Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

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Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

Environmental sustainability assessment of using forest wood for heat

energy in Ireland
John J. Fitzpatrick n
Process & Chemical Engineering, School of Engineering, University College Cork, Ireland

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 11 February 2015
Received in revised form
19 October 2015
Accepted 17 December 2015
Available online 9 January 2016

Wood from Irish forestry has potential for sustainably supplying some of Irelands energy needs. This
study used an environmental sustainability assessment methodology to assess how much heat energy
could be supplied sustainably and the impacts on the environment in comparison to fossil fuels. Around
11% of the Irish land area is forested and around 31% of harvested forest wood is used for energy.
Considering this, the steady-state sustainable supply of fuel wood energy from this area was estimated to
be around 8.7% of the Irish heat primary energy demand in 2010. Thus, forest wood fuel is a limited
resource and can only sustainably supply a small fraction of demand. Life cycle assessment showed that
total environmental impact was about 10% of that for heating oil, although this did not include land
requirement which is the dominant impact for wood fuel and limits its supply. Even though forest wood
is greener than heating oil from a climate change perspective, there are a number of other impacts
where it performs worse, in particular, emissions of particulate matter during wood combustion which
contributed to the highest emissions impact from the life cycle.
& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Environmental sustainability assessment
Forest wood
Bioenergy
Sustainable supply
LCA
Environmental impact

Contents
1.
2.

3.
4.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Environmental sustainability assessment methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.1.
Sustainable supply of bioresource. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
2.2.
Environmental impacts and sustainability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Assessment of sustainable forest wood energy resource potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Assessment of environmental impacts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.1.
Goal and scope denition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.2.
Life cycle inventory raw data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.
Life cycle inventory in terms of the functional unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.1.
Inputs from the environment (per FU) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.3.2.
Emissions to the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.4.
Life cycle impact assessment [LCIA] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.
Interpretation and sensitivity analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.1.
Inputs from the environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.2.
Major environment impacts from LCIA. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.3.
Impact of diesel use and transportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.5.4.
Impact of fertiliser usage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.6.
Inuence of carbon sequestration and land use change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
4.7.
Biodiversity and water quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Tel.: 353 21 4903089.

E-mail address: j.tzpatrick@ucc.ie

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.12.197
1364-0321/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

4.8.
Comparison with heating by fossil fuel combustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1294
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1295

1. Introduction
Sustainability can be described as people (globally) being able
to ourish [1] over a prolonged period of time. Flourish could
be described as providing at least basic needs, including food,
water, sanitation, shelter, health-care and education. Prolonged
period could be described as, in human terms, as being many
generations, for example thousands of years. The above description of sustainability is relatively easy to grasp, however there are
many factors that inuence sustainability, which makes the whole
area very complex. There are a number of conceptual models
relating to sustainability and most of these incorporate the interrelationship between the three domains of environmental, economic and social [2]. It could be argued that environmental sustainability is the foundation to sustainability in the sense that
humanity needs the environment to continuously provide natural
resources and to deal with its wastes continuously over time for
humanity to sustain itself and prosper. Many realise that humanity
currently is on an environmentally unsustainable path, with natural resources being gradually used up and harmful emissions
building up in the natural environmental, such that nature is
becoming less and less able to support large numbers of people
[3,4,5]. Considering the above, environmental sustainability has
two major components to it, that is, the sustainability of natural
resource use and impact on the environment due to emissions/
wastes and land use.
In the context of current global energy supply, biofuels have
limited supply capability and cannot sustainably supply a major
portion of current global energy demand, however they can be
part of an overall energy mix, particularly in replacing liquid fossil
fuels with second and third generation biofuels [6,7]. Furthermore,
the potential uses of biomass may be many and thus biofuels have
to compete for available land area with other non-energy applications, especially food, and this could constrain the supply of
biofuels.
Silva Lora et al. [8] discusses the concept of sustainability
applied to biofuels production, outlining the main issues to be
considered. Some biofuel systems have higher life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions when compared to fossil fuels [9],
hence it is necessary to evaluate the life cycle of biofuels. Silva Lora
et al. [8] highlight that sustainability assessment of biofuels needs
a multicriteria approach to assessment and the following environmental sustainability related issues must be considered and
evaluated: Sustainable supply of biomass, productivity and how
much biofuel a given amount of land can sustainably supply;
Impact on the environment in terms of GHG emissions along the
whole life cycle, land use and carbon stock changes, fertiliser
uptake efciency as this inuences N2O emissions, impacts on
water resources, soils and biodiversity.
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an important tool for assessing
the impact on the environment of the life cycle of products and
services. Cherubini & Strmman [10] performed a review of a large
portion of existing scientic literature that explicitly used LCA or a
life cycle approach to estimate environmental impacts of biomass
energy uses. The review highlighted that even though biofuels had
superior performance in terms of GHG emissions, there were a
number of categories, such as human and ecosystem toxicity,
acidication and eutrophication, where biofuels had increased
impacts when compared to many fossil fuels. It also highlighted

