![Sample our Engineering & Technology journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5933/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Engineering-Tech.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The development of modern cut-to-length forest harvesting techniques, the availability of non-industrial wood resources, and Russian customs policy have created favorable conditions for the export of wood chips to biomass-based power plants in Finland. Cost of transportation is paramount to the financial feasibility of the bioenergy business, especially long-distance transportation costs. Therefore, the efficiency and costs of cross-border transportation of wood chips were analyzed. The results were compared with the efficiency and costs of transportation of wood chips of Finnish origin. Truck drivers working in the cross-border transportation of wood chips were also interviewed to determine the factors that affect the efficiency of wood chip transportation. The results showed that the highest transportation costs for an 80-km reference distance were those within Finland, at €5.6/m3 loose wood chips, compared to a cross-border route cost of €3.5/m3 loose wood chips. Thus, the proportion of transportation costs to the total supply cost was slightly higher in cross-border transportation (24%) than in Finland (23%) and in Russia (19%). Furthermore, bad road conditions on the Russian side, idle time at the border and the current working schedule of the border crossing point were recognized by truck drivers as the main factors that decreased the efficiency of cross-border transportation.
Acknowledgments
The work of Maxim Trishkin and Eugene Lopatin was funded by the Ministry of Education and by the Science of Russian Federation (Project ID RFMEFI58615X0020, contract no. 14.586.21.0020).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.