Potential of some species for biomass energy production in the mediterranean dryland of Chile

Abstract

In Chile, there are about 1.8 million hectares of dryland soils with severe site restrictions for agronomic and forest species growth. However, these soils can be used to establish energy crops, using forest species specially adapted to this condition. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the potential land availability in the drylands of central Chile for establishing short rotation forestry crops, with low water consumption species. The species Acacia saligna, Atriplex nummularia, Robinia pseudoacacia, Eucalyptus rudis, Eucalyptus globulus subspecies biscotata, Eucalyptus camaldulensis and Eucalyptus occidentalis, based on characteristics such as dry biomass yield, water requirements, tolerance to frost and calorimetric properties, were evaluated. The study area corresponds to Mediterranean drylands of Maule Region in Chile, with a total area of 544 thousand hectares. The results indicate that the potential for the seven crop species considered is about 100,000 ha. It can be concluded that thousands of land hectares are potentially available for growing short rotation forestry crops in the Mediterranean drylands of central Chile.

Keywords:
Bioenergy; Biomass; Short rotation crops; Dryland