Suchergebnisse

In an effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption, the use of woody biomass for heat and power generation is growing. Key destination markets will be countries within the European Union, particularly the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. While demand from Asia (particularly South Korea and Japan) will also increase, it will continue to play a secondary role. Across the EU, adoption of sustainability criteria for forest biomass based on the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) 2009/28/EC or similar criteria is likely. In the United Kingdom, the largest market for traded wood pellets, such criteria have already been proposed. As of 2015, only forest biomass that achieves at least a 60% reduction in GHG emissions, relative to the EU fossil fuel electricity average, can be used for bioenergy production and proof of SFM is required. In the Netherlands, the energy industry and non-governmental organisations achieved principal agreement on sustainability criteria for solid biomass, but issues of compliance testing and monitoring must still be addressed. In Flemish Belgium, the sustainability requirements for bioliquids may soon be applied to woody biomass. In Denmark, a voluntary industry agreement is set to ensure that all bioenergy production by 2019 is conducted sustainably. At present, internationally traded wood pellets from temperate and boreal biomes originate primarily from the United States, Canada and Russia. Among these, Canada offers large stretches of SFM-certified forests, but the US Southeast has seen the strongest increase in wood pellet production and export in recent years. The expansion of pellet production in the Southeast United States is mainly linked to available forest inventory (pulpwood in particular) and the competitive advantage gained by the relative proximity to demand markets in the EU. In addition to the mobilisation barriers observed in supply chains at the local and national scale, limitations in the supply of forest biomass for international trade will be influenced by ...