Ecological and Economic Assessment of the Use of Wood Fuel for Heat Supply Purposes

Enterprises of the timber industry lose a large amount of wood in the form of waste, which is advisable to use for energy purposes. A comprehensive ecological and economic assessment of the efficiency of its use is necessary to justify the introduction of wood fuel. A method of ecological and economic assessment of the cost of reduced emissions for energy facilities is proposed. It is based on the ratio of the costs of implementing environmental technology and the environmental effects of its implementation. The proposed method makes it possible to estimate the environmental effect, namely, the amount of reduced or prevented emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in value terms. The method was tested on the example of replacing coal with wood fuel (fuel pellets and wood chips) in the boiler houses of the coastal areas of Lake Baikal. The study showed that wood fuel is environmentally attractive and economically promising. The efficiency of its use depends on a number of factors: the prices of coal and wood fuel, the remoteness of the boiler house from the place of fuel production, the transport infrastructure of the area, the power of the heat source. A significant environmental effect was revealed: a reduction in pollutant emissions by 94%, a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere by 99.9% and a reduction in the formation of ash and slag waste by 92–91%.