Numerous studies indicate that even cost-efficient energy efficiency measures are not always undertaken which emphasizes the need for effective energy end-use policy instruments to be adopted. In order to reduce market barriers and imperfections, the European Union has adopted energy end-use policies such as the European Energy Enduse Efficiency and Energy Services Directive (ESD). The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is yet another policy instrument aimed towards energy suppliers. The EU ETS will most likely lead to increased energy prices, which, according to economic theory, will increase the implementation of cost-efficient energy efficiency measures. However, and as argued in this chapter, energy end-use measures that are undertaken within the EU will not necessarily lead to reduced emissions of CO2 as the level of CO2 emissions has been fixed within the trading parts of the economy, through the EU ETS. The aim of this chapter is to present a policy concept which combines the current top-down approach based on mainstream economic theory of decreasing the cap, and a bottom-up approach based on engineering-economic models. For example, CO2 emission reductions coming from implemented energy end-use efficiency measures through each Member State’s energy end-use policies proposed in its NEEAP (National Energy Efficiency Action Plan) is suggested to lead to continuous withdrawal of EUAs. The most prominent advantage of such a concept is faster CO2 emission reductions, even during an EU ETS period, as the number of available EUAs is withdrawn continuously when demand-side actors outside of the EU ETS invest in energy efficient technologies.

Numerous studies indicate that even cost-efficient energy efficiency measures are not always undertaken which emphasizes the need for effective energy end-use policy instruments to be adopted. In order to reduce market barriers and imperfections, the European Union has adopted energy end-use policies such as the European Energy End-use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive (ESD). The EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) is yet another policy instrument aimed towards energy suppliers. The EU ETS will most likely lead to increased energy prices, which, according to economic theory, will increase the implementation of cost-efficient energy efficiency measures. However, and as argued in this chapter, energy end-use measures that are undertaken within the EU will not necessarily lead to reduced emissions of CO₂ as the level of CO₂ emissions has been fixed within the trading parts of the economy, through the EU ETS. The aim of this chapter is to present a policy concept which combines the current top-down approach based on mainstream economic theory of decreasing the cap, and a bottom-up approach based on engineering-economic models. For example, CO₂ emission reductions coming from implemented energy end-use efficiency measures through each Member State’s energy end-use policies proposed in its NEEAP (National Energy Efficiency Action Plan) is suggested to lead to continuous withdrawal of EUAs. The most prominent advantage of such a concept is faster CO₂ emission reductions, even during an EU ETS period, as the number of available EUAs is withdrawn continuously when demand-side actors outside of the EU ETS invest in energy efficient technologies.

Because of their economic impact most research on wood in Sweden is aimed at our needle-leaved species, i.e. pine and spruce. Sawmills and other industrial enterprises using these conifers are also in vast majority, both in number of employees and number of companies. However, there is a viable industrial branch in Sweden, i.e. furniture companies, dealing with broad-leaved species such as oak, birch, and alder. Such industries often import all the wood they use, even if the same type of wood grows in the vicinity. In order to make the Swedish broad-leaved trees more interesting to the wood manufacturing sector, we examined the strength properties of some common Swedish woods, viz. oak and beech. The result shows that our oak specimens had a modulus of elasticity of 12.243 MPa measured by using four-point bending. So-called the Young’s modulus was 11.761 MPa for tension and 15.610 MPa for compression in the fibre direction, i.e. there was a very high difference. The stress just before rupture was measured to 85 MPa for tension and 76 MPa for compression, i.e. there was a surprisingly small difference. For beech, our corresponding values were 13.017 MPa for four-point bending, the Young’s modulus during tension was13.954 MPa and 130.4 MPa in maximum stress, whilst under compression these values were 13.101 MPa and 84 MPa, respectively.

Growing trees many times contain more water than wood. When wood is to be utilized in the form of furniture it must therefore be dried in a kiln-dryer. In such a dryer the climate is very humid and warm which is ideal for many microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi. During their metabolism they change the chemical environment which sometimes lead to undisireable effects such as discolorations. In this paper we have examined specimen from oak, Quercus robur, collected from some parquet floor factories in Sweden. During drying some of these wood battens were affected with yellow streaks and spots which made the wood impossible to use for flooring. By examining small samples of the battens in light, as well as in scanning electron microscopes, we found that fungi grew inside the wooden tissue. By cultivation on agar plates we found several species where one has been identified as Penicillium roqueforti and another one as Paecilomyces variotii. We have also found that these fungi are extremely sensitive to high pH-values, so by spraying the wood with solutions of high pH already in the sawmill will probably make this problem much smaller.

