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Bioenergy from the Swedish Forest Sector - A Partial Equilibrium Analysis of Supply Costs and Implications for the Forest Product Markets

Author

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  • Carlsson, Mattias

    (Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)

Abstract

As a response to policy requirements to improve energy security, and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the use of bioenergy in Sweden has more than doubled since 1980. In 2008 bioenergy use in Sweden amounted to 108 TWh, or 18% of the total supply of primary energy. Nearly all of this bioenergy supply originates from the domestic forest sector. There is still a desire from policy makers to continuously increase the use of renewable energy. Further increases in demand for forest based bioenergy – either as an effect of direct subsidies, renewable energy supply targets, rising fossil fuel prices, or increasing costs for carbon emissions – could, however, lead to implications for the availability of raw materials and costs, for the wood processing industries. A static partial equilibrium model of the Swedish forest sector – based on the EFI-GTM model structure – is developed to derive supply cost curves for further increases in the use of bioenergy from the forest sector in Sweden. In addition, the implications of increased use of forest based bioenergy on the traditional wood processing industries are analyzed. Model simulations indicate that the cost – in terms of losses in producer and consumer surplus – of an increase in the use of forest based bioenergy by 5 TWh/year in Sweden is 30 million SEK/year, while a 30 TWh/year increase would cost 620 million SEK/year. The marginal cost of increased use is estimated to be 0.011 SEK/kWh at 5 TWh/year, rising to 0.044 SEK/kWh at 30 TWh/year. The costs of reaching a target for increased forest based bioenergy use are highly dependent on the availability of pulpwood imports. An import restriction – requiring the target to be reached through domestic resources only – would increase the costs by up to five times above the unrestricted case. Policy driven increases in the demand for forest based bioenergy will have considerable effects on wood board producers, while the implications for pulp and paper producers, and sawn goods producers, are relatively small; at least as long as the increase in forest based wood fuels is less than 20 TWh/year.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlsson, Mattias, 2012. "Bioenergy from the Swedish Forest Sector - A Partial Equilibrium Analysis of Supply Costs and Implications for the Forest Product Markets," Working Paper Series 2012:3, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:hhs:slueko:2012_003
    Note: Licentiate thesis; Also published at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, http://epsilon.slu.se
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    File URL: http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/9117/1/carlsson_m_121004.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nässén, Jonas & Sprei, Frances & Holmberg, John, 2008. "Stagnating energy efficiency in the Swedish building sector--Economic and organisational explanations," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 3814-3822, October.
    2. Moiseyev, Alexander & Solberg, Birger & Kallio, A. Maarit I. & Lindner, Marcus, 2011. "An economic analysis of the potential contribution of forest biomass to the EU RES target and its implications for the EU forest industries," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 197-213, April.
    3. M. Obersteiner, 1998. "The Pan Siberian Forest Industry Model (PSFIM): A Theoretical Concept for Forest Industry Analysis," Working Papers ir98033, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis.
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    Cited by:

    1. Bryngemark, Elina, 2019. "Second generation biofuels and the competition for forest raw materials: A partial equilibrium analysis of Sweden," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C).
    2. Pang, Xi & Nordström, Eva-Maria & Böttcher, Hannes & Trubins, Renats & Mörtberg, Ulla, 2017. "Trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services under different forest management scenarios – The LEcA tool," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 28(PA), pages 67-79.
    3. Vass, Miriam Münnich & Elofsson, Katarina, 2016. "Is forest carbon sequestration at the expense of bioenergy and forest products cost-efficient in EU climate policy to 2050?," Journal of Forest Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 82-105.
    4. Guo, Jinggang & Gong, Peichen, 2019. "Assessing the impacts of rising fuelwood demand on Swedish forest sector: An intertemporal optimization approach," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 91-98.
    5. Jonas Zetterholm & Elina Bryngemark & Johan Ahlström & Patrik Söderholm & Simon Harvey & Elisabeth Wetterlund, 2020. "Economic Evaluation of Large-Scale Biorefinery Deployment: A Framework Integrating Dynamic Biomass Market and Techno-Economic Models," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-28, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bioenergy; Energy policy; Forest industry; Partial equilibrium model; Climate change;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis
    • Q23 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation - - - Forestry
    • Q41 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Energy - - - Demand and Supply; Prices

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