Tag Archives: sweden
FAO: Wood, The Leading Source For Renewable Energy In Europe
July 18, 2013 • Source: FAO According to a report issued by FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) of the United Nations, the overall wood energy accounts for 3.4% of the total primary energy supply and 38.9% of the renewable energy supply in 27 UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) member countries in 2011, confirming its role as the leading source of renewable energy. The report says that between 2009 and 2011, the amount of wood used for energy purposes within this group of countries grew annually by 4.8%. The role of wood in total primary energy supply increased slightly from 4.3% to 5.4% while the share of wood energy among renewable energy sources increased from 46.1% to 48.7%. The main sources of wood energy were as follows: Co-products and residues from forest-based industries, including processed wood fuels with improved energy content such as wood pellets, briquettes and charcoal (also called indirect sources) contributed 57%. Woody biomass from forests and other wooded land (also known as direct sources) such as logging residues, thinnings and clearings, which represented 34.1% of consumption. Recovered waste wood (mainly waste from construction, but also packaging and old furniture), which accounted for 3.7% of the supply. However, the proportion of these sources varies among countries. For instance, Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Italy, Serbia and Slovenia rely heavily on direct supplies of wood fibres. But Austria, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States rely mainly on wood supply from indirect sources. Canada, Finland, Norway, Sweden and the United States have large shares of energy generated from black liquor, reflecting the relative importance of the pulp and paper industries in the forest sector. Waste wood is reported as a significant source of wood energy in Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, where it is mainly consumed in power applications and waste to energy plants. In general, however, data on recovered wood are difficult to obtain and often not discernible from overall waste statistics. Some 48% of the wood energy supply is consumed by the industrial sector. The forest products industry typically consumes energy generated from the solid and liquid co-products of its manufacturing processes. Countries with major forest industries, such as Finland, Sweden and the United States, have therefore a higher level of industrial consumption. Residential use, mainly dependent on direct supplies of firewood, accounted for 34.4% of the wood energy supply. Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine report this category as their primary use. But consumption of wood energy use by private households is often higher than official records indicate. The power and heat sector represents 15% of wood energy use. This sector is the largest consumer of wood energy in Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Continue reading
Bioenergy With CCS Can ‘Reverse’ Global Warming
11 July 2013 By Edd Gent Global warming could be reversed by using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage, according to Swedish researchers Researchers have claimed bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) could allow the world to reverse global warming. The team, from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden, say the technology can reverse the global warming trend and push temperatures back below the global target of 2°C above pre-industrial levels, even if current policies fail and the world initially overshoots this target. In a paper published in journal Environmental Research Letters today, the researchers show that if BECCS is implemented on a large-scale along with other renewable energy sources, temperature increases can be as low as 1.5°C by 2150. Co-author of the study, Professor Christian Azar, said: “What we demonstrate in our paper is that even if we fail to keep temperature increases below 2°C, then we can reverse the warming trend and push temperatures back below the 2°C target by 2150. “To do so requires both large-scale use of BECCS and reducing other emissions to near-zero levels using other renewables, mainly solar energy, or nuclear power.” BECCS is a greenhouse gas mitigation technology based on bioenergy that produces fuel for power plants or transportation while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees and crops give off carbon dioxide when they are burnt as fuel, but also act as a carbon sink as they grow beforehand, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These two processes cancel each other out, resulting in net zero emissions of carbon dioxide. When combined with carbon capture and storage – techniques that aim to pull carbon dioxide out of the flue gases from power plants and redirect it into geological storage locations – the overall carbon dioxide emissions are negative. If applied on a global scale, this could help to reverse global warming. In their study, the researchers developed an integrated global energy system and climate model that enabled them to assess the most cost-effective way forward for a given energy demand scenario and temperature target. They found that stringent temperature targets can be met at significantly lower costs if BECCS is implemented 30 to 50 years from now, although this may cause a temporary overshoot of the 2°C target. “The most policy relevant implication of our study is that even if current political gridlock causes global warming in excess of 2°C, we can reverse the temperature trend and reach targets later. This means that 2°C targets or even more ambitious targets can remain on the table in international climate negotiations,” Azar said. But, the authors caution against interpreting their study as an argument for delaying emission reductions in the near-term. Azar said: “BECCS can only reverse global warming if we have net negative emissions from the entire global energy system. This means that all other CO2 emissions need to be reduced to nearly zero. “Also, temperatures can only be reduced by about 0.6°C per century, which is too slow to act as an ’emergency brake’ if climate damages turn out to be too high. The more we reduce emissions now, the more ambitious targets we can achieve in the long term, even with BECCS. ” Continue reading
Investing In Locally Controlled Forestry Is A Triple Win
