Environmental assessment of small-scale production of wood chips as a fuel for residential heating boilers

This work performs a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) of two fuels for heating boilers, namely wood chips and oil. The LCA methodology allows comparing the environmental impacts of the two analyzed fuels, thus assessing which is environmentally more advantageous. The study is focused on Mediterranean forests located in the Argençola region (Catalonia, northeastern Spain) by applying forest management practices focused to ensure a sustainable exploitation. The direct use of wood chips as a fuel for boilers simplifies notably the number of processes involved in producing such a fuel. The results presented clearly show the environmental benefits of using small-scale produced wood chips instead of fossil oil by analyzing representative impact categories defined by the CML and EDIP methods, even when considering the changes in the carbon stock in the forests under analysis due to the management approach adopted. A sensitivity analysis has also been conducted to assess the impact of the data with higher uncertainty on the final LCA results.