Tag Archives: wood
Global Trade Of Wood Chips Has Soared Over Last Decade
18.06.2013 There has been a steady increase in the trade of wood chips globally over the last ten year, with imports reaching record-high levels in 2012. This is according to the Wood Resource Quarterly, which reveals that Japan, China, and Turkey were the countries with highest import levels, while Japan and China were responsible for 83 per cent of all hardwood chips traded last year. It has been suggested that this is as a result of significant investment in pulp capacity in the country. Over the last decade, traded volumes of wood chips have increased every year from 2000 to 2011, apart from in 2009 when demand for wood fibre was reduced and global production of pulp fell by around ten per cent. Between 2009 and 2012, the amount of chips traded increased by 6.5 million tonnes, taking the total to more than 31 million tonnes, with a value of more than $5 billion (£3.2 billion). This figure is slightly below the all-time high reached in 2011. In addition to the increased demand in China, Turkey has also contributed to the rise in chip imports as a result of the expansion of its production capacity for MDF. Although Japan remains the largest importer of wood chips in the world, the other nations making up the top ranking list have changed dramatically over the last five years. In 2011, Japan imported 11 million tonnes, down from a record high of 15 million tonnes in 2008. Whereas it was a net exporter a decade ago, China is now the second largest importer globally and is expected to continue to increase the volume of chips it brings into the country. Along with the expansion in pulp production, there is a distinct lack of domestic fibre sources in China and so its reliance on imports is increasing year after year. According to the report, China will overtake Japan and become the world’s largest importer of wood chips within the next two to three years. Japan and China are a long way clear at the top of the leaderboard for global wood chip trade, particularly in terms of hardwood chips, as the two countries were responsible for 83 per cent of the world’s total imports of the produce in 2012. Finland – the world’s third largest importer of wood chips – has been required to trade with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in order to meet its forestry-produce needs and this level of business has steadily increased in the last few years. According to the Wood Resource Quarterly, global trade of wood chips is expected to continue to increase in the coming years, largely because the main countries that are expanding their production capacity – particularly China and Turkey – have very limited natural resources domestically. Furthermore, a number of forestry companies are choosing to expand their sources for supply and import wood chips as an alternative to obtaining local fibre supplies. As a result, it can expected that those countries with expanding forestry industries will continue to experience solid trade growth in related produce. HD FestForest provides forest management in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and is a subsidiary company of HedeDanmark. Continue reading
Wood Panel Firm Slammed For ‘Opportunistic’ Anti-Biomass Ads
6 June 2013 Ads placed by Norbord attack biomass subsidies A wood panel maker that placed adverts campaigning against biomass subsidies has been accused of opportunism, as it continues to profit in the UK. Norbord is behind a series of ads claiming that subsidised energy generators are able to pay “more than double” the price paid by manufacturers for wood. That has driven up UK prices 60 per cent in the last five years, it claims. The biomass industry prefers to cite official statistics from the Forestry Commission showing that over the past twenty years, average timber prices have fallen by 29 to 42 per cent in real terms. Norbord’s financial results show its profits are up, increasing more than fivefold to the first quarter of 2013 from the same period last year. The Canadian-based company expects stable performance of its European business, which includes three UK factories. Richard Crowhurst, editor of Enagri BioenergyWeekly, which highlighted the figures, said: “With such a large rise in its profits and European output at a time when UK timber prices are falling and forestry investors are losing money on their day-to-day activities, the fact that Norbord Inc. is lobbying MPs and the public to oppose the use of biomass to generate low carbon renewable energy on the grounds that it raises wood prices is at best opportunistic and at worst deeply cynical.” The Norbord campaign also cites a joint report published by the RSPB, Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace last November that claimed burning biomass could be more environmentally damaging than coal. The “Dirtier than Coal?” findings were rejected by the government and widely criticised at the time for extrapolating from an unrealistic worst-case scenario. Source: Utility Week Continue reading
