Assessment of social, economic, and environmental aspects of woody biomass energy utilization: Direct burning and wood pellets

In this paper, we discuss the social, economic, and environmental aspects of utilizing woody biomass for energy. We first conducted a questionnaire survey to determine which energy utilization methods were preferred in Japan and to collect the data on the cost, workforce, and energy production relevant to each energy utilization method. The results of the survey indicated that energy recovery by direct combustion and combusting wood pellets were the preferred methods. Subsequently, we employed input–output analysis to compare certain factors pertaining to the two preferred energy utilization methods. The factors were compared in relation to energy generation from the unutilized woody biomass in Japan, which amounts to 8.58 million tonne annually. The relevant factors were the social effects of employment creation, the economic effect, and the reduction of CO2 emissions. As a result, however, as direct burning has advantages on 13.7 million tonne of CO2 emission reduction, there are few impacts on increase of production and employment creation. In addition, we found that combusting the wood pellets was advantageous because of the increase in production (981 million USD) and the creation of employment opportunities (24,700 jobs).