Finland forest sector eyes biomass business[fr][de] 

Bioenergies look set to represent a growing share of Finland's energy mix. In a March 2005 resolution, the government decided to double the production of forest-based biomass by 2010.

The current share of biomass in Finland's energy mix is already impressive, covering 20% of the country's energy needs. Nearly all of it is derived from byproducts of the forest industry, such as concentrated liquors and other industrial wood fuels used by the paper industry.

"In 2005 about 3 million cubic metres of forest chips were used for energy production. The objective is to double the use of forest chips by 2010," according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

"The fastest increase in the energy-use of wood will come from forest chips," says Juha Kosonen, who manages a small power plant at StoraEnso's Imatra paper mills in Eastern Finland. 

The wood residues are collected in the forest after the trees have been harvested and stripped of their branches. Until now, they have come at no extra cost for the paper industry.

"Before this summer, the procedure was that [paper] companies like StoraEnso or UPM would not compensate landowners for collecting the wood residues," says Harri Karjalainen from WWF Finland. "But this changed last summer. UPM announced that they would pay landowners for the wood residues and then the others followed."

Although generally welcome, the development of bioenergy is causing unease with the pulp and paper industry which uses wood fibres for paper production and wood residues as a source of energy. With government plans to double bioenergy use, they fear increasing competition for forest products will drive prices up.

"As the price of biomass goes up, it starts to compete with the price of the fibre wood" used in paper production, explains Harri Karjalainen from WWF Finland. "So instead of bringing the harvested wood to the pulp mill, the lorry goes to the energy plant where the trees are burned." 

"Industry thinks that you should not use the wood for bioenergy if it cannot be used first for paper or wood products," says Anu Islander from the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. "When you cannot use it anymore, then you can burn," she says. "Bioenergy is a good thing for everybody if you remember that wood must be used in products first".

At StoraEnso's Imatra mills, black liquor (70%) and bark (20%) together cover 90% of fuel needs, the remaining 10% being covered by natural gas. In terms of electricity supply, the mills are self-reliant for 55% of their needs thanks to small-scale integrated power generators running on biomass. The remaining 45% is bought from the grid.

"The mills have used their own energy for a long time," says Islander. "Now, it is rather small and it is not growing so fast". Innovation, she says, will come from biomass used for biofuels production. "There has been innovation and research on biorefinery," says Islander. "It is a new thing that can become very important."

The intensification of biomass production is generally welcomed as an opportunity by forest industries and environmental NGO. But they also point to challenges.

"Energy crops, including short-rotation forestry should be encouraged both at European and national level," to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and tackle global warming, state the Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) in a joint position paper with the WWF. But they insist that European or national policies to promote biomass do not endanger the local paper industry and the environment. Wood and wood residues should remain "available for both the processing industries and the energy plants", they argue.

Kevin Bradely of the Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE), who counts Tetra Pak and StoraEnso among its members, agrees. Increasing the use of forest resources for energy production, he says, "should be encouraged only so long as it does not disrupt the economic equilibrium to the detriment of the forest's other roles" such as protecting biodiversity, countering climate change and supplying wood and paper products.

Finnish forest industries believe decisions on how to develop biomass should be taken mainly at a local level to match each country's needs. "There should not be EU regulation to determine how much wood is used for bioenergy. It must be decided at national level, because countries are so different," says Anu Islander from the Finnish Forest Industries Federation. 

"At the moment there are more positive than negative developments from developing biomass," says Harri Karjalainen from WWF Finland. But he also warns on the possible negative long-term environmental impacts. "The threat is that if you collect too much and too systematically, you loose a lot of the [natural forest] nutrients and you need to compensate them with fertilisers," says Karjalainen, a practice which he says is still exceptional in Finland.

"Scientists have speculated that the impact would be quite limited or even meaningless," he says. "But as I said, there is no empirical data on the long-term impact. This is something new that we have never done before. We need to monitor very carefully what we are doing."