ORCID Profile
0000-0002-4657-1322
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
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Publisher: Pensoft Publishers
Date: 19-03-2021
DOI: 10.3897/SILVABALCANICA.22.E58636
Abstract: The study used time studies and cost analysis to assess potential economic benefits from site preparation cost reductions resulting from producing coarse woody harvesting residue (CWHR) for bioenergy. In contrast, previous studies have predominantly used anecdotal estimates of site preparation costs.The study was performed in a recently clearfelled 15-year-old plantation of Eucalyptus globulus (Labill) in Tasmania, Australia. The study area consisted of the control area (0.51 ha), containing ~35 m 3 ha -1 of CWHR and the CWHR harvest area (2.47 ha), containing & le m 3 ha -1 of CWHR. The control area had been harvested with a harvester & ndash forwarder system, which left all harvesting residue (HR) onsite, where-as the CWHR harvest area had been harvested with a feller-buncher & ndash skidder & ndash processor system which removed most of the HR. The latter site was used to simulate an area where CWHR had been harvested. The study examined productivities and costs of machines performing site preparation in each area. The preparation of the control area site was performed with an excavator that windrowed CWHR, fol-lowed by a skidder-mounted plough constructing planting furrows. Residual CWHR post-windrowing was m 3 ha -1 . Productivities and costs were 0.53 ha PMH 0 -1 and AUD$319 ha -1 for the excavator and 1.1 ha PMH 0 -1 and AUD$139 PMH 0 -1 for the skidder-mounted plough. The excavator was not required in the CWHR harvest area. In this area, skidder-mounted plough productivity and cost were 1.16 ha PMH 0 -1 and AUD$109 ha -1 suggesting CWHR reduction to & le m 3 ha -1 could reduce site preparation costs by AUD$319 ha -1 . Further studies on costs and revenues associated with CWHR removal and sale are required to determine net economic benefits and determine excavator cost and productivity for a range of CWHR quantities.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2012
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 22-01-2016
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2014
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 18-08-2014
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 09-04-2021
DOI: 10.3390/F12040455
Abstract: Australia’s large potential forest bioenergy resource is considerably underutilised, due largely to its high delivered costs. Drying forest biomass at the roadside can potentially reduce its delivered cost through weight reduction and increased net calorific value. There has been little research on the impact of roadside drying for Australian conditions and plantation species. This study compared delivered costs for three forest biomass types—Eucalyptus globulus plantation whole trees and logging residue (LR)-disaggregated (LR conventional) or aggregated (LR fuel-adapted)—and three roadside storage scenarios—no storage, ≤two-month storage and optimal storage—to supply a hypothetical thermal power plant in south-west Western Australia. The study was performed using a tactical linear programming tool (MCPlan). Roadside storage reduced delivered costs, with optimal storage (storage for up to 14 months) producing the lowest costs. Delivered costs were inversely related to forest biomass spatial density due to transport cost reductions. Whole trees, which had the highest spatial density, stored under the optimal storage scenario had the lowest delivered costs (AUD 7.89/MWh) while LR conventional, with the lowest spatial density, had the highest delivered costs when delivered without storage (AUD 15.51/MWh). For both LR types, two-month storage achieved ~60% of the savings from the optimal storage scenario but only 23% of the savings for whole trees. The findings suggested that roadside drying and high forest biomass spatial density are critical to reducing forest biomass delivered costs.