issues associated with changes in carbon pools due to land-use

changes and non-CO2 GHG emissions.
There are not many published studies providing detailed life
cycle assessments of forest wood for energy applications. Ecoinvent provide life cycle inventory (LCI) data for hardwood and
softwood production based on central European plantations, in
particular Germany [11]. There are a number of studies conducted
in Scandinavian countries. Berg et al. [12] provided data for a
Swedish study of forestry operations which focused mainly on
energy requirements and environmental impacts due to this. The
LCI involved mainly diesel use, some petrol and electricity. The
average total energy requirement was about 150200 MJ m  3 of
wood. About 53% of total energy requirement was transport.
Logging accounted for around 40% and silviculture and seeding
accounted for 5 and 3%, respectively of total energy requirement.
Characterisation was carried out but this was mainly relating
energy emissions to a common variety of impact categories,
including global warming potential. Michelson et al. [13] provided
LCA data for forestry operations in Norway. The major emissions
were primarily due to fossil fuel combustion caused by logging
operations, transport by forwarder and transport to factory with
these three operations accounting respectively for 84% of global
warming potential, 85% of acidication and 89% of eutrophication.
Gonzalez-Garcia et al. [14] provided a LCA comparison of the
environmental impacts of forest wood production for pulpwood in
Spain and Sweden. The LCA included silviculture (including fertiliser and pesticide production), logging and transport. The environmental impacts considered were mainly due to diesel combustion and fertiliser application. Total energy requirements were
similar at 395.3 MJ m  3 for Spain and 370.2 MJ m  3 for Sweden,
although the contributions were different with silvicuture, logging
and transport accounting for 29.4%, 39.2% and 31.4%, respectively
for Spain and 3.1%, 36.7% and 60.2% for Sweden. This is mainly due
to different forest management requirements/practices and differing average transport distances. For example, a lot more fertiliser was used in the Spanish case-study. Whittaker et al. [15]
provides a recent comprehensive UK study of energy and greenhouse gas emissions of forest systems and this study uses data
from a number of other studies performed in the UK. The average
total energy requirement was about 695 MJ per oven dried tonne
which is somewhat similar to the studies mentioned above, considering the density of oven dried Sitka spruce is about 0.38 t m  3.
In relation to GHG emissions, the major contributions were from
harvesting (41.746.3%), chipping (38.8%41.6%) and transport
(10.611.2%) with smaller contributions from site establishment
(0.87.8%) and road construction (0.11.1%). The study also showed
that GHG emissions to supply a unit of heat energy from average
forest residues of Sitka spruce (at 30% moisture) is 13.3% and 8% of
that from natural gas and coal combustion, respectively. Recent
studies stress that there is a need to incorporate and further elaborate methodologies for land use change in LCA studies involving
forestry operations as these can have a major inuence on global
warming potential and biodiversity [16,17].
The objective of the study presented in this paper was to assess
the environmental sustainability of using forest wood for heat
application in Ireland and to compare with fossil fuel. An important aspect of this study is that it explores the environmental
sustainability from both the perspective of forest resource supply
and impact on the environmental along the life cycle.

J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

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energy supply that could potentially be supplied by forest wood

biomass from Irish forestry. The above analysis will be further
developed in Section 3 to estimate a potential yearly sustainable
supply of Irish forest wood for heat application and the fraction of
Irish heat energy use that this can supply.
2.2. Environmental impacts and sustainability
The second part of the methodology is environmental impact
and its assessment. In this study, this is undertaken as follows:
Fig. 1. Basic structure of environmental sustainability assessment.

 Mainly through life cycle assessment [LCA];

 Exploration of some of the impacts that LCA does not take into

Fig. 2. Basic structures for the life cycle of the application of forest wood for energy.

2. Environmental sustainability assessment methodology

As environmental sustainability involves the sustainability of
natural resource use and impact on the environment due to
emissions/wastes and land use, the assessment methodology used
in this study is broken down into these two fundamental parts, as
illustrated in Fig. 1. It consists of the following:
1) Assessment of the sustainable supply of the resource (i.e. forest
wood for heat)
2) Assessment of environmental impact along the life cycle.
Before elaborating on this structure in the following sections, it
is necessary that environmental sustainability assessment considers the entire life cycle (or include the parts of the life cycle that
will have signicant environmental effects). The basic structure of
the life cycle for producing energy from forest wood is illustrated
in Fig. 2, and further detail is provided in Section 4.
2.1. Sustainable supply of bioresource
Considering that biomass is a potentially sustainable resource,
this leads to estimation of how much biomass can be sustainably
obtained (M BS ) for the desired function over dened time durations, for example annually. This will depend on the following:

 Amount or area of land available for growing biomass (terrestrial biomass) (AB ).

 Average yield of biomass per year for the desired function (Y BF ).

account, for example, biodiversity.

