Adaptive Procurement Guidelines for Automatic Selection of Renewable Forest Energy Sources within a Sustainable Energy Production System

Abstract

An automatic forest-stand selection method was developed that integrates the procurement of profitable energy sources within a sustainable energy production system. We tested the method using a forest harvester simulator. We found that site-specific estimates of forest characteristics are important when predicting the potential of an energy-wood stand as a renewable energy source. Further, tree parameters can be combined with automatic stem measurements from a multiple-tree harvester to predict the energy-wood biomass in the stands. The selection process uses data from profitability studies. The selection process also uses environmental criteria to ensure that sufficient soil organic matter is left behind and to protect the soil against erosion. The integrated system of the harvester automatically adapts the system's models and stand-selection rules to account for various site-specific stand parameters. Predicting the profitable and environmentally acceptable yield of stand biomass has great potential in sustainable forest resource management, but managers must decide whether the operational procurement guidelines provided by the stand-selection method is acceptable under their local real-world wood procurement conditions.

Potential Traffic Levels after Increasing the Maximum Vehicle Weight in Environmentally Efficient Transportation System: The Case of Finland

“…In this respect, along with economic sustainability, based on the idea of continuous forest yield, environmental sustainability has become a serious issue in Finland's forest management debate [2]. Since the 2000's, commitments to wood harvesting as a sustainable forest resource have also strengthened in the Finnish forest industry [3]. The main benefits of environmentally acceptable wood harvesting include increased supply of sustainable energy resources and reduced Carbon dioxide (CO2) gas emissions.…”