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Land and forest owners should look beyond the log
Land and forest owners should look beyond the log
By Peter Kerr for sticK
(sticK - 7 March 2011 ) Foresters in general and farm foresters in particular have a much more valuable resource than just the logs or lumber.
Forest harvest contractors too could make more money by regarding the total tree, especially what is now left to rot, as a multi-product supply.
"We're getting to a stage now where greater volumes of biomass is required for bioenergy activities," says Bioenergy Association of NZ Executive Director Brian Cox.
"Using wood waste onsite, as in a sawmill has been economic for a decade. It's now becoming economic to buy in such products from forest harvest residues and purpose grown short rotation crops."
Cox gives the examples of wood chips and reformed wood pellets being used directly as a heat source, replacing coal in furnaces. The same chips or pellets can also be burned in a gasifier (retrofitted to an existing gas boiler) and used to replace natural gas .
However, this requires an understanding the science of combustion of biomass, under different pressures, temperatures and amounts of air so that it can be utilised for its solid, liquid and gas characteristics - and sometimes a combination of them.
For sticK – science, technology, innovation & commercialisation KNOWLEDGE - is a new Wellington based news service concentrating on following the money from ideas to income. Contact editor Peter Kerr at peter.kerr055 @ gmail.com
Peter Kerr
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