n the past decades, the production of biomass for energy in agriculture and forestry has increased in many parts of the world. For years to come, further increase in land use for bioenergy will be needed to meet the renewable energy ambitions of many countries, and to reduce fossil fuel use and associated GHG emissions.
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ORNL Report ORNL/TM-2010-120.
In this paper we investigate the potential production and implications of a global biofuels industry. We develop alternative approaches to the introduction of land as an economic factor input, in value and physical terms, into a computable general equilibrium framework. Both approach allows us to parameterize biomass production in a manner consistent with agro-engineering information on yields and a ?second generation? cellulosic biomass conversion technology.
The preceding two chapters of this volume have discussed physical and economic data bases for global agriculture and forestry, respectively. These form the foundation for the integrated, global land use data base discussed in this chapter. However, in order to utilize these data for global CGE analysis, it is first necessary to integrate them into a global, general equilibrium data base. This integration is the subject of the present chapter
This paper describes the GTAP land use data base designed to support integrated assessments of the potential for greenhouse gas mitigation. It disaggregates land use by agro-ecological zone (AEZ). To do so, it draws upon global land cover data bases, as well as state-of-the-art definition of AEZs from the FAO and IIASA. Agro-ecological zoning segments a parcel of land into smaller units according to agro-ecological characteristics, including: precipitation, temperature, soil type, terrain conditions, etc. Each zone has a similar combination of constraints and potential for land use.
The paper describes the on-going project of the GTAP land use data base. We also present the GTAPE-AEZ model, which illustrates how land use and land-based emissions can be incorporated in the CGE framework for Integrated Assessment (IA) of climate change policies. We follow the FAO fashion of agro-ecological zoning (FAO, 2000; Fischer et al, 2002) to identify lands located in six zones. Lands located in a specific AEZ have similar (or homogenous) soil, landform and climatic characteristics.
It is technically feasible to capture CO2 from the flue gas of a coal-fired power plant and various researchers are working to understand the fate of sequestered CO2 and its long term environmental effects. Sequestering CO2 significantly reduces the CO2 emissions from the power plant itself, but this is not the total picture.
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.
Provides a summary of the key findings of the IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources (SRREN) and Climate Change Mitigation.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a powerful tool that may be used to quantify the environmental impacts of products and services. It includes all processes, from cradle-to-grave, along the supply chain of the product. When analysing energy systems, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (primarily CO2, CH4 and N2O) are the impact of primary concern. In using LCA to determine the climate change mitigation benefits of bioenergy, the life cycle emissions of the bioenergy system are compared with the emissions for a reference energy system.
The IPCC SRREN report addresses information needs of policymakers, the private sector and civil society on the potential of renewable energy sources for the mitigation of climate change, providing a comprehensive assessment of renewable energy technologies and related policy and financial instruments. The IPCC report was a multinational collaboration and synthesis of peer reviewed information: Reviewed, analyzed, coordinated, and integrated current high quality information.
In the corn ethanol industry, the ability of plants to obtain favorable prices through marketing decisions is considered important for their overall economic performance. Based on a panel of surveyed of ethanol plants we extend data envelopment analysis (DEA) to decompose the economic efficiency of plants into conventional sources (technical and allocative efficiency) and a new component we call marketing efficiency.
The rapidly expanding biofuel industry has changed the fundamentals of U.S. agricultural commodity markets. Increasing ethanol and biodiesel production has generated a fast-growing demand for corn and soybean products, which competes with the well-established domestic livestock industry and foreign buyers. Meanwhile, the co-products of biofuel production are replacing or displacing coarse grains and oilseed meal in feed rations for livestock.
There is a strong societal need to evaluate and understand the sustainability of biofuels, especially because of the significant increases in production mandated by many countries, including the United States. Sustainability will be a strong factor in the regulatory environment and investments in biofuels. Biomass feedstock production is an important contributor to environmental, social, and economic impacts from biofuels.
The location of ethanol plants is determined by infrastructure, product and input markets, fiscal attributes of local communities, and state and federal incentives. This empirical
analysis uses probit regression along with spatial clustering methods to analyze investment activity of ethanol plants at the county level for the lower U.S. 48 states from 2000 to 2007.
The availability of feedstock dominates the site selection decision. Other factors, such as access to navigable rivers or railroads, product markets, producer credit and excise tax
Supply chain management involves all of the activities in industrial organizations from raw material procurement to final product delivery to customers. The main aim in supply chain management is to satisfy production requirements, while optimizing the economic objectives. In traditional fossil fuel supply chains, huge amounts of fossil fuels are transported via pipelines or tankers with very small costs. These fuels can be transformed into other sources of energy or transportation fuels at their destination points.
The United States shares with many other countries the goal of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change “to achieve . . . stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.”1 The critical role of new technologies in achieving this goal is underscored by the fact that most anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted over the next century will come from equipment and infrastructure that has not yet been built.
A method is presented, which estimates the potential for power production from agriculture residues. A GIS decision support system (DSS) has been developed, which implements the method and provides the tools to identify the geographic distribution of the economically exploited biomass potential. The procedure introduces a four level analysis to determine the
theoretical, available, technological and economically exploitable potential. The DSS handles all possible restrictions and