The Biomass Potential of Turkey for Energy Production: Part I

Biomass is the major source of energy in rural Turkey. Biomass is used to meet a variety of energy needs including generating electricity, heating homes, fueling vehicles and providing process heat for industrial facilities. Biomass potential includes wood, animal, and plant wastes. Among the biomass energy sources, fuelwood seems to be the most interesting because its share of the total energy production of Turkey is high at 21%. The total biomass energy potential of Turkey is about 32 Mtoe. The amount of usable biomass potential of Turkey is approximately 17 Mtoe. The electrical production from usable biomass has a net impact of 4.4 billion USD in personal and corporate income and represents more than 160,000 jobs. There is a total 4 million ha of degraded coppice forests for energy forestry applications in Turkey. The improvement of degraded coppice forests is a very important activity, as important as forestation. Converting coppice forests into productive energy forests in order to meet the continually-increasing fuel requirements in Turkey prevents the destruction of highly productive forests, therefore supplying more wood raw material for the forest industry, which at present operates with a low capacity. At the end of 2006, 623.247 ha of energy forest have been established.