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An econometric analysis of the sawmill by-product market to explore bioeconomy options in Austria
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From the perspective of nutritional security, we investigated the influence of climate change on potato production in Bangladesh using a supply and demand model by considering the potato as an important non-cereal food crop. To provide an outlook on the variation in potato supplies and market prices under changing climatic factors (temperature, rainfall, and solar-radiation), the yield, area, import, and demand functions were assessed using district-level time-series data of Bangladesh (1988–2013), disaggregated into seven climatic zones. Results suggest that temperatures above or below the optimal range (18–22 °C) lowered yields. Little rainfall and low solar radiation hinder potato cultivation areas during the potato maturity stage. During the simulated period, the annual production was projected to rise from 88 to 111 million metric tons (MT), with an equilibrium farm price of 155 to 215 US dollars MT⁻¹. Between 2014 and 2030, the nation’s per-capita potato intake is expected to increase from 49 to 55 kg year⁻¹ because of changing dietary patterns. According to the estimated equilibrator, scenario simulations that incorporated various dimensions of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios indicate that potato production and consumption can increase in the future.
This study applies a partial equilibrium forest sector model to analyse the impacts of biofuel deployment for road transport in the Nordic countries, when alternative use of the biomass resources and transport sector electrification are considered. We foresee a strong electrification of the transport sector, resulting in a demand for biofuels of approximately 2.5 billion L in 2035 and 1 billion L in 2050 in a 100% fossil-free base scenario. The simultaneous increase in demand from pulping industries and biofuel will cause an overall increase in wood use, of which the biofuels share will constitute approximately 20–25%. The utilization of harvest residues will increase more than 300% compared to the current level, since biofuel production will reallocate some of the current raw material used in district heating. Biofuel consumption in road transport will likely reduce after 2040 due to increasing electrification, but it is plausible that the declining domestic demand will be replaced by increasing demand from international biofuel markets in aviation and shipping. The main uncertainties in the scenarios are the future costs and profitability of forest-based biofuel technologies and the public acceptance of the close to 100 TWh of new renewable electricity production needed for the electrification of Nordic road transport.
Large-scale implementation of forest-based biofuel production will have an impact on biomass prices, something which in turn will affect biofuel production costs. The profitability of emerging biofuel production technologies is usually assessed using techno-economic or market approaches. While techno-economic approaches have a detailed description of technologies within plant-level or supply chain system boundaries, they build on exogenously given static biomass prices. Conversely, market approaches have a consistent description of the economic system including market interactions for prices within local or national boundaries, but they generally lack technological depth. This paper combines these two approaches using an iterative framework for a case study optimising the production cost of liquefied biomethane (LBG) using different configurations of sawmill-integrated biomass gasification.
Cost estimates are developed using system boundaries surrounding a LBG production plant, and the Swedish national borders, reflecting the plant-owner and policymaker perspectives, respectively. The results show that different plant configurations are favoured depending on the choice between minimising the biofuel production cost for the plant-owner or for the policymaker. Market dynamics simulated by the iterative procedure show that a direct policy support of 36–56 EUR/MWh would be needed to sustain large-scale LBG production, which is 12–31% higher than the necessary policy support estimated based on static biomass prices.
Biological methanation (biomethanation) of biomass-derived syngas can be a promising alternative to catalytic methanation, due to its milder operating conditions, and could improve the feasibility of power-to-gas and syngas upgrading systems. However, the feasibility of integrating syngas biomethanation with other processes, i.e., electrolysis and gasification, has not been thoroughly assessed so far by the existing literature. In this study, we carried out the techno-economic analysis of such integrated system and we compared it with the production of pure hydrogen. The results indicate that the two processes could produce 0.39 Nm3 of bio-derived substitute natural gas (bSNG) or 0.07 kg of bio-hydrogen (bH2) per kg of dry biomass, respectively. The process cold gas efficiency associated with the produced bSNG is estimated at 50.6%, with a 97.4% input hydrogen utilization efficiency. For bH2, the cold gas efficiency is 36.6%, with 85% hydrogen utilization. Gasification and gas compression were identified as the unit operations with the highest energy demand in both processes. The minimum selling prices (MSP) of the two products were estimated at 2.68 €/Nm3 for bSNG and 15.35 €/kg for bH2. While delivery costs and a limited production capacity pose additional challenges to the development of bH2 production on decentralized gasification plants, bSNG production for grid injection could become a more feasible alternative under appropriate incentive schemes. Key optimization opportunities for such process rely on better heat integration, lower pressure operation, and the use of waste biomass as feedstock.
