In Norway, the forest resources in the standing forest and the annual harvest of industrial roundwood are well monitored. However, the flows and stocks of wood resources throughout the industrial value chains have no coherent information. The purpose of this work is to quantify the main flows of wood resources into and out of the Norwegian sawmilling industry. Material flow analysis (MFA) is the main method applied with a combination of statistical data and process parameters. MFA is a method for analyzing the flows and stocks of materials and substances through a well defined system. It is based on the law for conservation of mass, i.e. that the inputs of a process must equal the outputs plus the change in the stocks of the process. The system boundaries used are the Norwegian sawmilling industry and the foreign markets of its products. Production data are gathered from the sawmilling industry’s trade association and national industry and trade statistics. Average process parameters are estimated from data gathered in previous studies. The results provides a holistic quantification of the internal and external utilization of the different wood products.
Keywords: Material flow analysis, sawmilling industry, resource availability
Authors
Tellnes L.G.F.
Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology, Oslo, Norway
Flæte P.O.
Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology, Oslo, Norway
Nyrud A.Q.
Norwegian Institute of Wood Technology, Oslo, Norway
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