District heating is used in many urban areas in Sweden. Almost always, the district heating utility is owned by the municipality and the municipality naturally encourages proprietors to connect their buildings to the grid, even if they cannot really force them to do so. The building owners are free to choose the best system, i.e. the cheapest one, for their need. Unfortunately, it is not always so easy to find the best solution. Mixed integer linear programming (MLIP) models might here come to help. By such computer programs it is possible to find the absolutely cheapest system of available alternatives, or even combinations among them. This paper shows how to design such a model and further how to closely depict the district heating, and electricity tariff. This is of course very important because the only interface between the proprietor of the building and the utility is found in this bureaucratic instrument. If the tariff is too high the building owners will choose other heating systems than district heating, or even worse, combining district heating with alternative base load sources. In Sweden, this has been of interest because ground-water coupled heat pumps can be profitable, operated by use of the relatively low electricity prices. In this paper we show that dual-fuel, and sometimes even triple-fuel systems, are of interest when the proprietor aims at minimising the cost for space and domestic hot-water heating. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we consider the selection of a residential energy supply system as a multi-criteria decision-making problem, which involves both financial and environmental issues. Specifically, we compare micro-CHP (micro-cogeneration) heating with traditional heating systems through an evaluation that accounts for: (i) the decision-makers' subjective preferences, (ii) uncertainties in the performance of micro-CHP heating systems (which are partly caused by the lack of long-term operational experiences) and (iii) the context-dependency of life-cycle costs and environmental burdens of heating systems. Motivated by these considerations, we employ the PAIRS multi-criteria decision-making methodology that captures incomplete information by way of interval-valued parameters and provides support for sensitivity analyses, too. Our comparative analysis of alternative heating systems suggests that micro-CHP is a reasonable alternative to traditional systems, particularly from the environmental point of view. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

When a building is subject for refurbishment, there is a golden opportunity to change its behavior as an energy system. This paper shows the importance of careful investigations of the processes, the climate shield and the heating systems already present in the building before measures are implemented in reality. A case study is presented dealing with a carpentry factory. The building is poorly insulated according to standards today, and initially it was assumed that a better thermal shield would be of vital importance in order to reach optimal conditions. Instead, it is shown that the main problem is the ordinary heating system. This uses steam from a wood chips boiler and the wood chips come from the manufacturing processes. These wood chips are, therefore, a very cheap fuel. The boiler had, during decades of use, slowly degraded into a poor state. Hence, aero-tempers using expensive electricity have been installed to remedy the situation. These use not only expensive kWh but also very expensive kW due to the electricity tariff. It is shown that electricity for heating purposes must be abandoned and further, that this could be achieved at a surprisingly small cost. By stopping a large waste of steam, it was possible to find resources, in the form of unspent money, for further mending the existing heating system. Not only economy but also environmental hazards in the form of CO2 emissions urges us to abandon electricity and instead use heat from cheap biomass fired boilers. Such equipment saves environment at the same time it saves money. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

By use of a load cell, a computer and a fast scanning device we have examined the cutting-forces on the tool in a milling machine. Several experiments have been elaborated with different rotation and feeding speeds. The aim is to study, in detail, how wood chips are produced. By a better understanding of this process it must be possible to manufacture wooden details for furniture and other products with minimal errors and, hence, there will be reduced need for sanding and other expensive extra treatment in order to achieve an acceptable result of the finished surface. The load cell was used to register the forces in three directions. These registrations, however, were not easy to interpret because of the vibrations which were introduced in the experimental setup when milling started. A computerized filter therefore had to be used in order to extract only those registrations which were of interest. We found that the cutting forces in beech varied from approximately 40 up to 86 N/cm in the work-piece feed direction, i.e. in the Y-direction, and from about 14 to 51 N/cm in the X-direction, i.e. in the normal to the cut surface. A larger average chip thickness resulted in larger forces but we could not find a clear relationship which, in full, explained our result. © Springer-Verlag 2005.