Both in Germany and in China, there is strong expertise regarding the different aspects of forest management, as well as forest products management. Nevertheless, forestry in both countries is facing challenges, some of which are regional, but many of which are shared. Therefore, experts from both countries (Technical University of Munich Germany; Northwest A&F University Yangling, China; Forestry Academy of Shaanxi, China; Thünen Institut, Germany; FEDRC GIZ Forest Policy Facility (Forestry Economics Development and Research Center of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH), Germany; and Center for Natural Forest Protection in Shaanxi, China) met to share their knowledge and deduce recommendations for future multifunctional forest management for the temperate zone. The workshop, held at the Northwest A&F University in September 2018, included presentations and intensive discussions, as well as a field tour. The results of the workshop that are summarized in this white paper are meant to provide an overview of the multi-faceted nature of the topic for interested scientists and forest practitioners, describe tools that can be used to analyze various aspects of multifunctionality and, in an exemplary fashion, highlight gathered experience from long- and short-term experiments. Included are social demands, economic goals, and scientific baselines. The topics reach from economic evaluations of forest ecosystem services over forest management practices, including afforestation, restoration, and preparations to face climate change, to wood/forest products utilization and participation of local people for poverty reduction. Overall, an optimistic picture emerges, showing that by using adapted forest management practices, which try to embrace the concept of multifunctionality, various use schemes and demands can be integrated at single sites, allowing us to achieve both environmental protection and productive forests, including societal demands, as well as aspects of tradition and national identity.
Soybean rust (SBR), caused by Phakopsora pachyrhizi (Sydow & Sydow), has become a serious issue in Brazil. As Brazil is one of the largest soybean-producing and exporting countries in the world, a considerable decrease in soybean production due to SBR would have a significant impact on the global soybean market. SBR-resistant cultivars have been developed to prevent a decrease in soybean production. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of SBR-resistant cultivars on soybean production and the soybean market in Brazil using a supply and demand model. This model consists of functions of yield, cultivated area, exports, and stock changes of soybean and soybean products, demand for soybean products, and price linkages. Five scenarios were simulated to evaluate the economic impact of adopting SBR-resistant cultivars as follows: One without SBR infection, two with serious production losses due to SBR in the south and southeast regions and all the states of Brazil, and two with the adoption of SBR-resistant cultivars in the south and south-east regions and all the states of Brazil. Our simulations suggest that adopting SBR-resistant cultivars reduces the cost of controlling SBR by approximately half and is essential for sustainable soybean production and a stable global soybean market.
This paper investigates biomethane and BioSNG production processes against the background of the 2018 renewable fuel directive of the European Union (EU). The investigated biomethane processes use manure, clover grass, and grass silage as feedstock, are based on membrane separation gas upgrading processes, and generate 1.0 and 4.8 MW of biomethane. The investigated BioSNG processes use wood chips as feedstock, are based on the dual fluidized bed steam gasification technology and the VESTA SNG process from Amec Foster Wheeler, and generate 6.1, 12.2, and 49.1 MW BioSNG. The techno-economic assessment shows that the biomethane processes have, in general, a lower break-even price for the generated natural gas substitute. However, their scalability is limited and at larger scale (49.1 MW BioSNG capacity), the BioSNG processes become competitive. The 1.0 MW biomethane and all BioSNG plants meet the 2018 renewable fuel directive of the EU. In contrast, the 4.8 MW biomethane process does not meet the directive as the feedstock, which is mainly based on energy crops, causes significant CH4 and CO2 emissions.
