Wood provides cheap, affordable, renewable thermal energy, based on an internal resource, but paradoxically the state subsidizes heating with fossil fuels, while green thermal energy from biomass is not supported, according to representatives of the Wood Industry Association – Prolemn.

According to the association’s specialists, the results of the first main auctions organized by the National Forest Directorate (RNP) Romsilva give signals of aggravation of the wood resource crisis and of the increase of prices for 2022.

“At the auction organized by the Vâlcea Forestry Department, the average adjudication price was 462 lei/cubic meter of wood, compared to an average adjudication price of 147 lei/cubic meter for the production of 2021. These adjudication prices appeared on the background of a timber reductions halved in the main tenders for 2022, as compared to timber for the production of 2021 and against the background of a maximum uncertainty regarding the additional blockages that could be induced by the over-regulation of the environmental assessment of forest management, blockages that could reduce further the market volume. In the autumn of 2021, the prices of firewood have doubled compared to 2020, and if we start from the prices of wood in the forest, of over 400 lei/cm, in 2022 price might reach absurd levels, much higher than the prices of valuable industrial wood in any European country. And exaggeratedly high prices and resource scarcity lead to the directing of the raw material to firewood, affecting the supply of the wood industry. An industry that brings in Romania’s GDP 7 billion euro annually, supports 150,000 jobs and has a net foreign exchange contribution in the country’s trade balance of 3.5 billion euro,” said the professional organization, according to Agerpres.

According to the quoted source, in the public space a misinformation is promoted regarding the prohibition, through a European directive, of the use of firewood.

“(…) In fact, there is no such directive, and through PNRR (National Recovery and Resilience Plan, no.), Romania has committed itself only to certain reforms for the protection of the environment and biodiversity. The Romanian version specifies: ‘The reform…will ensure the sustainability and traceability of biomass in order to prevent any negative impact of the use of bioenergy on biodiversity and forests and to diversify the energy mix for heating and cooling, using raw materials other than forest biomass. The reform will diversify the energy mix in the heating and cooling sector, reducing the forest biomass component. Therefore, the diversification of the energy mix is required. There is also agricultural biomass. And heat pumps. Energy wood should not divert resources to firewood, as is the case this fall, affecting the availability of raw materials for the wood industry,” specialists say.

Regarding the use of wood as an alternative to a rising GC (gigacalorie price, the Prolemn Association notes that “paradoxically, the state subsidizes heating with fossil fuels, while green thermal energy from biomass is not supported.”