As demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly, the market for biomass pellets is expected to continue to grow in the near future. Most of the new raw materials that are discussed for pellet production have one thing in common; the production costs will increase compared to using traditional raw materials such as sawdust and planer shavings. The aim of this thesis is to investigate to what degree increased use of new raw materials for pellet production will affect the general pellet prices in Sweden and to survey what plans Swedish pellet producers have concerning new raw materials. To investigate the raw material situation of the Swedish pellet producers an industry survey was performed. Literature studies were also made on previous research in the subject field. Calculations of the production costs for pellets were done for the raw materials sawdust, wet sawmill chips and energy wood respectively. New raw materials are already used by the large-scale pellet producers in Sweden.

Energy-wise houses in Järinge - technical follow-up The company JM built energy-efficient houses in Tensta in Stockholm. They have built a total of 16 houses divided into two parts of A-houses and B-houses. The buildings are an attempt by JM to minimize energy-use of the buildings without affecting the comfort and living standards. The project aims to examine the data for the 16 houses on the basis of data and produce a report showing how the buildings worked through a technical perspective. JM approximates that the purchased energy will not be higher than 95 kWh/m2 per year.

Drain water heat recovery is an uncommon measure in multi-unit residential buildings. There istechnology available for the purpose but the knowing and experience of the heat recovery systems islittle. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate the future potential of drain water heat recovery inmulti-unit residential buildings.A major part of the multi-unit residential buildings in Sweden were built during modernismen andrekordåren (1940?1975). Many of the buildings have worn out drain and water supply systems andmany are in need of a general refurbishment.

A growing number of cities and municipalities in Sweden begin to work with city models in 3D. For the most part the models are used for visualizations of ongoing planning processes, but also for the analysis of noise, shadow studies and environmental disaster simulations.Gothenburg continues to develop the use of 3D maps in municipal operations and is demanding a way to create building elements (walls), which generates in 3D buildings, from roof constructions that are mapped from the primary map. A method has been investigated in the present study. The results are then presented as a 3D model of buildings, along with a terrain map that will facilitate the localization of the area. The created 3D buildings are then compared with roof-data from the primary map to see how well they harmonize with each other.

The competition for Norway spruce pulp wood in Central Sweden increases, forcing the supply-structure of Holmen to face two important challenges. Firstly, it is of the outmost strategically importance to secure the long-term supply of Norway spruce pulp wood to the industries. Secondly, Holmen desires to increase the obtainable volume of Norway spruce pulp wood. This would enable the company to choose volumes in the lower price-segments and thereby decrease the dependency of costly marginal volumes. As this work shows, one part in managing these challenges could be to lower the quality standards concerning root rot (Heterobasidium annosum). Facts presented in the work shows that: 1. Technically, the TMP-industry of Braviken can handle a much more rotted pulp wood than that used today, although the cost of refinement increases.

I have done a follow up study of the restoration of two rivers, Röälven and Grundan, in order to evaluate the effects of the restoration on the endemic population of trout. Both rivers have been used for timber floating during many years throughout the 20th century, and because of this, had all obstacles such as rocks and wood parts removed. In 2004-2005 both rivers were restored, and rocks and wood were put back into the rivers. Spawning grounds were created and boulder dams were constructed to promote the streaming water. The result showed that the trout population of both rivers increased after the restoration, but also that the trout population of Röälven increased more than that of Grundan.

Industrialization of construction is by some considered to be a solution to the building industry's problems about the lack of quality, high production costs, low productivity and poor environmental adaptation. Meanwhile, industrialized construction partly earned a bad reputation after the million housing program. As large-scale projects where promoted during this period, it worked very well to use the technique of construction elements. In the mid seventies though, criticism arose which claimed that the aesthetic qualities had been deprived in the corporates effort to make housing production as efficient as possible.Tyréns, Derome and CBBT (centre for building and housing in wood) cooperates in a development project to develop a building system for 4-8-storey buildings, consisting of three platforms: a technology platform, an IT platform and a processing platform. The technology platform consists of flexible, industrially built flat modules of wood and from this platform the subsystem stairwells, is broken out.

