Sveaskogs möjligheter att utveckla trädbränsleverksamheten i Västerbotten och södra Norrland
This final thesis is initiated by the wood fuel department at the Swedish forest company Sveaskog as part of a project which also involves two other final thesises. The overall goal of the project is to investigate Sveaskog´s possibilities to produce and sell different wood fuel assortments in Västerbotten and the southern parts of Norrland. The aim of this thesis is to investigate how much wood fuel Sveaskog can produce in the area during the next five years and what that would cost. Furthermore the thesis will investigate the total possible supply of wood fuel from all other possible producers in the area. Treated assortments are forest residues from final fellings, whole trees from direct wood fuel thinnings, non industrial wood and industrial by-products from sawmills.
The main effort to investigate Sveaskog´s production possibilities has been made to calculate the possible annual amount of forest residues and fuel from wood fuel thinnings that can be produced. New functions have been developed that estimate the biomass of branches and needles from stand variables. The new functions have been applied on a selection from Sveaskog´s inventory together with a model that estimates the amount of fuel collected in different terrain types in order to calculate the approximate wood fuel potential. Compartments that were selected from the inventory are either planned for final felling during the next five years or suitable for direct wood fuel thinning. Information about the amount of non industrial wood and by-products from Sveaskog´s sawmill were collected directly from the company. Sveaskog´s total potential to produce the studied assortments in the area amounts to 1084 GWh annually. In round figures the production in Västerbotten will be 690 GWh and 394 GWh in southern Norrland. Forest residues make 72 % of the total potential, whole trees from wood fuel thinnings 13 %, by-products from the sawmill in Malå 12 % and non industrial wood 3 %.
The investigation of the total wood fuel potential from all possible wood fuel producers in the area was made by putting together and reworking data from earlier investigations. SKA 99 was used to estimate the potential of forest residues and whole trees from wood fuel thinnings, Såg 2000 to calculate the amount of by-products and statistics from SIKA to estimate the overseas import of wood fuel to the coastal line between Haparanda and Gävle. The total easily available wood fuel potential in the area amounts to12,9 TWh annually, import and fuel from wood fuel thinnings excluded. Forest residues make 82 % of the total potential, by-products from sawmills 16 % and non industrial wood 2 %. The import of different assortments that may be used as wood fuel amounts to ca 2-4 TWh per year.