Economic and environmental assessment of agro-energy wood biomass supply chains

The aim of this study is to conduct an economic and environmental assessment of forest biomass for heating, in particular two types of firewood and three types of wood chips were analyzed. Regarding economic aspects, an analysis was made of production costs and revenues (per tonne of biomass), considering all the stages involved “from the woods to the mouth of the boiler.” For the environmental analysis, conducted using life cycle assessment, the stages taken into account went from “the woods to the heat produced”. The wood biomasses were compared to each other and to fuel oil and natural gas. The economic analysis showed that at current market prices it is more profitable to produce firewood rather than wood chips. As concerns the environmental aspects, the results of the LCA showed that, for the same heat output, forest wood-based fuel has an environmental impact lower than fuel oil, but still higher than natural gas. There are no big differences in the impact of various wood fuels. In the conclusion, some ways for improvement have been proposed, in terms of both the economic competitiveness of the agro-energy supply chains considered and the reducing of their environmental impact.