Environmental and economic assessment of converting wood to energy, based on modelling of the entire production chain

In this work, several models have been coupled in order to represent the whole forest-to-energy production chain: the growth phase, the primary transformation, and the ultimate conversion to heat and/or electricity. Combined with literature data for wood transportation, they gave a complete balance of emissions to compare with fossil-based alternatives. An economic analysis completes the work. The results show that wood-based scenarios do perform better than their fossil counterparts, but also that the primary transformation and transportation items can greatly diminish this advantage. Further work will focus on determining the best metric to assess the climate change impact of forestry scenarios based on the timing of carbo dioxide emissions as well as geophysical effects such as albedo and evapotranspiration.