Abstract
In the European Green Deal and the Climate Act, the European Union has committed itself to achieving climate neutrality by 2050. This goal is to be achieved by joint efforts of all economic sectors, including forestry and its downstream sectors. One way to attain this goal is the effective and sustainable use of forest biomass for energy production. This article aims to quantify the potential of forest biomass resources for the production of electrical and thermal energy based on official departmental statistics, the current legal framework for forestry and the environment, and research results in the context of an extreme change in the raw material base due to the ongoing calamity caused by the spread of insect pests in the Czech Republic. This extreme can classify as a significant risk to the security of the energy supply from renewable sources in the event of oversizing new installed energy production from renewable sources. Based on data and calculations, an overall annual volume of dendromass available for energy production in the Czech Republic for the period extending to 2036 was quantified at the value of 13.473 million tons per year. Consequently, it is clear that the overall dendromass resources for energy production in the Czech Republic are not sufficient to achieve the EU’s ambitious objective.
Highlights
The potential of forest biomass resources available for electrical and thermal energy production was quantified in the context of an extreme increase in forest felling caused by the spread of bark beetles in the Czech Republic and a reduction in forest increment
According to the data contained in the material [51], the structure of the total wood stock in economically usable forest stands in the Czech Republic in 2017 was as follows:
2017–2020, the total timber stock in economically usable forest stands in the Czech Republic decreased due to an enormous increase in incidental logging, mainly processing spruce wood due to the bark beetle calamity, and including a decrease in the total current increment of 20.79 million m3 of timber to the top of 7 cm o.b. (3.2% to the base of 2017)
Summary
In March 2020, the European Commission presented the Climate Act [1,2], aiming to move Europe towards climate neutrality. The objective of this European climate legislation is to put into practice the goal set out in the European Green Deal [3] to make the European economy and society climate neutral by 2050 while using resources efficiently and maintaining competitiveness. In the Czech Republic (CR), this share amounted to 16.24% [5] in 2019, and the objective of achieving a 22% share of renewable energy sources in gross final consumption by 2030 was set [6].
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