Burning wood chips would bring timber truck rally to Helsinki

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According to proposals in some quarters, coal should be replaced by wood at Helsinki’s power plants, a move that would in turn bring massive truck traffic to the centre of the Finnish capital.
      ”The power plants are located in the centre of the city, which is particularly challenging”, says the City of Helsinki’s Director of Finance Tapio Korhonen.
     
Another problem is stockpiling. District heating is needed during the cold winter months, and coal is held in reserve for this purpose. Wood chips are perishable goods, and they are difficult to stockpile.
      The replacement of coal has been discussed in Helsinki all summer, as the City Council is to decide in the autumn how the city should attempt to reach its environmental targets. One possibility would be to build a new bio plant that would mainly burn wood chips.
     
If the annual amount of coal used by Helsinki Energy (Helsingin Energia) were entirely replaced by wood chips, the total amount of raw material to be transported to Helsinki every year would be some 8.5 million cubic metres. In terms of truckloads, this would be 60,000 truckloads, or hundreds of shiploads per year.
      Helsinki Energy’s annual need is 850,000 tonnes of coal for the production of district heating and electricity.
     
The latest comments on the issue were expressed by Minister of the Environment Paula Lehtomäki (Centre) in the Centre Party newspaper Suomenmaa, and by Juha Marttila, President of the Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK), speaking on this year’s Finnish Entrepreneurship Day in Helsinki.
      Both of them suggested that Helsinki should act as a pioneer in the use of wood.
      ”Helsinki can well afford to act as a forerunner”, MTK’s Marttila commented to Helsingin Sanomat.
      ”The long-term goal should be to replace coal entirely by wood”, Marttila added.
     
According to Helsinki’s Director of Finance, it is unnecessary to burden Helsinki with the role of being a pioneer.
      ”The capital has the same financial problems as other Finnish municipalities. In addition, the city’s service level is largely linked with income derived from Helsinki Energy, which is why the whole question is a very difficult equation”, Korhonen argues.
      In 2008, Helsinki Energy paid the city a total of EUR 230 million, an injection that went quite some way towards balancing the books.
      Korhonen notes further that logistics would also be difficult. How, from where, and how much wood could be carried to Helsinki?
      ”We are currently examining these questions”, Korhonen says.
     
Transport problems are an issue to which Helsinki Energy’s Environmental Director Martti Hyvönen has also referred.
      ”We take a positive attitude towards an increase in the use of wood as fuel, provided that the logistics angle could be dealt with. We are not skilled at fetching timber from forests, but it has to be delivered to us”, Hyvönen notes.
      According to MTK’s Marttila, the problem can be resolved.
      ”I have a feeling that when timber is carried from the coast on rails or on waterways, the distances are not crucial”, Marttila argues.
      Hyvönen continues, saying that the transport and stockpiling problem could be resolved by the use of new fuels that are being developed, for example biocoal, which is made from wood by a slow thermal process. Like coal, biocoal is easy to stockpile and transport, while it can also produce as much energy as coal.
     
Another question is whether wood should be burned in Helsinki or in some other location in Finland.
      City councillor Osmo Soininvaara (Green League) wrote on his blog last week that it would be more sensible to replace peat by wood at the power plants of Forest Finland. The burning of peat produces more greenhouse gas emissions than even the burning of coal.
      According to Soininvaara, Helsinki is the last place where the burning of coal should come to an end.
      In the capital, coal is used to produce simultaneously district heat and electricity, which is why nearly 90 per cent of its energy can be extracted and used. In general, the efficiency is only around 50 per cent.
      MTK’s Marttila regards the question as a ”moral” one.
      ”Why should Helsinki be entitled to burn coal when all other locations should transfer to wood? Besides, peat at least creates jobs within Finland”, Marttila argues.
     
One consideration behind MTK's enthusiasm for Helsinki's buying large amounts of wood for a biofuel programme is that the demand for wood is waning, as the paper industry no longer buys it in in such quantities.
      There is no prospect of the trees vanishing from Finnish forests at the current rate of felling, but there is in MTK's view a need to put a valuable natural resource to good use.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Helsinki Energy considers biofuel for Hanasaari power plant (29.2.2008)

Links:
  The Central Union of Agricultural Producers and Forest Owners (MTK)
  Helsingin Energia (Helsinki Energy)

Helsingin Sanomat