A creation of the State Bioenergy Development Program for the Northwest Russia has been started. The new program will solve social, ecological and economical problems of the region. One of the main goals of the Program is to adopt widely the wood biomass as a sustainable resource for producing energy, transportation fuels, chemicals and other value added products. The first interest is in energy.

The Program will be developed by the Wood Industries Confederation of Northwest Russia by request of the Russian President Administration of the Northwest.

A program creator, Dr. Olga Rakitova, the Bioenergy Officer of the Wood Industries Confederation of Northwest Russia, says that the program will be concern with all aspects of wood biomass and bioenergy, from production through to utilization, and it embraces technical, commercial, economic, societal, environmental, policy and market issues.

“Ecological aspect of the new Program is also very important. The wood waste burning is accepted as ecologically neutral quiet the contrary the coal or oil burning,” Dr. Rakitova continues.

“The new Program will concern with all aspects of wood biomass and bioenergy. Ecological aspect of the Program is also very important,” stresses Ms Olga Rakitova, PhD in Economics.

Northwest is rich in forests

The Northwest of Russia has 11 regions. There is a long border with Europe – 2200 km. It borders with Finland, Sweden, Norway, Poland and Baltic countries.

The Russian Northwest is one of the richest forest regions in the country. It has 54% of Russian European wood. A volume of annual wood cut potential is 102,4 million m³ which is used for 40%. About 41 million m³ of wood were cut in the Northwest last year. It is much more than the Russian average which equals to 25%.  

“There are a lot of far lands in the Northwest where there is only wood or straw and there are no gas, no oil, no coil. An implementation of new biomass technologies will solve social heating and electricity problems,” stresses Dr. Rakitova.

A current capacity of accessible wood biomass in the Northwest of Russia is about 16 million m³ per year.

Bioenergy progresses slowly in Russia

Bioenergy is developing very slowly in Russia at the moment. Utilization of all renewable energy resources in Russia is less than 0,3% at the moment. There is no State policy for supporting this direction in the Russian Federation yet, laws are creating still.

In the Northwest there are several biomass boilers, but the number of them is still small. However there are about 15 pellet plants in the Northwest of Russia, their full capacity is more than 200 000 tons of pellets per year but only 30 000 tons were produced in 2004.  All produced pellets are exported to Europe.

New plants are created on the base of new Danish, German, Swedish and other western pellet-presses in the Northwest.

The Wood Industries Confederation in brief:

The Wood Industries Confederation of Northwest Russia (WIC NWR) consolidates the biggest Russian wood and forest enterprises, companies, research institutes, universities and wood associations. It was established in 2002 to foster and facilitate the development of wood and forest industries in Russia. Its founders are a core of the Federal Government and big business.

A head of the WIC NWR is a deputy officer of the Russian President Administration in the Northwest Mrs. Lubov P. Sovershaeva. CEO of the WIC NWR is Mr. Denis L. Sokolov.

More information for cooperation:

Dr. Olga Rakitova, Bioenergy Officer
Tel. 007 812 303 92 82
Email: rakitova@wicnwr.ru

SUCCESSFUL BIOMASS-DAYS IN THE NORTHWESTERN RUSSIA

Europe was celebrating the Biomass-Days from 25^th September to 2^nd October. The Northwest Russia was also taking part in this event. A promoter of the Biomass-Days idea in Russia was the Wood Industries Confederation of the Northwest Russia (WIC NWR).

During the Biomass Days the WIC NWR organised several events:

*A conference about liquid biofuels took place in the Office of the Russian President in the Northwest in St.Petersburg in 27^th September. Specialists and officials from all 11 Northwest Russian regions came for this meeting.

*Another activity of the WIC NWR during the Biomass-Days was an issue of the first hand-book about wood pellets in Russia and CIS  (former Soviet Union Republics as Belarus, Ukraine and others). In the book readers could find information about market, prices, technology, economics, logistics, hidden dangers of working with this product in Russia. The authors of the book are Dr. Olga Rakitova, Anton Ovsyanko and Svetlana Alexandrova. The book  is planned to translate it into English in future and will be distributed among all interested people as well.

*To promote an idea of using biomass for heating and electricity, the WIC NWR has launched a website. A forum of the website was be launched on Monday 26^th  September for intensification of the bioenergy promotion.

*A conference on bioenergy, took place in St. Petersburg in 5^th October in the framework of the International Forestry Forum in St. Petersburg.

The Wood Industries Confederation of the Northwest Russia has also other projects on bioenergy. It develops a cooperation for bioenergy, biofuel and biomass among Russian and foreign companies from all over the world.

According to the estimation of the WIC NWR experts, the technical annual wood biomass potential of the Northwestern Russia is 16 million cubic meters of wood waste.