Biomass: Wood Pellets Muscle In On Old Role Of Coal
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b83d5050-c3a3-11e2-aa5b-00144feab7de.html#ixzz2VGGRqFHl By Guy Chazan Drax, the UK power supplier, is pushing ahead with what is shaping up to be a huge bet on biomass. The company, which has a big coal-fired power plant in Yorkshire, has launched a £750m investment programme to convert three of its six units to wood pellets, a renewable source of energy. It started commissioning the first converted unit in April. For Dorothy Thompson, chief executive, the attraction of biomass is obvious. “It’s a lot cheaper than offshore wind, there is security of supply and it’s more flexible,” she says. The pellets burnt in biomass boilers are made from the “cheapest part of the forestry industry product – harvested residues and thinnings” – and a “supply chain is developing”. Drax’s interest in biomass is part of a wider industry trend. New EU emissions regulations have put pressure on many of the continent’s old coal-fired power stations but some operators have realised they can keep the plants alive by converting their boilers from coal to wood pellets. The discovery of biomass has given a new lease of life to ageing coal assets that would otherwise have been shuttered. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) says between 3.6 and 6.8 gigawatts of biomass generating capacity could be commissioned between 2012 and 2016, though it warned that slow governmental decisions on future subsidies “risks unnerving manufacturers and investors”. Interest has been driven by EU laws that stipulate member states must source 20 per cent of their energy from renewables by 2020. That will not present much of a problem for Germany, with its massive investments in wind and solar power. But the UK and others may struggle, hence the embracing of coal-to-biomass conversion. “It’s an easy, quick and capital-lite way to meet the renewables targets,” says Harry Boyle, an analyst at BNEF. “Coal plants are already connected to the grid and what’s required are relatively minor modifications to an existing asset.” Biomass is also a consistent source of supply, in contrast to the intermittency of wind and solar. Such considerations have pushed the UK to create a generous subsidy regime for the fuel. Previously, developers were awarded half a renewables obligation certificate (ROC) for co-firing coal with biomass. Now, the government is offering operators a whole ROC if they fully convert their boilers to biomass from coal. It was this decision that underpinned Drax’s big investment programme. As a result of this and other subsidies, generating capacity is expected to grow quickly across Europe. BNEF says European pellet demand will rise to 25m-30m tonnes by 2020, up from about 12m tonnes now. Most of that will be imported from outside the EU. Yet biomass remains much more controversial than wind and solar. This is partly because when wood is burnt, it releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – just like fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. Advocates like Ms Thompson stress that these emissions are neutralised by regrowth in the forest from which the wood was harvested. “You’re not using trapped carbon.” Partly because of that, she says, the carbon footprint of biomass is “70-80 per cent smaller than that of coal”. Environmentalists are unconvinced. A recent study put out by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds together with Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth says it may take “many years for the end-of-pipe emissions to be neutralised” by regrowth of forests. It disputes the industry’s assertion that pellets used in power generation are made of residues from timber production, saying there is evidence that whole trees are often used. The study claims that the UK government’s proposed sustainability standards for biomass will not prevent wood being used that comes from forests “where management regimes cause problems for biodiversity”. The report’s authors say there is a risk the UK will be “locked into financially supporting an industry that results in increasing greenhouse gas emissions and other serious sustainability issues”. Biomass developers face other difficulties, aside from the objections of green groups. A big challenge is finding enough pellets to supply their hungry biomass boilers. “It takes time to build up the supply chain,” says Ms Thompson. “Each [converted] unit requires 2.3m tonnes of biomass a year – and the total global cross-sea trade is only about 7m tonnes.” So a chunk of Drax’s £750m investment will go on building a wood pellet factory in the southeast of the US to fill Drax boilers. Some people worry about the carbon emissions involved in transporting pellets from the US to Europe. BNEF’s Harry Boyle says the problem is not necessarily the emissions released by tankers bringing huge cargoes of pellets across the Atlantic, but those of trucks transporting the wood from pellet factories hundreds of miles to ports in the US. Continue reading
