A bioenergy boom is raging around the world. In the effort to curb climate change, sights have turned to the forests for energy.

The European Union is leading the fight against climate change, and has set challenging targets on increasing the use of renewable energy sources. The targets call for a 20 percent increase in the renewable energy share of energy consumption by 2020 in the EU area.

John Deere’s European Bioenergy Business Manager, Marica Kilponen, admits that the increased targets for bioenergy are tough, but not impossible to achieve.

“Over one quarter of the energy used in Finland is produced with biofuels. This is largely the result of the way wood-processing industry by-products are utilized in energy production.”

Kilponen points out the diversity of bioenergy sources. For example, in the United States, South America and South Europe, the emphasis is on ethanol produced from crops, while further north on the map the natural energy reserve is the forests. The potential of the forests is seen initially in heat production, and perhaps later in biofuel production.

“The interest in utilizing forest bioenergy has grown strongly in Central Europe. There is also interest in the United States, where several individual projects have been launched, but the national funding is targeting bioenergy produced from crops. Russia, in turn, has solid plans to grow the entire forest sector,” Kilponen says.

Efficiency through product development
The establishment of the bioenergy business manager position in Europe indicates that John Deere sees the utilization of bioenergy as a big area in the future.

“Identifying the markets’ needs and the technologies needed to realize bioenergy utilization goals are at the top of my priority list,” Kilponen explains.

She brings up John Deere’s benefits of scale and points to the opportunities offered by the huge product portfolio of agriculture, construction and forestry machines. They have useful solutions for many needs. “We are examining the kinds of combinations that could be put together to quickly facilitate the achievement of bioenergy targets in all markets. Previously, we have focused on developing solutions for the needs of bigger energy providers, but in the future it is the smaller facilities in particular that will have more needs.

This underscores the importance of the equipment’s cost of ownership and easy maintenance. Machine uptime and the profitability of utilizing bioenergy start already at the machine design phase.”

For Europe and North America, John Deere’s 1490D Energy Wood Harvester is a good example of how energy can be acquired from the forest feasibly using product development. The energy content of a 500-700 kg bale made with an Energy Harvester is the equivalent of half a barrel of oil, i.e. about one megawatt hour. An average of 150 slash bundles, or 150 megawatt hours of energy, can be harvested from a one-hectare clear felling area. That is enough energy to satisfy the annual consumption of some five to seven single-family homes.

Studies indicate that logging residual production chains are efficient. Their energy consumption is only about 2-3 percent of the energy content of the fuel produced. It is usually feasible to collect about 60 percent of all the residuals from a logging area.

“A professional operator is a key factor in efficiency. It is also essential that the entire bioenergy harvesting chain is cost efficient and reliable,” Kilponen remarks.

Preventing climate change and increasing the use of biofuels may be hot topics these days, but John Deere recognizes the opportunity for loggers to both address these issues and potentially profit from them worldwide. That’s why John Deere is committed to continue pressing forward in establishing profitable, sustainable solutions for loggers to harvest energy from the forest.

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