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The Potential Supply of Biomass for Energy from Hardwood Plantations in the Sunshine Coast Council Region of South-East Queensland, Australia

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Abstract

Small community-based biomass energy systems sourcing feedstocks from local small-scale forests are common in the northern hemisphere but are few in Australia. Fine-grained analyses of feedstock availability are an important precursor to increased investment in these systems in Australia. This study presents estimates of the potential biomass for energy supply from hardwood plantations within the Sunshine Coast Council region of southeast Queensland. The region’s 1,120 ha of private farm forestry, corporate-owned and joint venture hardwood plantations are predominantly small-scale (<20 ha) Gympie Messmate (Eucalyptus cloeziana) monocultures. Plantation age-class and corresponding area, productivity and management history findings and informed harvest-related assumptions underpin a 20-year forecast of biomass yields from a suggested plantation harvest schedule. The biomass yields are underbark stem-wood quantities assumed to be unmerchantable for higher-value solid-wood products. Future thinning (at age 12 years) and clearfell harvests (age 25 years) could provide minimum woody biomass yields of 30 and 108 GMt/ha respectively. Closer to 200 GMt/ha may be available from clearfell harvests of poorly-managed farm forestry plantations. The forecast annually available biomass supply is highly variable and mostly of small quantities. Biomass energy plants seeking a sustainable supply of feedstock must therefore access additional locally-available waste biomass. Further research is required to identify and quantify these sources. Field trials are also required to understand better the likely product mixes and available volumes of biomass for energy from the region’s various hardwood plantations and to test for efficient integrated biomass harvest and supply chain systems for the sizes and terrains that are characteristic of these plantations.

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Notes

  1. Beerburrum State Forest (surrounding the Beerburum-Beerwah-Glasshouse Mountains district) is the major hub of the Sunshine Coast’s HQPlantations-managed 14,805 ha Exotic Pine (Pinus spp.) estate.

  2. No testing for statistically significant differences between the MAIs of the two plantation types was conducted as this was beyond the scope of the current study.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Sunshine Coast Council/University of the Sunshine Coast Research Fellow Seed Grant that funded this research. We thank the local forestry industry professionals for their various contributions and assistance, particularly Ian Last (HQPlantations), Kaara Shaw (PFSQ), Paul Sprecher (Noosa Landcare) and David Lee (USC/DAFF). We thank Greg Easton for providing Fig. 1. Many thanks also go to the landholders who provided access to their plantations and other contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Industries Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, QLD, 4556, Australia

    John Meadows & Mark Brown

  2. Department of Forest and Ecosystem Science, The University of Melbourne, Burnley Campus, Richmond, VIC, 3121, Australia

    David Coote

  3. Ian Wark Laboratories, CSIRO Ecosystem Sciences, Clayton, VIC, 3168, Australia

    David Coote

  4. Cooperative Research Centre for Forestry, Sandy Bay, TAS, 7005, Australia

    David Coote & Mark Brown

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  1. John Meadows
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Correspondence to John Meadows.

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Meadows, J., Coote, D. & Brown, M. The Potential Supply of Biomass for Energy from Hardwood Plantations in the Sunshine Coast Council Region of South-East Queensland, Australia. Small-scale Forestry 13, 461–481 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11842-014-9265-7

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