THE HANDLING OF WOOD AND DETERMINATION OF WOOD CONTENT ON PEAT PRODUCTION SITES

摘要

The wood in peat excavation fields, such as stem wood and stumps hinder the different stages of peat production. Significant part of the excavation sites contain so much wood, that it has to be removed by lifting it as one piece or by milling it among the peat. The taxation of the wood fuel on peat production sites in Finland is not explicit. Wood, which is picked up as one piece is classified as wood fuel, but crushed wood is regarded as peat. Peat has a tax in heat production, but wood fuels are tax-free. In order to apply the same tax treatment for wood among fuel peat, there should be an analyzing method for determining the wood content of peat. The determination method is needed especially, because technical and economical factors favor milling based processing of wood. Sieving and statistical methods have been developed for determining the wood content of peat. Both analyzing methods can be used for determinations, but it is preferred to choose only one, which is applied in practice nationwide. The milling treatment of peat layer changes the taxation of wood among peat. The tax of wood affects to the economy of peat production and the national carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore the status of wood should be officially defined nationally. Internationally this definition should be done at IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Chance), because the directives of the instance are used to make the national CO_2 emission inventories.