Cut-to-length operators learn in the woods on the job

Good harvester - forwarder operators are hard to find, however. Most contractors working cut-to-length processors in the woods learn on the job.

But it’s not something you can learn overnight. George Merrill from Maine, USA, said "it took him a year and a half to get proficient with his first processor".

“It’s just paying attention,” he said.

But it’s paying attention to many things at once. The trail, the stranding trees, working the joysticks, making sure the computer that cuts the logs to length is doing so accurately.

Source: Forests For Maine

We can do it mobile

Mobile collaboration ideas started to surface 15 years ago.

• We selected ideas that could have a meaning in the market
  

We did ground work in different European markets and Northern Europe.

• New logistic tools were emerging
• Technology was new
• People were not used with mobile apps.
• The 3G was still a promise only
• No mobile user examples
• No applications knowledge ecosystem
  

Today, most of those visions can be realized with a reasonable budget.

• Fast Fresh Flow
• Mobile CRM
  
• Cross-border collaboration
  
• Video on-demand
  
• Positioning with GPS
  
• Your computing power in your pocket

Energy Intesive Firms and Climate Change

Energy intensive firms and enterprises are in collaboration with research institutes finding ways to exploit new business opportunities related to the global challenge of climate change.

The need to produce large quantities of biomass based fuels is a key challenge facing Finland, Scandinavia, and many other countries, especially considering the EU's target that 10 per cent of transport fuels should be carbon neutral biofuels by 2020.

Almost a quarter of the energy used in Finland comes from renewable resources, and much of this wood energy in various forms, used particularly within the pulp and paper industry.

New types of biodiesel can potentially be made from a wide range of vegetable oils or even animal fats, in addition to the imported palm oil used so far.

Another focus is the potential of using wood chips to make liquid biofuels.

In the field of wood energy Finland is a major technology provider in global terms. The country of green gold is a world leader in technologies used in harvesting wood for energy use.

Three-quarters of all the forestry machines used around the world are made in Finland.

Transportation management for forestry

Transportation managers, in an effort to contain erratic fuel prices, capacity constraints, escalating freight rates and more demanding vendor requirements, are turning increasingly to transportation management systems to get the job done.

Helge: I think about the central role of cleaver and functional logistics solutions for the Finnish forestry industry. How to get the wood at a reasonable cost from the first and second thinnings. It's not going to be easy.

Still, selecting the right transportation management system (TMS) for your operations isn’t easy. While some providers back their software with a wealth of transportation domain expertise, others are little more than software developers trying to enter a new market space.

Helge: The forest industry has to depend of a combination of solutions. The raw-material supply isn't homogeneous.

Luckily, the very way TMS are built and delivered is undergoing a rapid renovation. In this new industry report, you'll discover eight secrets of TMS that you don't want to uncover after you've purchased a system. Knowing these secrets will strengthen your vendor evaluation process and enable you to find a partner whose TMS fits your requirements.

Helge: Fleet management. I see various ways of doing it.

We need to innovate out of the woods

We are studying how to move towards and advance the development of integrated, stand-alone forest biorefineries.

Since the industry has many established mills, it is appropriate and prudent to explore biorefinery opportunities by integrating biorefinery technologies into existing operations.

Older mills can get a new value, a second life when a new business model is developed based on unique and innovative research and development.

As experience is gained with the range of technologies that would transform a forest products mill into a biorefinery, new integrated, stand-alone mill concepts can be developed for future mill retrofits and greenfield industrial investments.

Innovation Inspired by Biotech and Microbiology

Finland's forests, covering about 75 % of our land area, teem with abundant natural ingredients - from Arctic peat to willow bark extract.

Finland is the sixth largest producer of paper and board. The forests and the forest industries combined, account for for about 7 % of the country's gross domestic production and approximately of our tangible export.

This treasure box of raw materials combined with advanced technological know-how and strategic biotech engineering will catapult new forest based super brands to the market.

Collaboration to stay competitive:

• universities
• research laboratories
• independent consultants
• applied research
• sharing expertise
• productive partnerships

The traditional downstream forest product industries in Europe, North-America face increasing competition from new products and new regions.

