Chapter 9, Land and Bioenergy in Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), Bioenergy & Sustainability: bridging the gaps.

Book · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2015

OSTI ID:1185990

Woods J, Lynd LR ^[1]; Laser, M ^[2]; Kline, Keith L ^[3]; Faaij, Andre ^[4]

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1. Imperial College London, UK
2. Dartmouth College
3. ORNL
4. Energy Academy Europe, Netherlands

In this chapter we address the questions of whether and how enough biomass could be produced to make a material contribution to global energy supply on a scale and timeline that is consistent with prominent low carbon energy scenarios. We assess whether bioenergy provision necessarily conflicts with priority ecosystem services including food security for the world s poor and vulnerable populations. In order to evaluate the potential land demand for bioenergy, we developed a set of three illustrative scenarios using specified growth rates for each bioenergy sub-sector. In these illustrative scenarios, bioenergy (traditional and modern) increases from 62 EJ/yr in 2010 to 100, 150 and 200 EJ/yr in 2050. Traditional bioenergy grows slowly, increasing by between 0.75% and 1% per year, from 40 EJ/yr in 2010 to 50 or 60 EJ/ yr in 2050, continuing as the dominant form of bioenergy until at least 2020. Across the three scenarios, total land demand is estimated to increase by between 52 and 200 Mha which can be compared with a range of potential land availability estimates from the literature of between 240 million hectares to over 1 billion hectares. Biomass feedstocks arise from combinations of residues and wastes, energy cropping and increased efficiency in supply chains for energy, food and materials. In addition, biomass has the unique capability of providing solid, liquid and gaseous forms of modern energy carriers that can be transformed into analogues to existing fuels. Because photosynthesis fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, biomass supply chains can be configured to store at least some of the fixed carbon in forms or ways that it will not be reemitted to the atmosphere for considerable periods of time, so-called negative emissions pathways. These attributes provide opportunities for bioenergy policies to promote longterm and sustainable options for the supply of energy for the foreseeable future.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
• Sponsoring Organization: ME USDOE - Office of Management, Budget, and Evaluation; ORNL work for others
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1185990
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English