Publisher: National Inquiry Services Center (NISC)
Date: 21-04-2017
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-11-2017
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-01-2020
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 20-02-2019
Publisher: National Inquiry Services Center (NISC)
Date: 25-02-2015
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-10-2017
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 18-01-2022
DOI: 10.3390/F13020138
Abstract: Forest biomass (FB) could supply more of Australia’s energy needs, but delivered costs must be reduced for it to be a viable energy source. Operational planning is critical to reducing delivered costs as it determines actual activities, though few operational FB supply chain (FBSC) planning tools have been published. This paper presents a “proof-of-concept” operational FBSC decision support system (DSS) to schedule FB deliveries for eight weeks from roadside storage for the least cost, taking in account moisture content changes. Four mathematical models are compared, solving a linear formulation of the FB delivery problem in terms of solution speed and delivered cost, and the practicality of implementing the solutions. The best performing model was a Greedy algorithm as it produced solutions not significantly different from those of the tested linear programming solver and was readily modified to significantly improve solution implementation through the addition of a non-linear element. FBSC planning tools typically assume accurate knowledge of stored FB quantities and that little or no rainfall occurs during storage. In practice, stored FB quantity estimates can be inaccurate due to variation in the bulk density of the piles. Improving these estimates is a critical area for future research. This study found that simulated rainfall with mm during the first week of the scheduled period did not significantly effect delivered costs.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2021
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 2013
Publisher: National Inquiry Services Center (NISC)
Date: 10-2011
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-12-2019
DOI: 10.1007/S11676-019-01078-6
Abstract: A new model for predicting the total tree height for harvested stems from cut-to-length (CTL) harvester data was constructed for Pinus radiata (D.Don) following a conceptual analysis of relative stem profiles, comparisons of candidate models forms and extensive selections of predictor variables. Stem profiles of more than 3000 trees in a taper data set were each processed 6 times through simulated log cutting to generate the data required for this purpose. The CTL simulations not only mimicked but also covered the full range of cutting patterns of nearly 0.45 × 10 6 stems harvested during both thinning and harvesting operations. The single-equation model was estimated through the multiple-equation generalized method of moments estimator to obtain efficient and consistent parameter estimates in the presence of error correlation and heteroscedasticity that were inherent to the systematic structure of the data. The predictive performances of our new model in its linear and nonlinear form were evaluated through a leave-one-tree-out cross validation process and compared against that of the only such existing model. The evaluations and comparisons were made through benchmarking statistics both globally over the entire data space and locally within specific sub isions of the data space. These statistics indicated that the nonlinear form of our model was the best and its linear form ranked second. The prediction accuracy of our nonlinear model improved when the total log length represented more than 20% of the total tree height. The poorer performance of the existing model was partly attributed to the high degree of multicollinearity among its predictor variables, which led to highly variable and unstable parameter estimates. Our new model will facilitate and widen the utilization of harvester data far beyond the current limited use for monitoring and reporting log productions in P. radiata plantations. It will also facilitate the estimation of bark thickness and help make harvester data a potential source of taper data to reduce the intensity and cost of the conventional destructive taper s ling in the field. Although developed for P. radiata , the mathematical form of our new model will be applicable to other tree species for which CTL harvester data are routinely captured during thinning and harvesting operations.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 02-04-2020
Publisher: Scion
Date: 25-11-2019
Abstract: Background: Forest biomass is a major global source of biofuel. To compete with other energy sources its delivered costs need to be reduced. Globally, logging residue (LR) is likely to be the cheapest, readily available forest biomass form. LR transport is a major cost component. Methods: A harvester-forwarder harvest system was studied in two adjacent areas to compare Swedish “fuel-adapted harvesting” with conventional cut-to-length harvesting at the stump in a mature Pinus radiata D.Don plantation in Western Australia to assess the impact of fuel-adapted harvesting on costs and productivity of a harvester and forwarder producing logs and extracting LR and on LR yield. Results: Harvester and forwarder productivities producing logs were significantly reduced in the fuel-adapted area compared with the conventional area which increased log production costs for the fuel-adapted site by 15%. Forwarder productivity extracting LR and LR yield were significantly greater in the fuel-adapted area which reduced LR extraction costs by approximately 28%. This was due to the ease of loading LR from residue piles created during fuel-adapted harvesting compared with loading scattered residue from conventional harvesting. The cost reduction for LR extraction from the fuel-adapted area exceeded the increased log harvest and extraction costs. This resulted in the combined log and LR costs for the fuel-adapted area being approximately 12% lower than those for the conventional area. Increased forwarder productivity through adoption of larger load bunks and residue-specific grapples combined with increased operator experience with fuel-adapted harvesting would be likely to further decrease log and LR production costs. Conclusions: The results show that adoption of fuel-adapted harvesting could reduce LR delivered costs, thus increasing its viability as a biofuel. However, primary transport cost is only one component of LR delivered costs and needs to be considered in combination with the reduction of other supply chain costs, particularly secondary transport costs which can make up a large proportion of LR delivered costs. Because removal of most LR from a site can reduce subsequent tree growth, guidelines specifying the proportion of LR retained should be considered.
Publisher: MDPI AG
Date: 11-2017
DOI: 10.3390/F8110415
Publisher: Czech Academy of Agricultural Sciences
Date: 31-07-2017
DOI: 10.17221/10/2017-JFS
No related grants have been discovered for Martin Strandgard.