Biomass can be used as a renewable (green or CO2 neutral) energy source, locally and readily available in large parts of the world. Many studies have been carried out that quantify the potential of the world to produce bioenergy (e.g. (Leemans et al. 1996; Fischer et al. 2001a; Hoogwijk et al. 2004; Smeets et al. 2004a, b). Results indicate that various world regions are in theory capable of producing significant amounts of bioenergy crops without endangering food supply or further deforestation.
A prerequisite for the large-scale production and trade of biomass (biotrade) is that production and trade is beneficial with respect to the social well being of the people (people), the ecosystem (planet) and the economy (profit).
The goal of this study is to make a first attempt to analyse the impact on the potential (quantity) and the costs (per unit) of bioenergy that the compliance with various sustainability criteria brings along. This nature of this work is exploratory, because of the broad set of issues covered very little work has been published on which we could build. Ukraine and Brazil are used as case studies, because both regions are identified as promising bioenergy producers (Smeets et al. 2004b).
This study is part of the FAIRBiotrade project, which is aimed to identify and quantify the impact of sustainability criteria on the potential of bioenergy. Previous work includes an identification of sustainability criteria relevant for bioenergy (Lewandowski and Faaij 2004), an assessment of the environmental and economic costs of long distance biotrade (Hamelinck et al. 2003) and an assessment of bioenergy production potentials in 2050 in various world regions (Smeets et al. 2004c). This work is funded by NOVEM (Netherlands Organisation for Energy and the Environment) and the Dutch electricity company Essent N.V.
Poplar production in Ukraine and eucalyptus production in Brazil are used as case studies, because both regions are identified as promising bioenergy producers (Smeets et al. 2004b). For both regions cost calculations are included for a representative intensive commercial short rotation forestry management system. The year 2015 was chosen as a target, because this allows a 10-year period required to implement changes in land-use, establish plantations and develop a framework to implement criteria.
A list of 127 criteria relevant for sustainable biomass production and trade is composed based on an extensive analysis of existing certification systems on e.g. forestry and agriculture Lewandowski (Lewandowski et al. 2004). To be able to analyse the impact of these criteria on the cost and potential of bioenergy, the various criteria needed to be translated into a set of concrete (measurable) criteria and indicators that have an impact on the management system (costs) or the land availability (quantity). 12 criteria are included in this study, because not all criteria could reasonably be translated into practically measurable indicators and/or measures and many criteria are related and/or overlap, see table 1.
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The impact of sustainability criteria on the costs and potentials of bioenergy production
