KDF Search Results

This review on research on life cycle carbon accounting examines the complexities in accounting for carbon emissions given the many different ways that wood is used. Recent objectives to increase the use of renewable fuels have raised policy questions, with respect to the sustainability of managing our forests as well as the impacts of how best to use wood from our forests. There has been general support for the benefits of sustainably managing forests for carbon mitigation as expressed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007.

Land-use change (LUC) estimated by economic models has sparked intense international debate. Models estimate how much LUC might be induced under prescribed scenarios and rely on assumptions to generate LUC values. It is critical to test and validate underlying

A primary objective of current U.S. biofuel law – the “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007” (EISA) – is to reduce dependence on imported oil, but the law also requires biofuels to meet carbon emission reduction thresholds relative to petroleum fuels. EISA created a renewable fuel standard with annual targets for U.S. biofuel use that climb gradually from 9 billion gallons per year in 2008 to 36 billion gallons (or about 136 billion liters) of biofuels per year by 2022. The most controversial aspects of U.S.

Agricultural activities have dramatically altered our planet?s land surface. To understand the extent and spatial distribution of these changes, we have developed a new global data set of croplands and pastures circa 2000 by combining agricultural inventory data and satellite-derived land cover data. The agricultural inventory data, with much greater spatial detail than previously available, is used to train a land cover classification data set obtained by merging two different satellite-derived products (Boston University?s MODIS-derived land cover product and the GLC2000 data set).

Biomass is receiving increasing attention as scientists, policy makers, and growers search for clean, renewable energy alternatives. Compared with other renewable resources, biomass is very flexible it can be used as fuel for direct combustion, gasified, used in combined heat and power technologies, or biochemical conversions. Due to the wide range of feedstocks, biomass has a broad geographic distribution, in some cases offering a least-cost and near-term alternative. The objective of this research is to estimate the biomass resources available in the United States and map the results.

ABSTRACT: A growing number of countries are implementing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading schemes. As these schemes impose a cost for GHG emissions they should increase the competitiveness of low carbon fuels. Bioenergy from biomass is regarded as carbon neutral in most of the schemes, therefore incurring no emission costs. Emissions trading schemes may therefore encourage increased use of biomass for energy, and under certain conditions may also incentivize the construction of new bioenergy plants.

Algae feedstocks for alternative fuels production are not economically competitive with fossil fuels at the present time. Furthermore, it has not yet been demonstrated that algae production systems offer improved sustainability characteristics.

This publication provides the summary and conclusions from the workshop ‘Developing Sustainable Trade in Bioenergy’ held in conjunction with the meeting of the Executive Committee of IEA Bioenergy in Nara City, Japan on 12 May 2010.

FAOSTAT provides time-series and cross sectional data relating to food and agriculture for some 200 countries.

The national version of FAOSTAT, CountrySTAT, is being developed and implemented in a number of target countries, primarily in sub-saharan Africa. It will offer a two-way data exchange facility between countries and FAO as well as a facility to store data at the national and sub-national levels.

This database contains current and historical official USDA data on production, supply and distribution of agricultural commodities for the United States and key producing and consuming countries.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) 2001 National Land Cover Database (NLCD) was compared to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) 2002 Census of Agriculture. Wecompared areal estimates for cropland at the state and county level for 14 States in the Upper Midwest region of the United States. Absolute differences between the NLCD and Census cropland areal estimates at the state level ranged from 1.3% (Minnesota) to 37.0% (Wisconsin). The majority of counties (74.5%) had differences of less than 100 km2. 7.2% of the counties had differences of more than 200 km2.

Ground-based data on crop production in the USA is provided through surveys conducted by the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) and the Census of Agriculture (AgCensus). Statistics from these surveys are widely used in economic analyses, policy design, and for other purposes. However, missing data in the surveys presents limitations for research that requires comprehensive data for spatial analyses.We created comprehensive county-level databases for nine major crops of the USA for a 16-yr period, by filling the gaps in existing data reported by NASS and AgCensus.

This paper describes a methodology to explore the (future) spatial distribution of biofuel crops in Europe. Two main types of biofuel crops are distinguished: biofuel crops used for the production of biodiesel or bioethanol, and second-generation biofuel crops. A multiscale, multi-model approach is used in which biofuel crops are allocated over the period 2000?2030. The area of biofuel crops at the national level is determined by a macroeconomic model. A spatially explicit land use model is used to allocate the biofuel crops within the countries.