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Conference paper2005

Regional analyses of carbon sequestration and forest biofuel production

Backeus Sofia, Wikström Peder, Lämås Tomas

Abstract

As forests make up large ecosystems, they can play an important role in mitigating the greenhouse effect by the uptake of carbon dioxide. In this study mitigation of carbon emissions through carbon uptake and storage in forest biomass and the use of forest biofuel is considered. The analyse was performed for a large region in northern Sweden. The objective was to maximise net present value for timber harvest, biofuel production and carbon sequestration. A carbon price for build up of carbon storage and for emissions from harvested forest products was introduced to achieve an economic value of carbon sequestration. Forest development was simulated using an optimising stand-level planning model. The planning horizon was set to 100 years and the solution for the whole region was found by using a modified version of an LP model II formulation. A range of carbon prices were used to study the effect on harvest levels and carbon sequestration. At a zero carbon price, the mean annual harvest level was 5.4 million m3 year-1, the mean annual carbon sequestration in forest biomass was 1.48 million tonnes year-1 and the mean annual replacement of carbon from fossil fuel with forest fossil fuel was 0.061 million tonnes year-1 in the 3.2 million hectare region. Corresponding values for a carbon price of 400 SEK tonne-1 was 4.2 million m3 year-1, 1.7 million tonnes year-1 and 0.055 million tonnes year-1. It was thereby shown that increasing the carbon price lead to decreasing harvest levels of timber and forest biofuel

Published in


Publisher: IUFRO

Conference

Sustainable Harvest Scenarios in Forest Management