This research aimed to determine the costs of producing chips for bioenergy from first thinning’s.
The research was published as a thesis, and was titled “Methodology for choice of harvesting system for energy wood from early thinning”. The author was Juha Laitala of the University of Eastern Finland. The most common logging systems and supply chains for chip production from first thinning’s in Finland were compared using productivity and cost models. A decision tree was constructed for harvesting system selection.
The results showed that forwarder productivity following mechanised felling with a harvester was much higher than when following motor-manual felling. This was due to the ability of the harvester to bunch trees close to extraction routes. The cost of motor-manual and harvester felling were the same, but forwarder cost following motor-manual was double compared to following the harvester. The use of a forwarder based harwarder resulted in the highest costs.
The study also showed that delimbing infield using multi-stem enabled harvesters reduced the amount of sites where bioenergy could be cost-effectively harvested due to reduced biomass availability on nutrient sensitive sites. However, this form of harvesting was still feasible. Please access the thesis for a full account of the research. Source: http://www.metla.fi/dissertationes/df143.htm
The research was published as a thesis, and was titled “Methodology for choice of harvesting system for energy wood from early thinning”. The author was Juha Laitala of the University of Eastern Finland. The most common logging systems and supply chains for chip production from first thinning’s in Finland were compared using productivity and cost models. A decision tree was constructed for harvesting system selection.
The results showed that forwarder productivity following mechanised felling with a harvester was much higher than when following motor-manual felling. This was due to the ability of the harvester to bunch trees close to extraction routes. The cost of motor-manual and harvester felling were the same, but forwarder cost following motor-manual was double compared to following the harvester. The use of a forwarder based harwarder resulted in the highest costs.
The study also showed that delimbing infield using multi-stem enabled harvesters reduced the amount of sites where bioenergy could be cost-effectively harvested due to reduced biomass availability on nutrient sensitive sites. However, this form of harvesting was still feasible. Please access the thesis for a full account of the research. Source: http://www.metla.fi/dissertationes/df143.htm