New Concepts for Electricity and Biofuel Production in Forest Industry Platforms in Europe

New EU directives and the EC White Paper call for tripling of bioenergy utilisation in Europe as one of the measures for combatting climate change. In the present study VTT has assessed the implications for biomass utilisation of various existing and proposed EU directives. The directives in question concern emission trading, electricity from renewable resources, combined heat and power production, biofuels for transport and landfill policies. If the present bioenergy use in Europe is to be doubled by 2010 and beyond, all three main sources of bioenergy are needed: forest resources, agricultural biomass and commercial and municipal waste fractions. The European forest-products industry will offer attractive platforms for green-energy production due to the availability of low-price biomass residues, to the long annual operation times and to the opportunities to beneficially integrate combined heat and power production and liquid fuels production with the manufacture of traditional products. The benefits of polygeneration are very significant in comparison to separate production. In addition to the development of new high efficiency power production technologies, the emerging green-electricity and biofuel markets will call for new technology and business concepts. Black-liquor and solid-fuel gasification/pyrolysis technologies can provide opportunities on top of those arising from application of modern chemical-recovery boiler and fluid-bed boiler technologies. In the VTT study, eight new concepts and technologies have been analysed in three case studies in Europe. Overall conclusions are drawn as to the ways to fulfil the EU directives at the European level. The proposed practices will vary from country to country due to resource and product-structure variations. Conclusions of the study include recommendations about the more promising technologies. Key issues affecting future R&D&D strategies will be discussed.