"Clean, green and environment-friendly." These are the three objectives of Finland's energy producers.

As leaders from the 38 members of the Sixth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM6) gathered in the Finnish capital to discuss topics such as climate change, sustainable development and energy security, Finnish energy suppliers yesterday showed how they are striving to make the world a cleaner place.

Finland is at the vanguard of bioenergy production, said Stefan Sundman, director of Energy and Infrastructure of the Finnish Forest Industries Federation.

He said the forestry industry has a long tradition of being Finland's overwhelmingly largest producer of bioenergy. About one fifth of the country's energy is generated from wood.

"This is five times the European Union (EU) average and places Finland clearly in first position among industrialized countries in the use of energy extracted from wood.

The Finnish forestry industry has invested heavily in bioenergy, energy-efficiency and energy conservation, according to Sundman.

"These measures have helped to keep the sector's carbon dioxide emission at target levels even though paper production has increased by more than 40 per cent since 1990," he noted.

Veikko Hokkane, a division chief of Helsinki Energy, said that the technology of CHP, or combined heat and power, and centralized district heating have had a crucial impact on lowering the country's sulphur dioxide emissions.

CHP is a process where primary energy is transformed simultaneously into both electrical and thermal energy. This means that the heat generated in thermal power production is recovered and used.

The primary energy source can be a wide range of fuels, including biomass, waste and fossil fuels, or geothermal or solar energy, according to Hokkane.

Helsinki Energy accounts for about 4 per cent of Finland's total emissions of sulphur dioxide, and for about 2 per cent of the total emissions of nitrogen oxides.

"Since 1980, our emissions of sulphur dioxide have been reduced by about 80 per cent and our emissions of nitrogen oxides by nearly 60 per cent," said Hokkane.

CHP generation is an effective tool in environmental protection on the global level, he said, noting that when meeting challenges presented by the Kyoto Climate Convention, the importance of CHP is accentuated in Europe and throughout the world.

The Convention on Climate Change sets an overall framework for intergovernmental efforts to tackle the challenges posed by climate change. It recognizes that the climate system is a shared resource whose stability can be affected by industrial and other emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Source: China Daily