Sweden! - International Federation of Agricultural Journalists

40 SOLUTIONS FOR A GREEN FUTURE
Renewable energy
power, but it can sometimes be difficult
to get permission from the authorities
because of, for example, neighbours. There
is also wind power in forest areas and wind
parks in the seas around Sweden.
Forest fuel gives forest owners profits
Sweden is covered by a lot of forest. When
forest owners harvest the trees, the thick
part of the trunk is sent to sawmills to be
turned into planks and boards. The thin
end of the trunks goes to pulp mills and
becomes paper. The tops and the branches
used to be left in the forest for the harvest
machines to drive over and use as fertilizer
for the soil. However, today it is becoming
more and more common to gather the
tops and branches and leave them to dry
in stacks. The material is then chipped and
burned in power plants. Over the last few
years, the selling of tops and branches has
started to give a modest profit to the forest
owners.
Pellets and straw
Some of the sawdust that is automatically
produced in sawmills is used to make
pellets, which many private persons and
farmers use to heat their houses. Pellets are
also used in power plants. Some farmers
heat their buildings by burning straw.
Stumps have potential
Even stumps, the roots of trees, have
started to be used for fuel in power plants.
So far, the technique is not very developed.
Therefore, only small areas are harvested
by forest companies. There is a lot of energy
in stumps and that is why the harvesting
of stumps will probably become more
common.
Energy crops
Farmers can grow, for example, energy
forests like willow for fuel in power plants
and grains for the production of ethanol.
In 2010, willow was grown on around
13,000 hectares of land. It is often land of
low quality that is used for growing willow,
not good farmland. The large farmers’
cooperative Lantmännen owns, among
other things, the company Agroetanol,
which uses around 550,000 tons of grains
to produce 210 million litres of ethanol per
year. There are numerous kinds of financial
support that farmers receive for growing or
otherwise investing in energy crops.
Biogas from the farm
Biogas is produced both on a small scale
by single farms and on a large scale by
companies. Farmers use manure and parts
of plants to make biogas to power their
farms. Groups of farmers produce biogas
that is used for heating buildings in local
communities. Biogas is also used to power
vehicles. About 1.5 terawatt hours of biogas
is produced in Sweden every year. 4