The generic structure to the LCA is that set out by the International
Organisation for Standardization [18,19] in their standard ISO
14040 as follows: Goal and scope denition; Inventory analysis;
Impact assessment; and Interpretation. Details of goal and scope
denition, life cycle inventory analysis for the forest wood and
fossil fuel heating application are presented in Sections 4 and 5,
along with the interpretations of the results. Environmental
impacts associated with the manufacture of equipment and
machinery is not included in this study.
Life cycle impact assessment [LCIA] involves relating the life cycle
inventory [LCI] to impacts on the environment. The framework for
impact assessment consists of the following four main elements:
category denition; classication; characterisation and valuation.
In this study, the LCIA was performed using ReCiPe, which builds
on Eco-indicator 99 and the CML Handbook on LCA [20]. ReCiPe
comprises two sets of impact category denitions, that is, at the
midpoint and at the endpoint. Its characterisation factors were
downloaded in spreadsheet form from the ReCiPe website [21] and
applied in this study. At the midpoint, there are 18 impact
categories, including climate change, terrestrial acidication,
human toxicity and particulate matter formation. At the endpoint,
the midpoint impact categories are further converted and aggregated into the following three endpoint categories:
1. damage to human health (HH)
2. damage to ecosystem diversity (ED)
3. damage to resource availability (RA).
Valuation was carried out in this study because it helps compare environmental impacts between different impact categories
for a given fuel source and also helps compare the environmental
impacts of forest wood with fossil fuels. Valuations were evaluated
for the three endpoint categories, using normalisation factors and
average weighting factors in ReCiPe. These were then summed to
obtain a total valuation (Eco-points). This total environmental
valuation was then dis-aggregated and allocated amongst the
midpoint impact categories and this was validated by comparison
with results from Johnson [22].

This is expressed mathematically in Eq. (1).

M BS Y BF AB

There are potentially many factors that may inuence M BS

through inuencing AB and Y BF . For example, in forest wood biomass for heat application, government policy decisions can inuence forested land area; there is competition among different
applications for forest wood that will inuence the yield for heat
application.
In energy applications, the reason for producing a renewable
source of energy is typically to replace fossil fuel energy, thus it is
of interest to estimate the fraction of energy supply in a region
that can potentially be supplied by the renewable energy source.
In this study, it is of interest to estimate the fraction of Irish heat

3. Assessment of sustainable forest wood energy resource

potential
In 1900, forests represented only 1% of the total area of
Republic of Ireland (ROI). This has been steadily increasing, and in
2010 the total area under forestry was around 745,500 ha which
was about 10.8% of the total land area [23]. In 2010, the total
primary energy requirement for the ROI was 14.8 Mtoe (million
tonnes of oil equivalent) which equals 620 PJ (PJ 1015 J) [24]. 35%
of this was for heat, consequently, in 2010 the primary energy
requirement for heat was 217 PJ.
ODriscoll [25] provides an estimate and classication of forest
wood for energy in ROI. Nearly 40% was used in domestic and

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J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

Table 1
Roundwood production forecast and potential for heat energy supply as a percentage of heat primary energy requirement for ROI in 2010 (217 PJ).
Year

Total wood
volumea

2012 3121
2020 4082
2028 6413
a

Wood volume
available for
heata

Fraction available for heat

Heat
% of ROI
energy (PJ) Heat

960
1454
1750

0.31
0.35
0.27

6.6
10
12.1

3.1
4.6
5.6

Potential net realisable volume production of roundwood (000 m3 over bark).

commercial heating, while around 60% was used in industry and

co-ring, mainly in the forest wood processing industries themselves. In 2010, around 2,907,000 m3 (over bark) was harvested
and around 984,000 m3 of this, or 33.8%, was used for energy in
ROI. This translates into a heat energy content of 6.32 PJ, using a
typical lower heat value of 6.9 GJ m  3 [26]. Expressing the 6.32 PJ
as a percentage of ROI primary energy requirement for heat gives a
value of 2.9%. Consequently, in 2010, forest wood was capable of
providing only 2.9% of ROI heat energy requirement. This is very
important as it shows that forest wood had the capacity of supplying only a small percentage of the heat primary energy
requirement of the ROI, thus it appears to be a very much limited
resource.
Phillips [27] reported a roundwood production forecast for
20122028 and this is presented in Table 1 for selected years.
Within this report is an addendum that provides a forecast estimating the wood bre that would potentially be available for
energy between 2012 and 2028. Data from this addendum was
used to calculate corresponding heat energy values and express
them as a percentage of the 2010 heat primary energy requirement, and this is presented in Table 1. Once again these data show
that although heat output from forest wood could be more than
doubled by 2028, this still may only represent about 5.6% assuming that the heat requirement will be the same as in 2010. This
provides an indication of the potential of the resource.
The numbers for wood and wood energy production forecast
only go out to 2028 and do not provide steady-state values for a
xed area of afforested land. For Sitka spruce, the life-time of a
plantation can be about 40 to 50 years before clear-felling. As Irish
forested area has grown from 5.6% in 1980 to 10.8% in 2010 [over
30 year period], the predicted wood supply forecasts are well
below the sustainable steady-state values. The steady-state yearly
supply value from a given forested area can be estimated using an
average yield. Farrelly et al. [28] performed a comprehensive study
on the productivity of Sitka spruce and found that the national
average weighted yield class was 17 m3 ha  1 yr  1. Philips et al.
[29] states that the weighted yield class for conifers and broadleaves in Ireland is 16.7 and 4.6 m3 ha  1 yr  1. Considering that
conifers and broadleaf represent about 75% and 25%, respectively
of forested area, this gives an average yield of 14.3 m3 ha  1 yr  1.
Philips [27] stated that the net realisable yield will be lower,
typically being in the range of 77% to 91% of the average yield.
Using a mid value of 85% gives an average net realisable yield of
12.2 m3 ha  1 yr  1. Using these data, the steady-state forest output
for a specied % forested land (i.e. % of total land area under forestry) was estimated from Eq. (2).
f orest output % f orestedtotal land area12:2

where total Irish land area is 6.89 million hectares [23].

