Potential application of overseas forest biomass supply chain experience to reduce costs in emerging Australian forest biomass supply chains - a literature review

Abstract

Forest biomass (FB) is widely used overseas as an industrial energy source, particularly in Europe, but is currently little used in Australia. Typical attributes of FB disadvantage it as a fuel relative to traditional energy sources: high moisture content, low bulk density, spatial and temporal dispersion, low value and low energy content. As such, minimising FB delivered costs will be critical to further development of Australian forest biomass supply chains (FBSC). The paper reviews published international and Australian research into the key FBSC elements (biomass source, primary transport, storage, secondary transport and processing) focussing on areas where Australian FBSCs could poten..