under not only economic pressure but
political mandate to be more innovative
when it comes to energy consumption
and the environment. Upon arrival at
the Arlanda Airport near Stockholm it
became clear that this country has minimized its dependency on imported oil.
The electric trains were fast, efficient,
quiet and amazingly smooth. Tandem
buses were common, as were bicycles –
even for business people. Automobiles
are compact (gasoline is priced at more
than $10 per gallon).
Commonplace, too, was an understanding of materials recycling. Each
guestroom in the Elite Stora Hotel in
Jönköping had three waste receptacles –
one for bottles and cans, one for paper
and one for nonrecyclables. Everyone
appears to respect and practice recycling.
Crown Princess Victoria, the daughter
of Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf and
Queen Silvia, offered the welcoming
address May 27 as world experts began
to share lessons learned in producing
and utilizing fuels such as wood fuels,
pellets, agricultural fuels, ethanol, biogas
and biofuel oils.
The exhibit display was massive both
Several World Bioenergy Conference exhibitors displayed the multitude of organic products that can be
successfully pelletized such as sorghum, plywood shavings, chipboard dust, peat, paper, etc.
indoors and outdoors, with hundreds of
biofuel-related equipment suppliers: boilers, gasifiers, pelletizers, grinders, chippers, briquette presses, distillers, even a
wood pellet-fueled automobile operating
on the Stirling cycle. Forestry practices
in Europe utilize the entire tree – branches,
stumps, etc., for useful purposes.
Tuesday afternoon we
took a field excursion to the
town of Tranås to see the
Tranås Energi Plant, a wood-fired combined heat and
power plant. This plant operates year-round, makes 5 MW
of electric power and has 65
km ( 40 miles) of distribution
piping supplying heat to more
than 1,000 homes, schools
and businesses. According to
Dr. Ulf Öqvist, the head of
the the Swedish Council for
District Heating (SweHeat),
there are some 500 communi-ty-type district heating systems
in Sweden, many of which use
alternative fuels – in this case,
hog fuel (shredded bark,
branches, etc.).
Combined heat and power
is a common application in
Sweden’s district heating systems. In fact, no district heat-
The Tranås Energi plant has been using wood residues for 25 years. ing system is built these days
Bright yellow rapeseed fields in full bloom surround the plant.
Rapeseed is grown as a major crop for biodiesel and is used as without CHP. Popular, too, are
the plant’s backup fuel oil. refuse-fired plants. Municipal
wastes comprise 11 percent of fuels used
in Swedish district heating.
The next day, we visited the Agrol
Agroenergi Pelleting Plant in the town of
Ulricehamn. This plant, the largest of
many operated by Agrol, receives sawdust from various lumber sources, then
screens, dries, presses and packages pellets in a fully automated plant that also
is a district heating system. This single
plant produces 80,000 metric tons per
year using an assortment of woods, primarily pine, and sells bulk pellets to
power companies and heating plants for
approximately 120 euros ($190) per metric
ton. Ironically, there is a market surplus
of pellets in Sweden for two reasons:
Climate change has resulted in warmer
winters with less heating demand in
recent years, and second, competition
from other countries – Russia and especially the U.S. – has pushed pellet prices
as low as 83 euros ($131) per metric ton.
Two large plants in Florida and
Alabama together produce more than 1
million tons per year of wood pellets for
export to Sweden and other parts of
Europe (interestingly not for use in the
U.S.). Wood pellets are easy to co-fire
with other fuels, have a heat content of
approximately 8,400 Btu/lb and are considered a carbon-neutral renewable fuel
source.
Throughout the week at the World
Bioenergy Conference, industry experts
from around the world shared compelling
