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The U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technology Office's (BETO's) 2023 Billion-Ton Report (BT23) is an assessment of renewable carbon resources potentially available in the United States. BT23 explores these resources in terms of quantity, price, geographical density and distribution, and market maturity. Resource quantities in this report are limited by specified economic and environmental sustainability constraints. Good practices are needed to ensure biomass production has positive environmental outcomes.
BT23 supports BETO's mission, particularly the 2023 Multi-Year Program Plan. To access 2023 Billion-Ton Report PDFs, appendices, and high-level messages, navigate to the 2023 Billion-Ton Report landing page at https://energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/2023-billion-ton-report-assessment-us… on the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office website.
To access information about the quality assumptions used in this report, please see the Biomass Feedstock Library at https://bioenergylibrary.inl.gov/Home/Home.aspx
Please cite the 2023 Billion-Ton Report as: U.S. Department of Energy. 2024. 2023 Billion‐Ton Report: An Assessment of U.S. Renewable Carbon Resources. M. H. Langholtz (Lead). Oak Ridge, TN: Oak Ridge National Laboratory. ORNL/SPR-2024/3103. doi: 10.23720/BT2023/2316165.
Featured Data Updates
a. Cotton gin trash and rice hulls, totaling 2.1 and 1.3 million tons per year in all scenarios, were omitted in error from the BT23 figures and initial data release. Data for these resources were added to the BT23 Agricultural Download on April 23rd, 2024. Methods are described in BT23 Appendix C, pages 6-7.
b. Orchard prunings, totaling 6 million tons per year in all scenarios, were classified as agricultural processing waste in the report, but are now classified as agricultural residues in the data. The combined changes from cotton gin trash, rice hulls, and orchard prunings cause agricultural residues to increase by 6 million tons per year and agricultural processing wastes to decrease by 2.5 million tons per year, as compared to values provided in Summary Table ES-1. This is less than a 1% change in the national results in all scenarios.
Constraints
Biomass resources in the 2023 Billion-Ton Report are presented as production capacity under specified environmental constraints, prices, and market scenarios. Modeling varies by resource class. For example:
- Agricultural residue production capacity is limited to about 1/3 of national total by retention constraints for soil conservation.
- Timberland resources are constrained such that total harvests are less than net growth, and sensitive areas are excluded.
- Energy crop production capacity is modeled as producer response to biomass markets in addition to projected demands for food, feed, fiber, and export. More detail is provided this summary document and in the report.
Errata
- Data for rice hulls and cotton gin trash are missing in the report, but have been added in the data portal (see data update information in “Featured Data Updates”)
- In Table 1.5 on page 15, the phrase “except where cable systems are in use (Northwest United States)” is an error. Cable harvesting systems were modeled for conventional timber products, but biomass from logging residues from cable harvesting systems were not included in the analysis. This assumption to exclude logging residues from cable harvesting systems can be questioned, because cable harvesting systems produce piles of logging residues at collection.
- In Figure ES-1 on page xix, labeling of microalgae and macroalgae in the top right of the figure are switched. The correct labeling should follow the symbology provided in the lower right of the figure, i.e. 169 million tons per year of microalgae at a weighted average price of $650 per ton, and 79 million tons per year of macroalgae at $500 per ton.
- In Figure ES-6 on page xxviii, under “Remaining timberland (unharvested)”, the "/year" was included in error. This is because remaining timberland is a stock, not an annual rate of production. However, the “/year” is correct for the “Harvest for conventional forest products” and “Reference scenario (small-diameter trees)” categories in the same figure.
- In Figure 5.11 on page 116, the primary and secondary y-axis scales are misaligned. The axes values should align with the horizontal lines.
- In the text box on page 23, “During CO2 fermentation some of this recycled CO2 can be harnessed…” should instead say “During fermentation some of this recycled CO2 can be harnessed…”
- A disclaimer was omitted in error. The disclaimer in the front matter of the 2016 Billion-Ton Report (https://energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/2016-billion-ton-report) is equally applicable to the 2023 Billion-Ton Report.
- The following errors in v0.1 of waste data were corrected in v1.0:
- The wet waste and solid waste price data released were erroneously inflated 14%, and has been reduced to 0 to report as 2022$. The wastes summary in Table 3.1 remains unchanged as $2022.
- A moisture content of 6% was assumed for waste paper, which was corrected to 5.5%, causing an increase of 447,000 dry tons of waste paper (i.e, 0.5% of waste paper).
- Food waste (residential, nonresidential) and yard waste energy content were updated to 14000000 btu per ton and 7000.0 btu per lb.