The energy intensity of the production of energy chips from dendromass stands on long-term uncultivated agricultural land

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this work was to investigate the energy intensity of the fuel wood chips production on unused agricultural land. The unused agricultural land, overgrown with forest trees, also called white areas, is the result of the end of the traditional intensive management of agricultural land by the natural succession of forest stands and pioneers’ wood species on the borders of forest and non-forest land. These stands are advantageously localized due to previous method of the land utilization, accessible and therefore very interesting from the point of view of obtaining fuel dendromass. The logging and subsequent dendromass processing was carried out for the purpose of further land use as pasture land and also for the production of fuel wood chips and their subsequent sale to the end user. With the utilization of technology chain saw-forwarder-chipper, the energy intensity of each operation, expressed in terms of the amount of fuel consumed per unit of produced wood fuel, was determined. The share of energy consumed in the energy value of the harvested tree dendromass in the evaluated sites ranged from 0.43 to 0.62%, approximately 0.64 to 0.88% and the chipping 0.42 to 0.54%. The total amount of energy consumed after calculation the chipper transfers to an average distance of 180 km was within 1.46 to 2.11%. The average weight of the harvested trees caused the biggest impact on the energy intensity of the production process.