KDF Search Results

The development of modern high efficiency bioenergy technologies has the
potential to improve energy security and access while reducing environmental impacts
and stimulating low-carbon development. While modern bioenergy production is
increasing in the world, it still makes a small contribution to our energy matrix.
At present, approximately 87% of energy demand is satisfied by energy produced
through consumption of fossil fuels. Although the International Energy Agency (IEA)

The Biomass Scenario Model (BSM) is a system dynamics model that represents the entire biomass-to-biofuels supply chain, from feedstock to fuel use. It is a tool designed to better understand biofuels policy as it impacts the development of the supply chain for biofuels in the United States.

This page houses the BSM articles that have been published. For more information, see the link to NREL's list of publications on the BSM.

For analyzing sustainability of algal biofuels, we identify 16 environmental indicators that fall into six categories: soil quality, water quality and quantity, air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, biodiversity, and productivity. Indicators are selected to be practical, widely applicable, predictable in response, anticipatory of future changes, independent of scale, and responsive to management.

As with all land transformation activities, effects on biodiversity and ecosystem services of producing feedstocks for biofuels are highly variable and context specific.  Advances toward more sustainable biofuel production benefit from a system's perspective, recognizing spatial heterogeneity and scale, landscape-design principles, and addressing the influences of context such as the particular products and their distribution, policy background, stakeholder values, location, temporal influences, and baseline conditions.  Deploying biofuels in a manner to reduce effects on biodiversity

Potential global biodiversity impacts from near-term gasoline production are compared to biofuel, a renewable liquid transportation fuel expected to substitute for gasoline in the near term (i.e., from now until c.

Relationships between people and their environment are largely defined by land use. Space and soil are needed for native plants and wildlife, as well as for crops used for food, feed, fiber, wood products and biofuel (liquid fuel derived from plant material). People also use land for homes, schools, jobs, transportation, mining and recreation. Social and economic forces influence the allocation of land to various uses.

Relationships between people and their environment are largely defined by land use. Space and soil are needed for native plants and wildlife, as well as for crops used for food, feed, fiber, wood products and biofuel (liquid fuel derived from plant material). People also use land for homes, schools, jobs, transportation, mining and recreation. Social and economic forces influence the allocation of land to various uses. The

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).

Growing concern about climate change and energy security has led to increasing interest in developing renewable, domestic energy sources for meeting electricity, heating and fuel needs in the United States. Illinois has significant potential to produce bioenergy crops, including corn, soybeans, miscanthus (Miscanthus giganteus), and switchgrass (Panicum virgatum). However, land requirements for bioenergy crops place them in competition with more traditional agricultural uses, in particular food production.

Land-use change models are important tools for integrated environmental management. Through scenario analysis they can help to identify near-future critical locations in the face of environmental change. A dynamic, spatially explicit, land-use change model is presented for the regional scale: CLUE-S. The model is specifically developed for the analysis of land use in small regions (e.g., a watershed or province) at a fine spatial resolution.

Traffic flows in the U.S. have been affected by the substantial increase and, as of January 2009, decrease in biofuel production and use. This paper considers a framework to study the effect on grain transportation flows of the 2005 Energy Act and subsequent legislation, which mandated higher production levels of biofuels, e.g. ethanol and biodiesels. Future research will incorporate changes due to the recent economic slowdown.

Agricultural markets often feature significant transport costs and spatially distributed production and processing which causes spatial imperfect competition. Spatial economics considers the firms’ decisions regarding location and spatial price strategy separately, usually on the demand side, and under restrictive assumptions. Therefore, alternative approaches are needed to explain, e.g., the location of new ethanol plants in the U.S. at peripheral as well as at central locations and the observation of different spatial price strategies in the market.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) originally developed this application for biopower with funding from the Environmental Protection Agency's Blue Skyways Collaborative. The Department of Energy's Office of Biomass Program provided funding for biofuels functionality. More information on funding agencies is available: http://www.blueskyways.org and http://www.eere.energy.gov/biomass/.

Use the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) station locator to find LNG stations across the U.S.

Use the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) station locator to find hydrogen fuel stations across the U.S.

Use the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) station locator to find compressed natural gas stations across the U.S.

Use the Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) station locator to find electric fuel stations across the U.S.

Search for and download detailed data on fueling stations for several different types of alternative fuels.

The Alternative Fuels Data Center (AFDC) Station Locator identifies E-85 Fuel station locations across the country.

When fuelwood is harvested at a rate exceeding natural growth and inefficient conversion technologies are used, negative environmental and socio-economic impacts, such as fuelwood shortages, natural forests degradation and net GHG emissions arise. In this study, we argue that analyzing fuelwood supply/demand spatial patterns require multiscale approaches to effectively bridge the gap between national results with local situations.