Softwood chip-n-saw (CNS) is a relatively new stumpage product in the sawtimber- and pulpwood-dominated stumpage markets in the U.S. South. Based on a quarterly data series from 2003 to 2016, this study estimates the demand and supply models of the softwood CNS stumpage market in Louisiana. The two-stage least squares (2SLS) results reveal that own price elasticity of demand (PED) is price elastic, and the cross-price elasticity (XED)with sawtimber approaches unit elasticity. On the supply side, CNS is price inelastic in supply (PES), but more responsive to own price changesthan sawtimber quantity supplied. Further, severance tax increases are found to decrease the supply of CNS, indicating that suppliers are responsive to severance tax incidence. As the first empirical estimation of CNS, the findings should be of interest to those involved in the analysis of Southeastern stumpage markets.
This paper presents the main experiences gained and conclusions drawn from the demonstration of a first-of-its-kind wood-based biomethane production plant (20-MW capacity, 150 dry tonnes of biomass/day) and 10 years of operation of the 2–4-MW (10–20 dry tonnes of biomass/day) research gasifier at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Based on the experience gained, an elaborated outline for commercialization of the technology for a wide spectrum of applications and end products is defined. The main findings are related to the use of biomass ash constituents as a catalyst for the process and the application of coated heat exchangers, such that regular fluidized bed boilers can be retrofitted to become biomass gasifiers. Among the recirculation of the ash streams within the process, presence of the alkali salt in the system is identified as highly important for control of the tar species. Combined with new insights on fuel feeding and reactor design, these two major findings form the basis for a comprehensive process layout that can support a gradual transformation of existing boilers in district heating networks and in pulp, paper and saw mills, and it facilitates the exploitation of existing oil refineries and petrochemical plants for large-scale production of renewable fuels, chemicals, and materials from biomass and wastes. The potential for electrification of those process layouts are also discussed. The commercialization route represents an example of how biomass conversion develops and integrates with existing industrial and energy infrastructures to form highly effective systems that deliver a wide range of end products. Illustrating the potential, the existing fluidized bed boilers in Sweden alone represent a jet fuel production capacity that corresponds to 10% of current global consumption.
Advanced biomass-based motor fuels and chemicals are becoming increasingly important to replace fossil energy sources within the coming decades. It is likely that the new biorefineries will evolve mainly from existing forest industry sites, as they already have the required biomass handling infrastructure in place. The main objective of this work is to assess the potential for increasing the profit margin from sawmill byproducts by integrating innovative downstream processes. The focus is on the techno-economic evaluation of an integrated site for biomass-based synthetic natural gas (bio-SNG) production. The option of using the syngas in a biomass-integrated gasification combined cycle (b-IGCC) for the production of electricity (instead of SNG) is also considered for comparison. The process flowsheets that are used to analyze the energy and material balances are modelled in MATLAB and Simulink. A mathematical process integration model of a typical Nordic sawmill is used to analyze the effects on the energy flows in the overall site, as well as to evaluate the site economics. Different plant sizes have been considered in order to assess the economy-of-scale effect. The technical data required as input are collected from the literature and, in some cases, from experiments. The investment cost is evaluated on the basis of conducted studies, third party supplier budget quotations and in-house database information. This paper presents complete material and energy balances of the considered processes and the resulting process economics. Results show that in order for the integrated SNG production to be favored, depending on the sawmill size, a biofuel subsidy in the order of 28–52 €/MWh SNG is required.
This study estimates simultaneous demand and supply equations for the softwood sawtimber stumpage market in Louisiana using Johansen's multivariate time-series analysis. The cointegration test in the presence of structural breaks is used to identify the rank of the long-run cointegrating space, and normalization restrictions are imposed to specify demand and supply models under the framework of the vector error correction model. Based on the annual data series from 1955 to 2013, the results reveal that long-run demand and supply coefficient estimates are statistically significant with expected signs. The pine beetle outbreaks in 1985–1986, the timber harvest reductions in the Pacific Northwest region in early 1990s, and the great financial crisis of 2007–2009 significantly influenced the sawtimber stumpage market in Louisiana. The estimated short-run error correction terms indicate that the speed of adjustment toward the long-run equilibrium in the sawtimber market is rather slow.
High oil prices and peak oil, next to ecological aspects, increase the necessity of governmental support regarding the use
of renewable energy resources. Biomass is a renewable energy source, which allows a sustainable utilization for several reasons.
