. Furthermore, 0.5 million ODT, orginating
from pre commercial thinning, can be added to the above
mentioned potentials.
Harvest and transport costs of logging residues are
site specific and differ due to site characteristics (i.e. size
of operational units, ecological restrictions, tree size and
species, varying terrain conditions, varying forwarding
distances, harvest type, transport distance to the receiving
plant), regional and local differences (i.e. operation
overhead costs, acquisition of harvesting rights, customer
demand) and harvesting system used (i.e. type of
machinery, cost and produz