The fuelwood obtained as a fraction of roundwood harvested in
Table 1 varies from about 0.27 to 0.35. Using an average value of
0.31, the steady-state fuel wood output was estimated from Eq. (3).
f uel wood output 0:31f orest output

Table 2
Estimation of steady-state forest and fuel wood outputs for a given percentage of
Irish total land area under forestry (It is assumed that 31% of total forest output is
used for wood energy).
% forest Forest area
(000 ha)

Forest output
(000 m3/yr)

Fuel wood output

(000 m3/yr)

1
3
4.4
6
10.8
22
34

837
2512
3685
5025
9045
18,425
28,474

260
779
1142
1558
2804
5712
8827

69
207
303
413
744
1516
2343

Fig. 3. System boundary for the use of forest wood for heat application.

An estimate of the sustainable supply of forest wood for fuel,

using Eqs. (2) and (3) is presented in Table 2.
The above analysis suggests that a future sustainable steadystate wood fuel production from 10.8% forested area would be
around 3 times greater than the 2010 real output. The 2010 output
represented about 2.9% of ROI primary energy requirement for
heat. Multiplying this by 3 suggests that a steady-state value of
8.7% could potentially be achieved from 10.8% forested land [noting that this analysis assumes that 31% of total forest output is
used for wood energy]. Furthermore if the amount of Irish land
under forestry was to be increased to the European average of
around 34% [30], this would represent another tripling of future
steady-state output to around 26% of 2010 ROI primary heat
energy requirement, which would represent a very signicant
contribution from forestry.

4. Assessment of environmental impacts

LCA was the major tool used to assess environmental aspects of
the life cycle and details of the LCA study are provided in the
following sections. In addition, discussion of the inuence of carbon sequestration and land use change and the impact of forestry
on biodiversity and water quality in an Irish context is presented
towards the end of this section.
4.1. Goal and scope denition
The goal of the LCA study was to identify and quantify the
major environmental impacts of the application of forest wood for
heat application. The functional unit (FU) is to produce 106 GJ of
heat energy from a boiler with 90% thermal efciency. The system
boundary is illustrated in Fig. 3 and consists of infrastructure

J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

Table 3
Data input for site establishment.
Diesel usage [L/ha]
Site establishment
Materials
N fertiliser
P fertiliser
K fertiliser
Diesel usage
excavator
fertiliser application

Table 5
Data input for emissions from forest wood combustion and diesel life cycle.
Materials [kg/ha]

350.0
350.0
250.0
128.0
11.0

Source of data

[43]
[43]
[43]
[15]
[34]

Table 4
Diesel consumption for harvesting, forwarding, chipping and
transportation (Data sourced from Whittaker et al. [15]).
Diesel usage [L/m3 of wood]
Harvesting
Forwarding
Chipping
Transportation
Round wood
Woodchip

1291

1.2
0.9
1.85
Diesel usage [L/m3 km]
0.03
0.046

Component

Wood combustion [g/GJ of LHV]

Diesel life cycle [kg/m3]

Source of data
CO2
CH4
N2O
NOX
CO
Particulates
SOx
NMVOC

[32]
123,667
0.61
3.17
122.67
84.90
56.80
3.04
0.86

[22]
2969
1.50
0.02
3.91
0.32
0.18
3.49
1.26

Table 6
Air and groundwater emissions from fertiliser application.
Component
Urea (46% N)
N2O
NH3
Rock phosphate
(14% P)
Phosphate

Guidelines

Source of data

1.5% of applied N as N2ON

22% of applied N

[8]
[35]

25% of applied P as phosphate Pa

a
No data was sourced for phosphate leaching, thus a 25% value was used as an
estimate.

