Biomass Energy Suffers, But Alternative Bioproduct Research Thrives
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According to a report Monday by Pallet Enterprise, Ashland, Va., USA, oil prices will to continue to run low at least for the foreseeable future. And as a result, wood fiber prices are also soft right now due to an overall fall in demand.
As reported in Pallet Enterprise September 2015 edition by writer Rick LeBlanc and recently published online, researchers are, as a result, unlocking many uses for bioproducts beyond the traditional markets. This is due to energy use no longer creating what was on path to become exclusive excess wood chip and sawdust demand, not counting traditional wood product and pulping demands in chips from healthy, harvested, managed forests (bioenergy and now advanced bioproducts both make a profit from dealing with "waste wood" fiber). Wood fiber is being used creatively in the development of soon-to-be-affordable microchips, beer bottles, wood foam packaging material, super strong paper that can replace metal, 3D printing, multi-story buildings, and more.
In reference to the P&P industry and bioenergy sharing forest resources, this week's report said that the "pellet market helps to balance out" the decline in fine papers and newsprint demand, which has dropped significantly in the past decade. The dissolving pulp grade, used for products like adult diapers, is really the only pulp and paper segment where the fiber demand is steady and even picking up. On a level of simply considering supply and demand concepts of pricing and nothing more in depth or unique about the industry chain, biomass for energy is considered to raise prices for many paper plants.
These would possibly be those in countries or national states or state regions that trade heavily with pellet burning nations or use wood pellet energy while maintaining a paper industry, such as in the U.S, as well as many E.U. nation's industries. Almost all of the pellets being exported to Europe from the U.S. are shipped from southeastern ports, with the bulk of these pellets currently produced in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Virginia.
For fuel, a more market direct and less sophisticated matter of pricing, effectively competing with energy on the fossil oil standard, the long period of excessively low cost months for oil have been bad news. "With the prices of oil dropping, a lot of biomass plants are not running, and the whole market in Europe where a lot of the exports go is slowing as well," said the editor of the North American Wood Fiber Review, Woodinville, Wash.
