Wood products are typically considered to have lower environmental impacts than equivalent products made out
of non-renewable raw materials. Woody biomass is presently used in many different value chains, e.g. as wood-based products and materials, bio-chemicals, and bioenergy, and in many different industrial sectors. Targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction and more resource efficient society are expected to further increase the demand for wood raw material in Europe during the next decades. Woody biomass is, when sustainably grown, a fully renewable resource and a largely recyclable and reusable material. Only a small fraction of wood products cannot be re-used or recovered directly (e.g. hygiene paper,rotten wood). However, as woody biomass is a limited resource, its use and the service life of wood fibres should be optimized. Wood material, which can´t reused or recycled, can be used for energy.
Cascading use of woody biomass
The cascading use of biomass means that biomass is used (and reused or recycled) at least once or several times as a product before its end-of-life (e.g. energy use or landfill). Cascading use of woody biomass is getting increasing attention in current European discussions on the use of wood in the future bioeconomy.Finland exports most of the products processed from woody biomass. Thus, the cascading cycles often take place outside Finland. Therefore the role of a wood producing country (e.g. Finland,Sweden), supplying virgin fibre, differs significantly from the consumer countries (e.g. Germany and the Netherlands) with more recycling, which creates challenges for creation of common cascading concept .Cascading should be considered from the perspective of the whole wood using cycle, recognising the regional differences in wood flows, when discussing about the cascading principles. Furthermore, the overall efficiency of recycling needs to be taken into account. Furthermore, the overall efficiency of recycling needs to be taken into account. Link to whole report
Classification of used wood for energy
Guidelines are developed for the classification of used wood (post-consumer wood which are not suitable for recycling) for energy use including implementation of the legislation and standards in Finland. It is necessary to define the impact of possible contaminants on the energy utilisation of used wood. This is helpful for categorisation, as well as for identification and characterisation of the contaminants. The guidelines also include an overall categorisation used wood. In this classification used wood is divided in 4 categories A, B, C and D. Categories A and B are classified under “EN ISO 17225-1–Solid biofuels. Fuel specification and classes, Part 1” and class C under EN 15359–Solid recovered fuel standard. Fuels falling into category A and B can used in biomass plants and category C should be incinerated according to waste incineration legislation. Class D wood is treated by wood preservatives and is hazardous waste.
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Download the full report on Cascading use of wood in Finland
This post is based on the abstract “Cascading Use and Classification of Used Wood to Energy Use” by Eija ALAKANGAS, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, that will be presented at the European Biomass Conference and Exhibition 2016. With 72 sessions, 270 oral presentations and 750 posters, the EUBCE 2016 will cover the entire scope of innovations in biomass technologies and applications, systems and processes, markets and policies.
Check out the full programme here