which includes the building and maintenance of forest roads along

with fencing requirements; site establishment which includes site
excavation and the application of fertilisers and herbicide; harvesting and forwarding includes the mechanical harvesting of the
forest wood and forwarding of forest wood to the perimeter of the
forest; chipping involves the mechanical size reduction of forest
wood into woodchip; transportation involves the transport of the
wood to the location of chipping and to the combustion boiler;
combustion boiler is where the wood is combusted to produce
heat with a thermal efciency of 90% based on lower heat value
(LHV); fertilisers/herbicides involves the production of these
materials; and diesel involves the production of diesel which is
used in most of the above operations.
4.2. Life cycle inventory raw data
LCI raw input data is of key importance to any LCA study. In this
study, data is only sourced from the literature and from sources
available on-line. Most of the data in relation to forestry operations and processing is not specic to Ireland, where much of
these data was sourced from a UK study [15], however this should
be quite similar to Irish conditions. The raw data input values are
provided in this section, mainly in the following Tables along with
references from where these data were sourced.
Data in relation to forestation, wood harvesting/forwarding/
chipping and transportation are presented in Tables 3 and 4. The
fertiliser values [presented in Table 3] were obtained from the Irish
forest service and these represent maximum values, thus in
practice the values will be lower. Sandilands et al. [31] gave values
of 119 and 54 kg ha  1 for urea and rock phosphate, respectively,
which are a lot lower than the values provided in Table 3. Site
infrastructure, such as road construction and fencing, was omitted
as this has only a very small contribution to environmental impact
[15].
Data on emissions from wood combustion and the diesel life
cycle, including combustion, are presented in Table 5. The Ecoinvent data for forest wood combustion were average data values
obtained for wood chip heating systems with heat outputs of 50,
300 and 1000 kW [32].

Table 7
Life cycle inputs from the environment [per FU].
Component

Quantity

Land area [forestry] (ha)

Land area [wood fuel only] (ha)
Crude oil [for diesel] (tonne)
Crude oil [fertiliser production] (tonne)
Natural gas [for N fertiliser] (tonne)
Rock phosphate [P fertiliser] (tonne)
Potash [K fertiliser] (tonne)

13,199
42,578
968
5
26.2
35.8
25.6

CO2eq emissions data for the production of fertilisers were 1.85

and 0.22 kg CO2eq per kg of urea and rock phosphate, respectively
[33,34] [No data was sourced for muriate of potash, thus the rock
phosphate value was used as an estimate]. Data on emissions from
applying the fertiliser during forestation are provided Table 6.
Typical values are used although Silva Lora et al. [8] noted that N2O
emissions data presented in Table 6 could vary between 0.5 and
5%. Data presented by Yara [35] showed that there could be variations in ammonia volatilisation and NH3 emissions data presented in Table 6 could vary from 2 to 58%. There are a number of
studies that highlight the fact that phosphate leaching do occur
from the application of phosphorus fertiliser, however no data
were found on the proportion typically lost. As this can vary
between 0 and 100%, 25% was used in this study.

4.3. Life cycle inventory in terms of the functional unit

Calculations were performed to convert the raw LCI data to
1) quantify the major inputs from the environment: land, crude oil,
natural gas, fertiliser inputs, and
2) quantify emissions to the environment,
and all in terms of the functional unit (FU). The results of these
calculations are presented in the following sections.

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J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

4.3.1. Inputs from the environment (per FU)

The inputs obtained from the environment by the system are
presented in Table 7 and details of the calculation procedures are
outlined below.
4.3.1.1. Land area requirement. The harvested land area required to
supply the functional unit, that is 106 GJ, is calculated in Eq. (4)
using Eqs. (5) and (6).
!
!
m3wood
ha
harvested area
4
FU
m3wood

where

m3wood
ha

!
Yieldyr rotation years

where:
106: 106 GJ heat energy delivered (functional unit)
LHV vol : lower heat value on a wood volume basis 6.9 GJ m  3
(30% moisture wb)
B : boiler efciency 0.9 (or 90%)
The harvested area required can be a deceptive number
because it does not take time into account or allocation. If it is
required to produce the functional unit (106 GJ) continuously
every year, the harvested land area must be multiplied by the
forest rotation years (Eq. (7)), that is, 40 years in this study and this
increases the area required considerably. In relation to allocation,
the land area calculated in Eq. (7) inherently assumes that all the
wood is harvested for heat energy, while in practice only a fraction
of the area will be used for heat energy, thus factoring in the
allocation (Eq. (8)) increases the forestry land area requirement
further. The land area required for fuel wood only and the forestry
land area requirement are given in Table 7.

land area f or f uel wood

land area f or f orestry
f alloc

Wood combustion

Diesel

CO2
CH4
N2O
NOX
CO
Particulates
SOx
NMVOC
NH3
PO4

0
0.61
3.17
122.67
84.90
56.80
3.04
0.86

3011
1.52
0.02
3.96
0.33
0.18
3.54
1.27

Other
80
0.39

3.62
3.93

Total
3091
2.13
3.58
126.63
85.23
56.98
6.58
2.13
3.62
3.93

Table 9
Disaggregated valuation [ReCiPe eco-points].
Impact category

Eco-points

Climate change
Terrestrial acidication
Freshwater eutrophication
Photochemical oxidants
Particulate matter formation
Fossil depletion
Total

1.90E 05
1.11E 03
1.27E 02
1.03E 02
4.50E 05
1.07E 05
7.49E 05

25.4
0.15
0.02
0.01
60.0
14.4
100.00

from the environment is calculated from Eq. (10).

Natural Gas

Urea  CO2eq  Urea

f CG

10

where:
Urea: mass of urea fertiliser.
CO2eq  Urea : kg of CO2eq per kg of urea produced 1.85 kg kg  1
f CG : kg of CO2 emitted from combusting 1 kg of natural
gas 2.53 kg kg  1
It is assumed that the CO2eq emissions from P and K fertiliser
production is mainly associated with fossil fuel combustion and
thus crude oil associated for P and K can be estimated using a
similar equation to (10).

