Wood Chip, Wood Pellet, and Wood Briquette from Energy Plantations for Local Market

The floods in South Kalimantan in January 2021 almost drowned one province

To be able to provide benefits and maintain environmental balance, forests must be managed or according to their purpose. The conversion of forest land to palm oil plantations, housing and so on will create an imbalance in the environment as a result of which natural disasters will occur. In-depth and comprehensive studies have certainly been carried out to determine the use of the land so that its sustainability is maintained and benefits human life. When the benefits for human life, especially the economy, are a priority and dominant, then the balance of the environment is automatically disturbed and natural disasters are ready to lurk at any time. The laws and regulations that are supposed to maintain this balance are imposed and amended for that purpose. For example, regulations on the minimum area of ​​a protected forest area in an area are no longer needed or adapted to conditions so that it is very vulnerable to fraud. And when human greed is getting out of control because it is so materialistic, the nature and the environment is getting more and more damaged so that the consequences are natural disasters everywhere such as drought and forest fires in the dry season, floods and landslides in the rainy season and so on.

On the other hand, industrial forest plantations (HTI) which are intended for economic aspects must also be used optimally, as well as a number of idle lands and so on. Energy plantation is one of the best options, more details can be read here. As a source of fuel or an energy source from biomass, the wood produced in energy plantation can be processed into wood chips, wood pellets or wood briquettes. The choice of product to be produced depends on a number of things such as the distance between the energy plantation and the industrial user, production capacity, industry / market needs and investment value. The closer the industrial users or markets are to energy plantations, the simpler biomass energy products are, such as wood chips. Biomass densification such as pellets and briquettes is needed if the location of the energy plantation and the user is far away so that transportation costs are high. By densification into pellets or briquettes, transportation costs can be saved, as well as more efficient storage, easier handling and use.

Palm kernel shell (PKS) is a biomass fuel which is also abundant in Indonesia, more details about PKS can be read here. This PKS is also a competitor for biomass fuel from the energy plantation. Previously, much PKS were exported to Japan and Korea, but the imposition of high export tax and levy made the price less competitive, for more details can be read here. This also further encourages the use of PKS for industry in the country. Moreover, starting in 2022, PKS that enter Japan must also be RSPO certified or this is analogous to wood pellets with its FSC.

 

Ideally, PKS should be used for domestic industries because besides being cheap, the volume is also large. Domestic industries can be more competitive if the fuel is cheap. Meanwhile, wood pellets from energy plantations are for export orientation. In addition to the added value being greater than the wood pellet production activity itself, labor absorption is also more. However, in certain periods the supply of PKS can be disrupted, such as a decrease in the production of CPO or palm fruit during the low crop season, the location of palm oil mills in remote areas, resulting in difficulties in transportation / logistics and weather at sea. With the condition that most of the industries are located in Java and there are still thousands of hectares in Java for making energy plantations, under certain conditions energy plantations and wood product processing are quite prospective in Java. Continued.