Its carbon dioxide neutrality and high availability in countries across Europe make economic usage of this source possible.
Nowadays, biomass is used in rather conservative ways to produce heat and/or electric power. A more sophisticated way of using
wood is transforming it into a secondary energy source by liquefaction and gasification. The product of the gasification process—considered
in this paper—is a medium calorific product gas, which is nearly free of nitrogen and has a H2/CO ratio favourable for synthesis processes. Therefore, the product gas can be converted into a synthetic natural gas (BioSNG).
In Güssing (Austria), the concept of a steam blown dual fluidized bed gasifier coupled to a catalytic conversion of the product
gas to BioSNG could be proven successfully. A slipstream was used to run a demonstration unit with a capacity of 1MW BioSNG.
The resulting BioSNG exceeded the regulations for injection into the natural gas grid. The compressed BioSNG was stored in
a fuelling station to supply CNG cars with energy. Thus, the applicability of using BioSNG in CNG cars was proven as well.
The simulation software IPSEpro was used to model the overall system of gasification, gas cleaning, methanation and upgrading
to BioSNG. The aim of this modelling work was to evaluate the optimization potential within the system and improve the economic
and ecologic situation. Moreover, this tool will also be used to scale-up the process hereafter.
KeywordsBioSNG–Güssing gasifier–Methanation
We draw attention to two problems associated with the use of instrumental variables (IV), the importance of which for empirical work has not been fully appreciated. First, the use of instruments that explain little of the variation in the endogenous explanatory variables can lead to large inconsistencies in the IV estimates even if only a weak relationship exists between the instruments and the error in the structural equation. Second, in finite samples, IV estimates are biased in the same direction as ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates. The magnitude of the bias of IV estimates approaches that of OLS estimates as the R(2) between the instruments and the endogenous explanatory variable approaches 0. To illustrate these problems, we reexamine the results of a recent paper by Angrist and Krueger, who used large samples from the U.S. Census to estimate wage equations in which quarter of birth is used as an instrument for educational attainment. We find evidence that, despite huge sample sizes, their IV estimates may suffer from finite-sample bias and may be inconsistent as well. These findings suggest that valid instruments may be more difficult to find than previously imagined. They also indicate that the use of large data sets does not necessarily insulate researchers from quantitatively important finite-sample biases. We suggest that the partial R(2) and the F statistic of the identifying instruments in the first-stage estimation are useful indicators of the quality of the IV estimates and should be routinely reported.d
Many statistical analyses (e.g., in econometrics, biostatistics and experimental design) are based on models containing systems of structurally related equations. The systemfit package provides the capability to estimate systems of linear equations within the R programming environment. For instance, this package can be used for "ordinary least squares" (OLS), "seemingly unrelated regression" (SUR), and the instrumental variable (IV) methods "two-stage least squares" (2SLS) and "three-stage least squares" (3SLS), where SUR and 3SLS estimations can optionally be iterated. Furthermore, the systemfit package provides tools for several statistical tests. It has been tested on a variety of datasets and its reliability is demonstrated.
Empirical analyses of interlinkages and price dependencies in the forest-based sector support the forecast of market developments and the design of efficient utilization pathways. This article aims at analysing price cointegration between roundwood (sawlogs, pulpwood), sawmill by-products (sawdust, wood chips) and wood products (pellets, particle board) in the forest-based sector in Austria. Monthly price data for the period 2005–2019 were used for the following statistical tests: (1) The Augmented-Dickey-Fuller and Zivot-Andrews unit root tests were conducted to investigate stationarity of the data; (2) The Johansen Cointegration test was pairwise applied to price time series; (3) The Granger Causality test was used for cointegrated time series to examine which one is price leading. Furthermore, sawmill by-product prices were modelled as Vector Error Correction Models (VECM) to analyse their common behaviour. The dataset was divided to a training (2005–2017) and test (2018–2019) subset to assess the prediction accuracy of the models. The training data were used to estimate a VAR model as basis for forecasts, which were compared to the test data. Results show that sawdust prices are cointegrated and thus modelled with pellet and particle board prices. In contrast, wood chips are used for several applications and thus prices are cointegrated and modelled with prices of sawlogs, pulpwood, pellets and particle board. The comparison with the test data showed that forecasts were able to predict data from 2018 to 2019 well. However, a decrease in prices, starting in 2019 and intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, could not be fully captured by these forecasts.