Innovative research and development in Finland elsewhere will help us to rise to these challenges.

Nothing stays same in a dynamic globalising world of emerging economic powers and increasing stream of new products competing with established goods.

• the weakening US dollar is changing trading patterns
• US export to Europe will increas
• weakening buying power in US affects Asian consumer goods production
• Chinese and Asian paper mills will become active in Europe as well
  

To deal with these challenges, we help forest industries to add value to their traditional products with the help of research and innovation.

• focusing research
• transnational research
• reallocating existing resources
• investing new assets into areas most relevant to economy and society
• sustainable solutions
• good and effective strategic choices
• cooperation of traditional forestry and innovative networking strategy partners

Where can we make an impact?

1. Energy and the environment
2. Metal products and mechanical engineering
   
3. Health and well-being of the P&P employees and machine operators
4. Information communication manufacturing and services
5. The forest cluster

Unique innovations needed to make traditional forestry industries in high-cost countries profitable again:

• New structures of the programs
• Coordination of international research cooperation can be complex
• Each country has different research organizations and mechanisms to oversee and fund research programs and activities
• Long term strategic research and innovation
• The forest technology platform
• Coordinate and integrate research programs
• Instruments and tools needed for cooperation and integration between local and global programs
  

Research related to forest sector in Finland covers a far wider set of product types than in other countries. In the past, research on the European level was also fragmented and resources wasted.

Finland and Canada Biorefining Potential

CANADA

On an annual basis, BIOCAP estimates that Canada’s “available” renewal resource residuals are

sufficient to account for 18–27 percent of the energy that Canada derives from fossil fuels.

Given Canada’s rugged but fragile terrain and croplands, there is considerable debate over costs as well as energy-effective and environmentally friendly techniques to access available renewable resources.

The logistical conditions in Finland, Sweden and Central European countries favor the Scandinavian harvesting and forestry residuals collecting techniques. Wood and residuals from thinnings can be taken to biorefineries.

FINLAND

The rising costs of petrochemical-derived products and concerns over global warming are also
driving a re-evaluation of possibilities using new and existing methods employed elsewhere. For
instance, it is quite common in Finland to harvest significant levels of slash to produce heat and
power.

Driven by tax policies that penalize fossil fuel use, a large infrastructure of combined heat and power operations exists to utilize this material and has led the development of dedicated forestry equipment for the sorting and bundling of forestry residuals.

Harvesting of precommercial thinnings in the management of reforested areas is another possible source of biomass. Other operators are currently looking at using short-rotation, plantation-based, woody crops such as willow (Canada).

Individual Design of Biorefineries

By utilizing different processing technologies, components of biomass can be separated and isolated for the production of energy fuels, chemicals and materials, which is called biorefining.

The ultimate design of a particular biorefinery will depend upon the nature of the local feedstock:

1. forest (forest and pulp mill residues)
   
2. agricultural (controversial)
   
3. municipal (waste can be turned into valuable new products)
   
4. marine and combinations thereof (sludge...)
   
5. and the targeted outputs.

The Unique Success Formula is still needed

Desired product mixtures in all likelihood will be driven by the demands of other industries, such as the

1. chemicals,
   
2. energy,
   
3. building products,
4. packaging,
   
5. publishing and materials sectors,
   
6. to maximize value from sustainable operations as well as by
   
7. society’s quest to reduce environmental footprints.
   

The scale of these operations
will range from medium-sized
to very large

(equivalent in size to existing chemical plants and pulp and paper mills).

Adoption of biorefineries and related processes and product technologies depends on available

1. research, development and
   
2. prevailing regulations during design and construction.

What is Ponsse doing to move the forestry residuals?

The current system of forest harvesting leaves considerable biomass residuals in the forest. These residuals include branches, foliage and tops (collectively known as slash or forestry residuals) as well as conventionally undesirable tree species and stumps.

We can see this happening all around the country (Finland). New techniques are applied to the collection and transport of forestry residuals.