7
8

where:
f alloc : fraction of forest wood allocated to heat energy application (0.31).
4.3.1.2. Crude oil for diesel. For the production of diesel, it is
assumed that the mass of crude oil required to produce a unit
mass of diesel is given by Eq. (9). This assumes that a kg of diesel is
produced from a kg of crude and that additional crude is required
to supply energy during extraction, rening and transport. The
fraction of additional crude required is assumed to be the same as
that for heating oil, that is 0.1225 or 12.25%, using data provided
by Johnson [22].
Crude Oil 1:1225 Diesel

Component

where:
Yieldyr : average annual net realisable yield 12.2 m3 ha  1 yr  1
rotation years: average Sitka spruce rotation 40 years
!
m3wood
106
6
and

FU
LHV vol B

land area f or f uel wood harvested arearotation years

Table 8
Life cycle emissions [tonne per FU].

4.3.1.3. Natural gas and crude oil for fertiliser production. CO2eq
emissions data for the production of fertilisers are used to estimate
natural gas and crude oil requirements. Natural gas is used in the
production of urea, consequently, the mass of natural gas required

4.3.2. Emissions to the environment

The emissions from the system into the environment are presented in Table 8. The CO2 emission for wood combustion is given
a zero value because in Ireland there is net afforestation over the
last 100 years. Consequently, in this study it is assumed that the
quantity of carbon emitted due to wood combustion is absorbed
again due to reforestation. It should be noted in the case of no
reforestation, the actual CO2 emitted due to wood combustion
would have to be included and this would greatly increase the life
cycle CO2 emissions.
4.4. Life cycle impact assessment [LCIA]
The ReCiPe characterisation and valuation factors were applied
to the LCI data presented in Tables 7 and 8 to evaluate the midpoint and endpoint characterisation values. The valuation [ecopoints] is disaggregated amongst the midpoint impact categories
and presented in Table 9. Some of the impact categories (used in
ReCiPe) are unaffected because the emission components considered in this study do not affect these categories, thus these
categories have no values. The unaffected categories are ozone
depletion; toxicity categories; ionising radiation; water depletion;
and metal depletion. Even though the emission components

J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

considered in this study are not comprehensive, the unaffected

categories are unlikely to have a signicant impact. For example,
Johnson [22] showed that the toxicity categories for the life cycle
of heating oil (also a fuel) represented about 0.7% of total impact
and that ozone depletion, ionising radiation and metal depletion
had negligible impacts. Water depletion has no impact on Irish
forests as they are not irrigated.
There are 3 land use categories (agricultural, urban and natural
land) in ReCiPe and these were omitted. It is valid to omit urban
land use but not the other two. The reason for omitting these is
because they would totally dominate the total impact. For example, over 13,000 ha of forest land (for wood fuel only) is required
to supply the FU. If this is included, then 99.98% of the disaggregated valuation in Table 9 will be due to this impact. This
study has already shown that land use is a major limitation and
dominant impact, thus this has been omitted in order to investigate the other environment impacts (which are totally different to
land use) and to later compare them to fossil fuels.
4.5. Interpretation and sensitivity analysis
4.5.1. Inputs from the environment
Table 7 quanties the inputs that are required from the environment. As already highlighted above, land to grow the wood is a
very big requirement and a dominant impact which ultimately
limits the amount of energy that forest wood can supply. There is
also a requirement for crude oil, especially to supply diesel
required for a variety of operations. This is unsustainable in the
long term as crude oil is a non-renewable resource which will
eventually be exhausted. Natural gas is required for fertiliser
production and this is likewise unsustainable if sourced from fossil
reserves. Rock phosphate in particular but also potash are limited
resources, thus their continued use is also unsustainable. Recycling
of ash from the combustion of wood can help reduce the amount
of rock phosphate and potash required.
4.5.2. Major environment impacts from LCIA
Table 9 outlines the impact categories that are contributing
most to environmental impact (using ReCiPe) and these are as
follows in ascending order:

 Particulate matter formation (60%)

 Climate change (25.4%)
 Fossil fuel depletion (14.4%)
These 3 categories represent 99.8% of the total impact in
Table 9. Other impact categories having values are terrestrial
acidication, freshwater eutrophication and photochemical oxidation, but these constitute only 0.2% of total impact.
4.5.2.1. Particulate matter formation. From the LCI data in Table 8
and midpoint characterisation factors, the major components
responsible for particulate matter formation were particulates
(65.5%) and NOX (32%). Nearly all of the particulate emissions
(99.7%) and NOX (97%) came from wood combustion (Table 8).
Sensitivity analysis was performed using data obtained from
Ecoinvent [32], where data is provided for 8 wood heating systems. The values used in this study (Table 8) were 56.8 g GJ  1 for
particulates and 122.7 g GJ  1 for NOX. The lowest values for particulates and NOX presented by Ecoinvent [32] were 23.5 g GJ  1
and 114 g GJ  1, respectively and the highest values were
156 g GJ  1 and 203 g GJ  1. These numbers were used in sensitivity analysis to investigate how particulates and NOX inuence
environmental impact. It showed that the variation in NOX had a
much lower inuence than variation in particulates. Comparing
the low values for particulates and NOX with the high values

