On 2nd June I attended a workshop near Jönköping in Sweden on the logistics and economics of forest residue recovery. Gustav Melin, CEO of Svebio, the Swedish Bioenergy Association, opened the workshop.

130 people from 28 countries turned up. In 2005 Sweden has 39% renewable supply, 28.6% (113.4 TWh) was bioenergy. In 2009, 44% was renewable. This increase driven by climate change, but prior growth in renewables driven by acidification and oil price shocks.

EU targets – 5.5% renewable mandatory.  Of this, 28.6% is bioenergy (113.4 TWh), 15.3 hydro and 0.3 wind???

Wood processing accounts for 55% of bioenergy use. The balance is CHP???

Svebio has 300 member companies, including manufacturers, consultants.

Swedish carbon tax has been very important, also the Polluter Pays Principle (PPP), in driving bioenergy. Svebio promotes sustainability in sourcing bioenergy feedstock, through:

• Forest legislation
• Envionmental legislation
• Social legislation.

Svebio promotes rules in the production and use of bioenergy.

Sweden has had 50% economic growth since 1990. However per capita GHG emissions have reduced by 50%. In encouraging bioenergy adoption on this scale, ‘scale’ of activity is important – for example Stockarydsterminalen central rail logistics centre, see www.stockarydsterminalen.se .