By EurekAlert
Friday, September 11, 2009
Spain is one of the leading European countries, along with
Sweden, in terms of wood production for paper paste, but this uses
large amounts of energy. Spanish and Swedish scientists have
compared the environmental load stemming from forestry operations,
and have concluded that the Spanish sector uses more energy than
the Swedish one. They are proposing improvements, such as the use
of biofuels, in order to make forestry production more
sustainable.
In order to predict the consequences of forestry operations, the
scientists have studied the most important wood species used in
making paper paste – the eucalyptus (Eucalyptus
globulus) plantations in Spain, and those of the Norway Spruce
and Scots Pine in Sweden.
The research study, published recently in the International
Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, shows that the Swedish system
requires less energy than the Spanish one under the same
environmental conditions, because of the type and amount of wood
produced. Paper paste production and supply in Spain uses 7% more
energy in Spain than in Sweden.
"There are large differences, but there are several problematic
stages in both countries", Sara González, lead author and a
researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela, who has
worked in partnership with the Forestry Research Institute of
Sweden in Uppsala, Sweden, tells SINC. The scientist says heavy
fertiliser use, the stage of supplying wood to the factory, and the
cutting and transport of the wood in the field contribute
"considerably" to impacts such as acidification, eutrophication and
global warming.
In Spain, the scientists suggest using more effective machinery
for the cultivation and harvest stages, since energy consumption in
these is higher than in the Swedish case. In Sweden, the
researchers propose reducing the amount of wood imported (which
comes predominantly from the Baltic states), and the use of trains
to deliver wood instead of shipping, which would reduce energy use
by up to 40%.
In addition, introducing biofuels such as biomass from forestry
itself, would be "an option in both of the cases studied for
reducing the environmental impact associated with forestry
operations", says González.
The European forestry sector is "extremely multifunctional and
provides a broad range of materials, energy and other services used
for a more sustainable society", underlines the researcher.
According to the scientists, European forests account for 5% of the
world total and cover 33% of the land area of Europe. The area
covered by European forests is growing by around 0.5 million
hectares per year.
SOURCE