Abstract
Wood pellet production cost was estimated by means of a simulator developed in our previous study. All thinned trees were assumed to have been utilized as raw materials for wood pellets, and no trees were assumed to have been utilized as industrial timber or pulp chips. The estimations were performed based on 14 different scenarios to study the possibility of creating a pellet-mass-consumption society in Japan. These scenarios were designed to vary pellet production scales in an objective area of Yakushima, an island (500 km2 with 14,000 residents). The utilization cost was significantly affected by the pellet production scale, resulting in approximately 40 yen/kg at the production scale of ca. 2,000 t/y. The cost decreased according to the production scale and reached a minimum of 25.8 yen/kg at 26,500 t/y. Compared with the mean prices of kerosene (Feb. 2010) and LPG (Dec., 2009) in the country, the minimum pellet price was cost competitive though coefficients of performance decreased when the pellet fuel was used. The ratio of energy consumed for pellet production to lower heat of combustion (LHV) of the pellet was 0.0276 at 82,700 t/y.