The design, modeling and simulation of an integrated biorefinery plant assumed to convert different forestry assortments such as sawdust or shavings (sawmill waste) into bioethanol from cellulose and hemicellulose as the main product, and lignin as the most valuable co-product, was carried out. The proposed lignocellulosic ethanol biorefinery plant was simulated with ProSimPlus. The model was based on experimental results and includes an Organosolv pretreatment, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and distillation to obtain bioethanol. The investigated plant size processed 70,088 tons of biomass/year, with a production capacity of 11,650 tons ethanol/year. Ethanol productivity reached 351 L/ton of dry feedstock. Considering water consumption, approximately 4.8 liters of water were needed to produce a liter of ethanol. Finally, the energy targeting through conventional pinch analysis lead to 16.4 MW and 16.07 MW of hot and cold utility energy demand for the entire process respectively with the cogeneration of electricity.
In order to reach the renewable energy policy targets in the transport sector, biofuels from forest raw materials (e.g., harvesting residues) can play an important role. However, these raw materials are currently used in both the heat and power (HP) sector and the traditional forest industries. It is essential to understand how these sectors would be affected by an increased penetration of second generation (2G) biofuels. This study investigates price development and resource allocation in the Swedish forest raw materials market in the presence of 5–30 TWh of 2G biofuel production. Sweden is an interesting case study due to its well-developed forest industries and mature district heating sector, something which makes it a suitable country for future 2G biofuel production. A national partial equilibrium model of the forest sector is extended with a 2G biofuel module to address the impacts of such production. The simulation results show increasing forest industry by-product (e.g. sawdust) prices, thus displaying that the 2G biofuel targets lead to increased raw material competition. The higher feedstock prices make the use of forest biomass in the HP sector less profitable, but we find meagre evidence of substitution of fossil fuels for by-products. In this sector, there is instead an increased use of harvesting residues. Fiberboard and particleboard production ceases entirely due to increased input prices. There is also evidence of synergy effects between the sawmill sector and the use of forest raw materials in the HP sector. Higher by-product prices spur sawmills to produce more sawnwood, something that in turn induces forest owners to increase harvest levels. Already in the 5 TWh Bio-SNG scenario, there is an increase in the harvest level, suggesting that this by-product effect kicks in from start.
Given the importance of wood products in CO2 sequestration, an increase in the use of local wood in construction may help reduce the sector's net emissions. However, given the low prices of wood, the Swiss forest industry is unwilling to produce more, despite the important potential of wood mobilization. Financial incentives may help meet the goals of both environmental and economic sustainability, if actors respond to price changes. To estimate demand and supply price- and cross-elasticities on the market for roundwood in Switzerland, we use a rich yearly time series data set covering the period 1949–2013. We consider both short term and long term relationships, thanks to a lagged adjustment model and correct for the price endogeneity using a supply-demand equations system estimated with the 3 Stage Least Squares approach. We find that the demand for roundwood is elastic in the long and short run, while the supply is not. However, supply still responds positively to a price increase. In this context, a 10% increase in the price paid to suppliers would lead to a 5% increase in Swiss roundwood production and a 10% decrease in price paid by consumers to an 18% increase in roundwood consumption. Such an increase in the use of wood would lead to sequester 1% of Swiss CO2 emissions in wood products each year.
Forests cover about one-third of the land surface on Earth. Currently, <7.5% of this forest area is defined as planted forest. Removals from planted forests are shown to be responsible for about 45% of the global industrial roundwood production. It is therefore of great importance to study how the production of roundwood from planted forests could potentially influence the production of roundwood from natural forests and the global wood markets in general.
The objective of this study is to describe and specify the functioning and interdependencies of global wood markets and implement wood removals from different types of forests, such as planted or natural. In this study we use an econometric approach to analyze how global markets affect the amount of wood supply, demand and trade.
