Pellets industry leads to excessive wood consumption in Portugal | forests
In the last year, the industry of pellets in Portugal consuming more than 1.5 million tons of wood and the situation tends to get worse and the Portuguese forest is called into question, with hectares and hectares being cut down all over the country.
Consuming more wood than is produced is an old issue in Portugal. However, due to the wood boycott coming from Russia, the timber industry pellets was forced to walking through the national wood“without which it exists”.
So says Pedro Serra Ramos, president of the National Association of Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental Companies (ANEFA), who warns of the “unsustainability problem” of the Portuguese forest, given the lack of wood in Portugal and the approval of construction of new factories for the production of pellets🇧🇷
“We still don’t have data to advance on the number of slaughters that are taking place this year. However, we all know that we are consuming more raw material than what is forested and the pelletslike its export, did not improve the situation”, said the official.
Despite the manufacturing industry pellets legally that only forestry and industrial residues are used as a raw material, there is evidence that the largest producers of pellets they are using tree trunks and wood in general, generated by “increased pressure on the forest”.
“Theoretically the pellets they must be made from parts of the trees that are not used by other electrics. However, the calorific value of the wood and the ease of handling, which leads to cost reduction, led to many having lived with wood instead of remaining residues from forests or sawmill forests”, he explained.
The industry of pellets essentially consumes maritime pine wood in its manufacture. With the export and subsequent cutting of maritime pines growing annually, Pedro Serra Ramos warned that “there are already factories producing pellets from eucalyptus”. “This situation was unthinkable until then, because it involves changes from a technological point of view”.
Several towns in the center of the country, hit by the fires of 2017, saw the construction of turbines for the production of pellets🇧🇷 However, contrary to what would be expected, “few are the ones that use the burnt wood waste” that they have at their doorstep.
“All that burned wood is not used by normal industry. But it’s 2022 and those scorched trees are still standing, even though there are pellets right next door that allowed them to give a destination. But these factories choose to let in good pine and eucalyptus wood for the manufacture of pellets“, said.
In a question to the Government presented to the Assembly of the Republic, the Left Bloc parliamentary group said that “in 2021, the production capacity of pellets in Portugal it increased by 50% and the opening of new factories continues to be subsidized with European funds, without public disclosure of the scale of their production or the origin of the biomass to be used”.
The party also mentions that, “according to Centro Pinus, an association of economic agents of maritime pine organization, the industry consumes 57% more than what the Portuguese forest can sustainably supply”.
The Bloc also states that “according to the study published by Zerothe production of pellets consumes 20% of all pine wood, but represents only 3% of the export value of products based on this wood”.