Large Project on Integration of UN SDGs in Forest Management to Target Genetic Tree Breeding

An encompassing project is about to kick off with the aim to integrate the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in forest management and climate change adaptation in the boreal belt traversing Scandinavia and Latvia. The state-run Sweden’s Innovation Agency Vinnova is set to fund the effort. 

The three-year project, the Swedish part of which is led by a Bio4Energy scientist, will investigate genetic tree breeding as a means to increase growth and resistance to pests and altered weather conditions of coniferous trees, while also exploring the avenue of mixing in broad-leaved trees in boreal forest plantations as a way of increasing the resilience of the forest ecosystem. Rosario García-Gil is coordinating the effort involving national research agencies in Norway, Finland, Latvia and the Bio4Energy partner Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), as well as a cross-sectoral organisation representing the value chain of forest products, headed up from Norway.

The volume growth of trees may be increased by one fifth, according to the research proposal, using advanced genetic tree breeding methods. This will also shorten a tree’s growth period to maturity, thus shortening the time between plantation and harvesting.

“The analyses [currently available] assessing sustainability goals have not acknowledged the impact of tree breeding and different regeneration methods on growth and resilience of forests and the quality of wood produced”, the proposal says;

“Effects of climate change on forests can be mitigated by tree breeding and optimal deployment, if most crucial changes in climate can be predicted and the genetic basis of adaptation to climate understood”.

The multinational team behind the new Assess4EST project will address these knowledge gaps, by delivering the following:

  • Science-based information to forest owners, managers and policymakers;
  • Records of discussions between companies, policymakers and scientists;
  • Information to tree-breeding programmes;
  • Decision-support tools in the scope of a Forest Reproductive Material scheme and;
  • Participation in policymaking recommendations.

Assess4EST is short for ‘Seeing trees and forests for the future: assessment of trade-offs and potentials to breed and manage forests to meet sustainability goals’.  Rather than listing the target SDGs, the scientists and collaboration partners will focus on the parameters of growth and yield, climatic adaptation, wood quality, disease resistance and biodiversity.

Collaboration partners are the National Resources Institute of Finland, the Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research, the Latvian State Forest Research Institute ‘Silava’, WoodWorks! and SLU at Umeå, Sweden.

SLU associate professor Garcia-Gil have won two supporting research projects from the respective funding bodies Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research and Nordic Forest Research. They are called Landscape Breeding: A New Paradigm in Forest Tree Management and; Catching up with climate change by shortcuts in breeding: Joint Nordic efforts to prove the concept of Breeding without Breeding.

Entirely “green” petrol, diesel, jet fuel being developed in Sweden

Bio4Energy researchers at Umeå University and partnering company Eco Oil Sweden have launched a new technology for making “green” equivalents of fossil fuels petrol, diesel and kerosene (jet fuel).

The new fuels contain not a single fossil molecule but still may be used in conventional automotive engines, thanks to their being chemical equivalents. The production process can be operated by non-experts within the space of a standard shipping container.

The new fuels contain not a single fossil molecule but still may be used in conventional automotive engines, thanks to their being chemical equivalents. The production process can be operated by non-experts within the space of a standard shipping container.

The technology and the pilot unit that it has been tested in have already attracted the attention of investors in Sweden, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and the United States.

“The containers can be shipped anywhere in the world”, said lead researcher Jyri-Pekka Mikkola, Professor at Umeå University and Åbo Akademi University, in Sweden and Finland, respectively.

Hydrocarbons are the basic components of fossil fuels such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. It follows that making hydrocarbons from biomass, for instance forestry residues, has been a hot topic in research and development.

Disruptive technology

“This is a disruptive technology. It does not have to be constructed on the scale of a biorefinery”, Mikkola said.

“This application could be operated on behalf of a petrol station or village. Because the process also renders liquefied petroleum gas, which can be used in gas-to-power engines, it may be used to produce electricity”, he added.

The pilot unit that the technology has been tested in can make up to 250 litres of biofuel per day from biomass that is turned into an alcohol before becoming hydrocarbons.

The researchers together with business partner Kent van Klint have started a company, Eco Oil Sweden; to market the technology. The next step for the business partners is to demonstrate the technology on a near commercial scale.

Two full-scale plants on cards

“Two full-scale plants will be built. One for petrol and one for diesel, according to the principle that the resulting fuels will be entirely void of petrochemicals. Both fuels will be exact chemical copies of their synthetic counterparts,” according to van Klint.

“Our business model is to produce and sell plants”, he said.

“We leave it in the hands of those who have capital to construct full-scale production units”, Mikkola added.

“We are going to concentrate on selling licences and making the catalysts. The secret is in the catalysts”.

The invention and the pilot unit have been developed by Mikkola and colleagues Ajaikumar Samikannu, William Siljebo and Lakhya Konwar in the research environment Bio4Energy at Umeå University in northern Sweden.

The group members are partners in the company Eco Oil Sweden.