Potential for bioenergy from Tasmanian forests

Updated June 19, 2013 14:30:46

Audio: Study finds bioenergy potential in Tasmanian forests (ABC Rural)

A five month study has found millions of dollars in potential bioenergy could be generated by using waste from Tasmanian forests.

Professor Andreas Rothe from the University of Applied Sciences Weihenstephan in Germany has spent most of this year looking at the potential to generate heat and electricity from wood waste and low quality eucalypts.

He found that more than 3 million tonnes of biomass could be sourced for bioenergy from native forests and plantations in Tasmania, and the bulk of it from private land.

Per person, Andreas Rothe says Tasmania has a forest resource on a par with the highest in Europe, in Finland and Sweden.

"These countries produce 30 percent of their total energy from forest biomass and the Tasmanian potential would be similar."

Professor Rothe says for the process to gain wide community support as a renewable resource it's important that biomass is sourced from plantations and sustainably managed native forests.

"It really depends on the forests where you source the biomass from. You shouldn't source the biomass from an old growth forest because this in the short term, produces more carbon than it releases.

But if you do it from a plantation, which is the main source in Tasmania, or if you do it from native forest regrowth, as it's done all over Europe, then it's renewable."

His research institution in Bavaria is undertaking a project estimating the sustainable supply of forest biomass in Europe that can be harvested without harming biodiversity.

"In Europe we have a strong consensus that it is a renewable resource, it's supported both by the European Community and local governments. It's subsidised.

But there are concerns that they are going too far because it tripled in the last 10 years in Europe.

It's sustainable but not endless."

Dr Rothe says the standards used in the Tasmanian biomass study were much more conservative than those used in Europe.

"Tasmania has so much potential and such good forests there's just no need to harvest intensively."

Dr Andreas Rothe is a Professor in the Forest Faculty of the University of Applied Sciences Wiehenstephan in Bavaria.

Topics: forestry, rural, alternative-energy, environmental-management, hobart-7000

First posted June 19, 2013 14:28:25