Energy evaluation of forest residues originating from pine andeucalyptus

摘要

The entry of Spain into the European Union (EU) originated a continuous evolution in the forest sector in Galicia. To face up this situation, it was necessary an urgent reorganization of the forest resources aiming to obtain from them a maximum productivity. Within the forest sector, the part including all the tasks related to wood exploitation is suffering an important transformation. As a consequence of the different strategies elaborated by the EU in the field of a rational and sustainable exploitation of forest resources, Galicia, with a covered forest surface of 2500000 ha, is situated in a position from which can become a world power in the sector of wood exploitation, mainly eucalyptus and pine species. This work presents the possibility of using residues originated from forest tasks as a source of energy through the transformation of that contained in the residues into electrical and/or thermal energies. Heat content of residues is about 7500 kJ kg-1 while moisture content is around 50 %. This means a gross production of about 6x1010 kW year-1, or 3,5x108 euros. The use of residues as an alternative energy source would help to avoid some of the problems originating from a bad management of them. In this article, 3 species were studied: E. Globulus Labill., el P. Pinaster Aiton and P. Silvestris L.