The Swedish forest have about 100 000 km of watercourses and it?s an important structure in Swedish landscapes and catchments. In some of the watercourses lives spieces like the freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) and brown trout (Salmo trutta) which both are sensitive for inteference from the forestry. The new EU water framework directive has a goal that all surface water will have high or good ecological- and good chemical status at latest by the 22nd December of 2015. The study has been made in the catchment of Håltjärnsbäcken and it is from a national perspective one of the most valuable streams in Sweden and which also have been included in a LIFE-project. The catchment is situated within the Eco-park of Malingsbo-Kloten and managed by Sveaskog AB.

The European Council agreed in 2008 on a climate and energy package to combat global warming. This package is valid for each EU member country and means that greenhouse gas emissions must fall by at least 20% and the EU's energy use to 20%, consisting of Renewable Energy in 2020. The Swedish Government has set stringent climate and energy with the intention to set an example for the rest of Europe. For example, renewable energy sources account for at least 50% of energy use and our climate emissions to fall by 40% by 2020. A combination of these goals and a steadily rising oil price has led to an increased demand for wood fuel in the form of such branches and tops.

The focus of this two year master?s thesis in Library- and Information science is the study of two Swedish Public Library buildings with the examples Lomma and Halmstad. The main goal and purpose of the thesis is to try to uncover which views and values of the public library are expressed in the examined libraries; and to what extent these views manifests are shown in its architecture.The theoretical framework is based on Raymond Williams?s cultural concepts of effective, dominant culture and the two extremities of this culture, called residual and emergent cultures. A second aspect is Yi-Fu Tuans concepts of Space and Place.

This bachelor?s thesis examines the tradition of half-timbered buildings in V?stra G?taland County as there is a current lack of research on this building category in this region. The lack of knowledge may lead to the loss of potential cultural heritage values if these buildings do not receive attention. Therefore, the study aims to provide a more comprehensive understanding of its role within the region. The goal is to expand and nuance the existing research on the Swedish building tradition, particularly in V?stra G?taland County and the general Swedish half-timbered tradition.

This study is a part of a Swedish research and development project that is about heat-treated wood and is led by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Luleå University of Technology. Products that are heat-treated already exists on the market, foremost the Finnish brand ThermoWood®, bur the project group want to find out if it would be possible to start a Swedish production with somewhat different applications than what is common today. The heat-treated wood has many attributes that have changed in the heating process. It becomes more biologically durable, it gains stability in form and dimensions and it becomes darker and looses several unwanted extractives such as resin. Disadvantages that can be mentioned are that the wood becomes fragile and the strength properties changes. My main purpose with this study is to look into customer involvement in the early phase of product development. I also want to find out if the customers I interview think that the product is worth working with, which means start a Swedish production.

Uppsala like many other Swedish cities is affected by heavy housing shortage, in terms of too few existing flats and residents within the city limits. Every semester thousands of new students are facing the same problems of finding themselves adequate accommodation. The waiting lists for flats and student-dorms are getting longer for each year, and the situation is just getting worse. Simultaneously, Uppsala?s ambition is to increase its population and expand as a Swedish metropolitan, according to the Swedish governmental environment goals. This paper investigates and analyses the possibilities of expanding a city?s population by building high-rise buildings.

Italy is the third largest market in Europe with a population of almost 58 million. The country is the tenth most important market for Swedish sales. Italy has a fairly good economy at the moment and the forecast tells of an increasing strength during coming years. Despite all of this, Sweden is exporting a fairly small amount of wood to Italy. Only around 2,3 % of all Sweden?s wood export goes to Italy.

This graduation paper is based on my interest for wood and its different tonal quality?s.After some time of thinking I decided to write my paper on the tonal difference between two of the most common woods in guitars, East Indian Rosewood and European Maple. I had built two identical guitars before my graduation paper in which the difference was the wood the back and sides were made of. One was being made of East Indian Rosewood and the other being made of European Maple.I chose to speak with a number of people with different angle of approach to the two kinds of wood and its tonal difference and quality?s.