1293

showed that the environmental impact increased by 2.4 times for

the high values over the low values. Overall, attention should be
paid to particulate emissions from wood heating systems and
effort should be made to minimise particulate emissions (PM10) as
this can greatly reduce environmental impact.
4.5.2.2. Climate change. The major contributions to the climate
change category were CO2 (76.2%) and N2O (22.7%). 97.4% of CO2
were contributed by diesel combustion and 89% of N2O were
contributed by wood combustion (Table 8). The other 11% of N2O is
contributed mainly through emissions from N fertiliser application. Sensitivity analysis is not of any benet as most of the impact
is coming from CO2 from diesel combustion and these values are
well dened with little variation.
4.5.2.3. Fossil fuel depletion. This is mainly due to supplying crude
oil to produce diesel.
4.5.3. Impact of diesel use and transportation
Most of the energy requirement along the life cycle is due to
diesel combustion. The total energy requirement is 230 MJ m  3
and this is within a similar range to those reported by others in the
Introduction. Silviculture, logging and transport accounted for 5%,
62% and 32%, respectively. Diesel usage is a signicant unsustainability of the life cycle as it is derived from a non-renewable
resource and its combustion impacts on the environment, in particular climate change. This accounts for about 75% of the climate
change impact, which translates into around 20% of total environmental impact. Transportation (of both roundwood and wood
chip) can vary considerably depending on location and this inuences diesel usage, emissions from combustion and environmental
impact. In the calculations presented above, transportation of
50 km of roundwood and 50 km of woodchip were chosen as
transport distances of relevance within the island of Ireland. As
transportation represents nearly 7% of total environmental impact,
variation in transport distance does have signicant impact.
4.5.4. Impact of fertiliser usage
There are unsustainabilities associated with fertiliser usage in
terms of use of non-renewable resources and environmental
impacts due to emissions to air and water. In terms of the overall
life cycle impacts, the emissions due to fertilisers are not a hotspot
and are small compared to the impacts from other emissions.
However, every effort should be made to minimise the use of fertilisers. There are possibilities for reducing the amount of these
fertilisers required by recycling of wood combustion ash [36] and
the application of organic fertilisers from waste organic sludge [37].
4.6. Inuence of carbon sequestration and land use change
Irish forests have potential to sequester large amounts of carbon, with carbon sequestration rates for Irish forests being about
48 t C ha  1 yr  1 [38] and is much greater than an average carbon
sequestration rate of 2.3 t C ha  1 yr  1 for grassland in Ireland. In
the context of wood fuel, the carbon sequestered by the harvested
wood is released during its combustion. Consequently, the inuence of afforestation on soil carbon content is very important in
evaluating how land use change to forestry will inuence net
carbon sequestration. Zerva et al. [39] showed that the establishment of Sitka spruce forests on previous grassland on peaty gley
soils in the United Kingdom may lead to a decrease in soil carbon
during the rst rotation but also to net accumulation of soil carbon
during a second rotation, bringing the soil carbon stock back to a
similar level to that prevailing in the grassland prior to afforestation. In the context of sustainable wood fuel production over many
rotations, it could be argued that the average soil carbon content

1294

J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

may converge from one rotation to the next and there may be little
or no net carbon sequestration after an initial number of forest
rotations, provided there is no signicant change in the climate.

Table 11
Comparison of dis-aggregated valuation [ReCiPe eco-points].
Impact category

4.7. Biodiversity and water quality

Since the early 1990s there has been considerable improvement in the environmental performance of the Irish forestry sector
in an effort to sustainably manage this resource [40]. There have
been concerns about the impact of forestry on water quality, and
this has led to the introduction of a number of Irish forest service
guidelines dealing with water quality, harvesting and aerial fertilisation. Furthermore there is an Irish national forest standard [41]
which contains criteria and measures relating to water protection.
Also within this standard there are criteria and measures relating
to biodiversity as Ireland is a signatory to the United Nations
Convention on Biological Diversity. All the state owned Coillte
forests are certied under the Forest Stewardship Council standard, although focus needs to be turned to the private forest sector, especially as these plantations near maturity. Considering the
above, Irish forests are, by and large, being managed sustainably.
Irish forestry has been increasing in land area over the last 100
years, is still increasing, and plans are to increase into the future.
Consequently, unsustainability issues associated with deforestation, as in tropical regions, is not an issue in Ireland. This sustainable forest management (SFM) practice is insuring that impact
on water is being minimised so that it is not a signicant impact.
Afforestation will inuence biodiversity as it is changing land use
and the conditions that favour one species over another. However,
forests are recognised as cultivating healthy diverse ecosystems,
even in mono-cultures, such as Sitka spruce, and Irish SFM practice
is helping to maintain sustainable forest ecosystems. Overall, it can
be argued in Ireland that environmental impacts of forestry on
water quality and biodiversity are not of major concern in the
context of assessing environmental impacts in this study.
4.8. Comparison with heating by fossil fuel combustion
The environmental impact of the use of forest wood was
compared with that of combusting fossil fuels, in particular, home
heating oil. To do this comparison, the assessment of environmental impact of heating oil was carried out rst and this was
mainly accomplished through LCA using data obtained from
Johnson [22] and Jungbluth [42]. A comparison of the life cycle
emissions is presented in Table 10. As expected, these show that
the major advantage of forest wood is much lower greenhouse gas
emissions, especially due to much lower CO2 emissions. However,
it must be kept in mind that the CO2 emissions from wood combustion was valued at zero, as it is assumed that the quantity of
these CO2 emission are absorbed during reforestation, and this is a
valid assumption in the context of current Irish forestry. It should
Table 10
Comparison of life cycle emissions [tonne per FU].
Component