According to our results and with regard to roundwood supply, only removals from planted forest respond significantly positive to changes in the roundwood prices. The supply of all other roundwood products seems to be nearly inelastic. Regarding wood product demand, all products under consideration show significantly negative responses to changes in product prices.
To test the plausibility of our estimations, we implemented the computed elasticities in an economic partial equilibrium model. The results suggest that the nearly inelastic wood supply improves model simulations as the results better replicate historical data compared to the original model version.
This work investigates the impact of pretreatment technologies in the design of BioSNG supply chains at a regional and national scale. For this purpose, an optimisation-based framework is proposed to account for two possible routes for BioSNG production. The first route considers processing of raw biomass and production of BioSNG in integrated facilities. The second route consists of pretreatment technologies, transportation of intermediate products, and upgrading facilities. The main objective is to investigate the trade-off between capital investment and reduction of transportation costs, and their impact on the economic performance of a BioSNG supply chain. Moreover, the impact of government subsidisation is further investigated through a parametric analysis in which the tariff is varied from £0/MWh up to £100/MWh. Finally, the major contributing factors in the design of BioSNG supply chains are identified through the implementation of a rigorous global sensitivity analysis (GSA). The results suggest that inclusion of pretreatment technologies improve considerably the economic performance, however, their impact is not enough to detach the development from government subsidisation which influences tremendously the possibility of a large-scale deployment.
Industry's increasing demand for liquefied natural gas could be met in the future by liquefied methane produced from biomass feedstock (LBG - liquefied biogas). This study presents results from an investigation of value chains for integrated production of LBG at a generic sawmill site, based on gasification of sawmill waste streams and forest residues. The objective was to investigate the cost for, as well as the carbon footprint reduction associated with, production and use of LBG asa fuel. Five different LBG plant sizes were investigated in combination with three different sawmill sizes. The resulting cases differ regarding biomass feedstock composition, biomass transportation distances, LBG plant sizes, how efficiently the excess heat from the LBG plant is used, and LBG distribution distances. Pinch technology was used to quantify the heat integration opportunities and to design the process steam network. The results show that efficient use of energy within the integrated process has the largest impact on the performance of the value chain in terms of carbon footprint. The fuel production cost are mainly determined by the investment cost of the plant, as well as feedstock transportation costs, which mainly affects larger plants. Production costs are shown to range from 68 to 156 EUR/MWhfuel and the carbon footprint ranges from 175 to 250kgGHG-eq/MWhnet biomass assuming that the product is used to substitute fossil LNG fuel. The results indicate that process integration of an indirect biomass gasifier for LBG production is an effective way for a sawmill to utilize its by-products. Integration of this type of biorefinery can be done in such a way that the plant can still cover its heating needs whilst expanding its product portfolio in a competitive way, both from a carbon footprint and cost perspective. The results also indicate that the gains associated with efficient heat integration are important to achieve an efficient value chain.
EU bioenergy policies and oil price hikes have resulted in a significant increase of installed pellet boilers for residential heating. Hence, European demand for wood pellets has been growing faster and more steadily than supply leading to rising market prices in recent years. This article presents an econometric analysis of demand and supply of wood pellets in the residential heating sector in Austria, one of the most dynamic markets for residential pellets. Annual and monthly time series data between 2000 and 2014 are used in a two-stage least-squares (2SLS) regression to estimate supply and demand elasticities of wood pellets. In all model specifications, pellets demand is found to be inelastic (from −0.66 to −0.76) and pellets supply unit-elastic (from 1.03 to 1.18). Thus, consumers are highly exposed to price changes resulting from supply shocks. Policies which support investments in pellet boilers will shift the demand of wood pellets and likely leading to higher prices for consumers.
