Residential use of firewood in Northern Sweden and its influence on forest biomass resources

Firewood is society’s oldest source of household energy and is still extensively used around the world. However, little is known about firewood usage in technologically advanced countries with high energy consumption. Some key issues include quantities of firewood currently used and future trends, as well as the influence of this usage on available biomass resources. This study addresses those issues through a postal questionnaire to 1500 of the firewood using households in a region in Northern Sweden. One-third of households produced 11-20 solid m³ of firewood per year. Three-fourths expected their production to be unchanged or increase during the coming five years. A large proportion of young producers indicated long-term continuation of firewood usage. Half (53%) of the firewood producing households owned forest and thereby had free access to wood. Produced firewood volume corresponded to 4-8% of the region’s roundwood volume harvested for industrial purposes. The use of firewood is suggested to influence decisions of private forest owners about management and harvest of forest biomass, and, thus, affect supply for bioenergy and other uses. With further incorporation of firewood usage into forest biomass management regimes, larger biomass quantities are likely to be available for industrial uses.