Forest wood

Heating oil

CO2
CH4
N2O
NOX
CO
Particulates
SOx
NMVOC
NH3
PO4

3091
2.13
3.58
126.63
85.23
56.98
6.58
2.13
3.62
3.93

92,153
46.62
0.77
79.54
10.00
5.45
155.28
38.98

Climate change
Terrestrial acidication
Freshwater eutrophication
Photochemical oxidants
Particulate matter formation
Fossil depletion
Total

Forest wood

Heating oil

Eco-points

Eco-points

1.90E 05
1.11E 03
1.27E 02
1.03E 02
4.50E 05
1.07E 05
6.41E 05

25.4
0.15
0.02
0.01
60.0
14.4
100.00

4.23E 06
2.56E 03
0.00E 00
1.02E 02
2.78E 05
3.14E 06
4.51E 06

55.5
0.03
0.0
0.0
3.6
40.8
100.0

also be noted from Table 10 that forest wood is emitting signicantly more of some components than heating oil, in particular
particulates, NOX, N2O, CO, mainly due to combustion, and fertiliser emissions in the form of NH3 and phosphate. A comparison of
LCIA output in the form of dis-aggregated valuation values is
presented in Table 11. The land area requirement category was not
included as this has already been highlighted as a major environmental impact for forestry. The total environmental impact
score in Table 11 shows that the forest wood is around 10% of that
of heating oil. The major reason for the difference is mainly due to
the large differences in CO2 emissions and fossil fuel depletion.
Removal of the fossil depletion category and focussing on the
impact of life cycle emissions results in the environmental impact
of forest wood being around 14% of that of heating oil. There are a
number of impact categories where forest wood has worse performance than heating oil. The most signicant is particulate
matter formation where this is 1.6 times greater for forest wood
and represents over 60% of the forest wood environmental impact
in Table 11.

5. Conclusions
The approach used in this study for assessing environmental
sustainability consisted of both assessing how much forest wood
could be sustainably sourced without depleting the natural capital
and assessing what are the unsustainabilities of concern along the
life cycle. The major conclusions in relation to sustainable resource
potential and life cycle environmental impact are presented below.
In 2010, 10.8% of total land area was under forestry. The sustainable steady-state wood production from this area was estimated to be little over 9 (106) m3 yr  1. If 31% of this was used to
supply heat energy, then this could supply about 8.7% of total heat
energy requirement. This represents a relatively small percentage
and highlights the fact that forest wood for heat energy application is a limited resource. There are many factors that may inuence this potential sustainable steady-state supply, which could be
both positive and negative, including forested land area, competition with other uses of forest wood and heat energy demand. For
example, if land area was doubled, then the sustainable supply
could be increased to around 17.4% of 2010 heat requirement.
However, on the other hand, increasing heat energy requirement
(due to economic growth) and competition with other applications
of the wood could reduce this percentage. Even in Ireland with a
relatively low population density, forest wood is a limited resource
and can only play a relatively small part in supplying energy in our
present economic paradigm.
From LCIA, particulate matter formation was the major factor
that contributed to around 60% of the total impact in the LCIA.
Nearly all of this originated from particulates and NOX emissions
emitted from wood combustion. There is much variability in the
input data depending on the combustion process and this suggests

J.J. Fitzpatrick / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 57 (2016) 12871295

that there is scope to greatly reduce this impact. Diesel is by far the
major fossil fuel used throughout the life cycle. This is unsustainable in terms of depleting a non-renewable resource and its
impact on climate change, in particular due to CO2 emissions.
Climate change accounted for about 27% of total impact and diesel
combustion emissions accounted for about 75% of the climate
change impact, which translates into about 20% of total environmental impact. Transportation distances of roundwood and
woodchip had the potential to have much variability which could
signicantly inuence diesel usage combustion emissions. The life
cycles of forest wood energy and fossil fuel energy are different in
many ways and consequently their environmental unsustainabilities differ considerably. Sustainable forestry has a much lower
environmental impact than heating oil (excluding land requirement) at roughly about 10% in this study. This increased to 14%
when fossil fuel depletion was excluded. However, this study has
shown that there are a number of signicant aspects where it
performs worse than heating oil from an environmental sustainability perspective, in particular, emissions of particulates, NOX
and emissions associated with fertiliser usage.

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