Land-use change (LUC) is a contentious policy issue because of its uncertain, yet potentially substantial, impact on bioenergy climate change benefits. Currently, the share of global GHG emissions from biofuels-induced LUC is small compared to that from LUC associated with food and feed production and other human-induced causes. However, increasing demand for biofuels derived from feedstocks grown on agricultural land could increase this contribution. No consensus has emerged on how to appropriately isolate and quantify LUC impacts of bioenergy from those of other LUC drivers. We reviewed the literature and illustrate some strategies to minimize bioenergy-related LUC, including ways to increase land’s total productivity and the design and implementation of effective land use policies. The best strategies to reduce LUC risk will vary geographically, requiring a balancing of the advantages and limitations of potential options within the local context together with other goals (social, environmental, economic, energy security, and diversification).
NREL
Biomass power offers utilities a potential pathway to increase their renewable generation portfolios for compliance with renewable energy standards and to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions relative to current fossil-based technologies. To date, a large body of life-cycle assessment (LCA) literature assessing biopower’s life-cycle GHG emissions has been published.
Phase A of this project performed an exhaustive search of the biopower LCA literature yielding 117 references that passed quality and relevance screening criteria. Fifty-seven papers reported 280 life-cycle GHG emission estimates. Literature indicates that, excluding land use change (LUC), well-managed and well-designed biopower systems can deliver electricity with low life cycle GHG emissions compared to fossil fuels. The use of residues and organic wastes for biopower could result in significantly lower life-cycle GHG emissions if biomass is diverted from landfill or open-air burning. Using carbon mitigation technologies such as carbon capture and storage, rarely studied for biopower systems, could yield even deeper emission reductions.
Phase B of this project constructed a spreadsheet model of the biopower life cycle to conduct a sensitivity analysis using biomass supply chain parameters that were taken from applicable literature in the LCA literature review. The spreadsheet model, created from NREL’s Systems Advisor Model (SAM) structure, was expanded to evaluate GHG emissions from dedicated biomass crops. These capabilities were integrated into SAM.
Increasing demand for crop-based biofuels, in addition to other human drivers of land use, induces direct and indirect land use changes (LUC). Our system dynamics tool is intended to complement existing LUC modeling approaches and to improve the understanding of global LUC drivers and dynamics by allowing examination of global LUC under diverse scenarios and varying model assumptions. We report on a small subset of such analyses. This model provides insights into the drivers and dynamic interactions of LUC (e.g., dietary choices and biofuel policy) and is not intended to assert improvement in numerical results relative to other works.
Demand for food commodities are mostly met in high food and high crop-based biofuel demand scenarios, but cropland must expand substantially. Meeting roughly 25% of global transportation fuel demand by 2050 with biofuels requires >2 times the land used to meet food demands under a presumed 40% increase in per capita food demand. In comparison, the high food demand scenario requires greater pastureland for meat production, leading to larger overall expansion into forest and grassland. Our results indicate that, in all scenarios, there is a potential for supply shortfalls, and associated upward pressure on prices, of food commodities requiring higher land use intensity (e.g., beef) which biofuels could exacerbate.
Provides a summary of the key findings of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN) and Climate Change Mitigation.
Use the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) station locator to find compressed natural gas stations across the U.S.