Wooden biomass is the main source for energy based on biomass in Austria. Only a part of the wooden biomass for energy directly originates in forests. Other major sources include post-consumer wood and by-products of the Austrian forest-based industries. Consumption of wooden biomass has been growing much more than domestic production, forest-based industries are building up capacities in neighbouring countries, leaving less raw materials for exports to Austria than in the decades before. The authors have assessed the possible effects of a wood raw material shortage with a System-Dynamics simulation model of the Austrian forest-based sector (FOHOW). The model covers the interactions between the general economy and the forest-based sector, including wood-based energy. The simulation period ranged from 2006 to 2025. Beside a business as usual scenario, scenarios with a sawlog import reduction, a sawmill capacity reduction as well as a paper and panel capacity reduction were simulated. Probably the most notable result of the analysis is the strong impact of the sawmill industry on the fuelwood prices and availability. Despite increased fuelwood supply from forests, reduction of sawmill capacity will lead to the inability of fully meeting renewable energy policy objectives due to a shortage of sawmill residues. With exemption of the panel & paper capacity reduction scenario all other scenarios project a slight reduction of growing stock until 2025. But after decades of harvest below the increment such a development is not per se unsustainable. It can be expected that a shift in the Austrian forests towards younger stands will slightly increase the average increment.
In light of the recent economic crisis, the authors have assessed the effects of different types of economic crises' scenarios on the Austrian forest-based sector using a simulation model (FOHOW) written in the System-Dynamics (SD) language. The model addresses the interactions between the general economy and the forest sector, including forestry, forestry-based industries and energy. The simulation period for all of the scenarios ranged from 2006 to 2025. As compared to the past, the development of the sector substantially changes, even in the base scenario. These changes are primarily caused by increased demand for wooden biomass for energy due to the assumed execution of the National Action Plan for Renewable Energy. All crises' scenarios resulted in declining production and lower prices compared to the base scenario, differing only in magnitude. Forestry, sawmill and paper industries perform better in an export crisis than in a local crisis, because decreased exports can, to a certain extent, be compensated for by increasing domestic demand, while the domestic shortfalls are difficult to compensate by raising exports. By contrast, the export-oriented panel industry does better in a local crisis simulation. In general, economic crises only moderately change the assortment composition of timber supply within the forestry industry. The results also show that the sawmill industry plays a vital role in the allocation of wooden biomass in all of the scenarios. When developing policies for forest-based industries, specifically the procurement of wooden raw material, the key role of the sawmill industry must be considered in each case.
which the relationships are not exact, so that a set of ideal economic variables is assumed to be generated by a set of dynamic stochastic relationships, as in Koopmans [12], and the actual economic time series are assumed to differ from the ideal economic variables because of random disturbances or measurement errors. The asymptotic error variance matrix for the coefficients of one of the relationships is obtained in the case in which these relationships are estimated using instrumental variables. With this variance matrix we are able to discuss the problem of choice that arises when there are more instrumental variables available than the minimum number required to enable the method to be used. A method of estimation is derived which involves a characteristic equation already considered by Hotelling in defining the canonical correlation [10]. This method was previously suggested by Durbin [7]. The same estimates would be obtained by the maximum-likelihood limited
In this paper, a simulation model of the Austrian forest-based sector (FOHOW) was used to assess the effects of increasing wood utilization for energy production on the Austrian forest-based sector. In order to reflect the political targets regarding the use of renewable energy a “wood-for-energy” scenario was developed and compared with a “business-as-usual” base-scenario up to the year 2020.The analysis shows that the rising fuelwood demand in the “wood-for-energy” scenario would clearly lead to a much stronger competition for small roundwood (pulpwood) and sawmill residues. Compared to the base scenario, this competition would increase pulpwood prices and — to some extent — forest product prices (especially sawmill residues and pulp).In general, forestry and sawmills would be the winners, the panel and paper industries would be the losers of a “wood-for-energy” policy. The panel and paper industries would face decreased gross profits, because of two developments happening at the same time: a decrease in production and an increase in costs (roundwood and sawmill residues) beyond the increase of forest products prices.The analysis also reveals that the additional demand for fuelwood could only be met by an additional supply from the Austrian forests — if the fuelwood price was attractive enough (by 2020 more than 50% higher than in the base-scenario) for the forest owners.
Price cointegration in the Austrian sawmill industry with a focus on by-products
- Fuhrmann
Techno-economic modelling of bioeconomy value chains
- Dißauer
Process integration of innovative technologies into the forest-based sector in Austria
- Fuhrmann
Price cointegration in the Austrian wood fuel market
- Kristöfel