The mass of forestry residuals is vastly larger than the amount of existing surplus mill residuals. Historically, it has not been economical to harvest and process such resources in the Canadian, US, Scandinavian, European context with low energy prices, although this situation is changing.

The economics of the collection is changing but it's still essential that the transport from the forests to the mill isn't too long. I have a mental map of the mill locations in our country. It's not necessary to say the names and the locations.

Biodiesel, one of the products, should or could be consumed on a local level. We can build a more distributed transport fuel supply system.

Integrated, stand-alone forest biorefineries

We are studying how to move towards and advance the development of integrated, stand-alone forest biorefineries. Since the industry has many established mills, it is appropriate and prudent to explore biorefinery opportunities by integrating biorefinery technologies into existing operations.

Older mills can get a new value, a second life when a new business model is developed based on unique and innovative research and development.

As experience is gained with the range of technologies that would transform a forest products mill into a biorefinery, new integrated, stand-alone mill concepts can be developed for future mill retrofits and greenfield industrial investments.

We count with a potential of four to six units in Finland. Implementation could be even easier in Sweden where mills have a lot of own forests. UPM is a big a forest owner in Finland. The value of wood is not in the fibers anymore.

A forest biorefinery would use variable feedstocks including

1. harvesting residues,
   
2. extracts from effluents and
   
3. fractions of pulping liquors to produce fibre, energy, chemicals and new bio-materials

As mills demonstrate the potential of the new forest harvesting and processing technologies and prove to be commercially viable, new integrated, stand-alone facilities can be constructed to serve traditional markets for wood and paper products as well as new ones for energy, chemicals and materials.

There is a big logistical challenge for stand-alone and new greenfield units.

Strategic alliances with companies in the energy, chemicals and manufacturing sectors would be essential, as these companies have the infrastructure and market knowledge needed to successfully compete in their industry sectors.

The picture is quite clear: Stora Enso and Neste Oil are natural partners. UPM is partnering with Andritz that is an Engineering company. UPM is considering its pulp and paper companies in France and Scotland as pilot units. What could be done in Voikkaa?

What is forest biorefinery?

Definitions:

1. A biorefinery is a facility that integrates biomass conversion processes and equipment to produce fuels, power, and value-added chemicals from biomass
   
   (National Renewable Energy Laboratory, USA / www.nrel.gov/biomass/biorefinery+ Wikipedia)
   
   

1. Efficient use of the entire potential of raw materials and by streams of the forest-based sector towards a broad range of high added value products (by co-operation in and between chains)
   
   (EU Forest-Based Sector Technology Platform / BiorefineryTaskforce, April 17, 2007)
   
   
   
2. Full utilization of the incoming wood biomass for production of fibres, chemicals and energy
   
   (STFI-Packforsk, Sweden)

Forests and Cellulosic Ethanol

Forest thinnings are made in a different way in North America. They cut the wood and burn the waste in the forests.

• We take out the thinning material
• Now plans to use the "wood waste" for biofuel production
• The water usage is discussed
• Location of ethanol plant is important
• Logistics is an important element
• Cost of raw-material transportation

POWER Initiative Wisconsin

POWER Initiative: "POWER Initiative Promoting Our Wisconsin Energy Resources Governor Jim Doyle Wisconsin

BioIndustry utilizes
traditional and emerging technology
to turn organic matter into biofuels,
biopower and bioproducts.

Wisconsin has a history of creating value-added economic opportunities for agriculture, manufacturing and forestry.

Today, Wisconsin is leading the nation in creating sustainable economic strategies that utilize renewable energy and fuel sources from our working lands in agriculture and forestry.

Our state's next step is a shift to using biomass for products now made from petrochemicals. Biomass is a renewable resource for which Wisconsin is a natural leader; we have abundant biomass resources, including crops and waste from paper mills, cheese plants and livestock facilities.

The POWER Initiative taps other renewable resources the state possesses in abundance - good, old-fashioned Wisconsin hard work and ingenuity."

Helge: I continue my journey to find out what biotechie's are doing in various regions around the world.