We need a better investment model to deliver food, fuel and fibre without sacrificing forests, which would benefit the economy, society and environment Duncan Macqueen Guardian Professional , Monday 29 October 2012 09.00 GMT A woman sells shea butter at a market. Women in the shea butter forests of Burkina Faso have benefited from investment in locally controlled forests. Photograph: Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters Forests are feeling the squeeze. Overall forest loss ran at 5.2m hectares per year between 2000-2010, driven principally by increasing consumer demand for food, fuel and fibre from a global population soaring upwards of 7 billion. People are the ultimate losers; half a billion indigenous people and 1.3 billion others whose livelihoods are attuned to and dependent on forests, are losing more, and more quickly than others. But of course all of us indirectly and ultimately depend on forests; to sequester carbon and slow climate change, to maintain water and soil cycles on which food, fuel and fibre production depends, and to preserve biodiversity to allow options for adaptation in an uncertain future. Some immediately, and all of us ultimately, may pay a heavy price unless we can create an investment opportunity that delivers food, fuel and fibre without sacrificing them. Justice demands that this opportunity should also prosper indigenous and other forest dependant peoples. This requires a better investment model. Investing in Locally Controlled Forestry (ILCF) has emerged over the last three years as a strong candidate for this better investment model . Dialogues in nine countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America were convened by The Forest Dialogue (TFD) and funded by the Growing Forest Partnership (GFP) initiative and the government of Sweden (where 100 years of ILCF has already taken place . More than 400 people pooled their expertise. Those looking at what was working, and what was not, included not only investors and forest experts, but also representatives of forest rights-holder organisations such as the Global Alliance for Community Forestry, the International Alliance of Indigenous and Tribal People’s of the Tropical Forests and the International Family Forest Alliance – k nown collectively as the G3 . The G3 define locally controlled forestry (LCF) as: “The local right for forest owner families and communities to make decisions on commercial forest management and land use, with secure tenure rights, freedom of association and access to markets and technology.” Locally controlled forestry is big news. Forests under some form of local control make up 25% of the world’s forests and provide US$75-US$100bn (£47bn-£62bn) a year in goods and services and there are grounds for hoping this will grow. Strong evidence over the last 60 years documents how LCF often outperforms alternatives such as concessions in economic terms and protected areas in environmental terms. Investing in locally controlled forestry (ILCF) is a paradigm shift – away from capital seeking forest resources and needing labour – towards local rights-holders managing forest resources and seeking capital. It recognises the need to distinguish and blend two types of investment: • Asset investment (conventional investment in which the nominal value of underlying capital is expected to increase or at least not fall) and; • Enabling investment (in which capital is foregone to build the self-sufficiency and attractiveness of the business in question). Clever ways to encourage investors Asset investors shy from investing in local controlled forestry for four main reasons: insecure local commercial forest rights (on which to base a deal); lack of business capacity (to seal the deal); lack of commercial organisation (to make scale worth the costs of due diligence); and a lack of brokers (to match those between whom a deal might be struck). A clever mix of four types of enabling investment is needed to pave the way for asset investment and packaging up enabling and asset investment cleverly can boost asset investor’s confidence. A field visit to the shea butter forests of Burkina Faso is one of many examples, including another in Ethiopia, where four types of enabling investment were used. The Union of Women Producers of Shea Products of Sissili and Ziro was established in 2001 (it became the Nununa Federation in 2011) and processes nuts into shea butter for a range of products like soaps and creams. Enabling investment to negotiate more secure commercial forest rights for shea currently comes from NGO supporters of small forest enterprises such as Tree Aid . But in the interim, Nununa members have circumscribed 3,345 hectares of shea-tree protection areas managed by their members. Enabling investment in business capacity development has come from the cosmetics company L’Occitane, which agreed a commercial deal to buy Shea from 600 women subject to certain quality specifications that then attracted technical partners for development such as the Centre for Study and International Co-operation and the Dutch Interchurch Organisation for Development. Enabling investment to achieve investible scale also came from SNV and Nununa itself. Nununa started as a union among 18 district-wide groups, but now comprises 4,596 members, a growth of 156% in comparison with 2,985 members in 2009. Technical support to achieve fairtrade certification in 2006 and organic certification in 2007 further strengthened the track record. Finally, enabling investment to broker a commercial deal came from SNV whose support to develop a new business model included an investment proposal for the construction of a small factory for the industrial processing of shea butter. A fully mechanised and more efficient production facility was installed with loan finance from the Agridius Foundation. Production costs per kilo of butter decreased by a half from 1.68 €/kg to 0.86 €/kg (£1.4/kg to 0.69/kg) and production volumes doubled. More than 4,000 members have achieved a 95% increase in income from shea production for less work and more status. Investors are getting acceptable returns. Stronger roles and incentives for local women to control, sustainably manage and even enrich the shea forests have been put in place. Scaling-up can be seen to happen organically across very different forest contexts once this clever packaging of enabling and asset investment is understood and applied – as numerous cases in the guide to investing in locally controlled forestry that was launched at COFO21 attest. A new Forest and Farm Facility hosted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation was also launched at Committee on Forestry on 28 September precisely to start to inject the right sort of enabling investments into locally controlled forestry. Duncan Macqueen is team leader for forests at the International Institute for Environment and Development [/color] [/font] Continue reading
