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Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development


Availability of Sustainable Bioenergy Resources and Carbon Benefits

Prof. Dr. Martin Junginger Bioenergy Roadmap Update Workshop

IEA, Paris, Wednesday 6 July 2016


1. What is the potential future supply of modern biomass from residues and energy crops when accounting for the drivers and constraints in a spatially explicit manner?

2. What is the demand for biomass for different energy and chemical purposes in a dynamic energy system model?

3. What is the overall greenhouse gas impact of biomass deployment for bioenergy and biochemicals, taking the potential dynamics of future land use and the energy system into account?

4. What is the future role of biomass, bioenergy and biochemicals in various climate change mitigation scenarios when accounting for the land and energy-system in an integrated manner?

4

PhD thesis Vassilis Daioglou Research Questions

Vassilis Daioglou - The role of biomass in climate change mitigation


Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs)

• Interaction of human system and environmental system

• Integration across different issues

• Focused on decisions processes (assessment)

Human system

Earth system

Income

Meat

consum

ption

Income

Energ

y u

se

Economy Population Technology

Agriculture

Land use

Energy use

Emissions

Ecosystem dynamics

Climate change

Polution

Biogeochemical cycles

Env. impacts

Driv

ers

Resou

rce

use

In

teracti

on

Earth

syste

m

Source: D. van Vuuren


Outline

• Long term, global simulation model

• Projects energy demand, fuel choices and associated emissions

• Demand sectors have specific energy functions and technologies

Biomass and Bioenergy

• Primary Sources: Energy crops and Residues

TIMER Energy System Model

Vassilis Daioglou

Industry (heat)

Potential Uses

Transport (fuel)

Buildings (heat)

Chemicals (feedstock)

Electricity (+CCS)

Potential Carriers

Liquid fuel

Solid fuel

Industry

Transport

Buildings

Chemicals

Coal

Oil

Natural gas

Bioenergy

Electricity

Heat

H2

Coal

Oil

Natural gas

Biomass

Nuclear

Solar

Wind

Hydropower

Adapted from Bowman et al. 2006


SSP scenarios

Investigate role of biomass in baseline and mitigation scenarios

(O’N

eill

et a

l., 2

01

4)

Scenarios

• SSP1: Optimistic world (low challenges to mitigation and adaptation)

• SSP2: Middle of the road

• SSP3: Pessimistic world (high challenges to mitigation and adaptation)



Theoretical Potential: Driven by increased demand of agriculture & forestry products Ecological Potential: Follows similar trend, but less pronounced Available Potential: Opposite trend, very small differences

Explanation: competing uses grow significantly from SSP1 to SSP3. Different drivers across scenarios cancel each other out.

Supply of Residues

What is the potential future supply of modern biomass from residues and energy crops when accounting for the drivers and constraints in a spatially explicit manner?

SS

P1

SS

P2

SS

P3



Theoretical Potential (GJ/km2)

Ecological Potential (GJ/km2)

Supply Costs ($/GJPrim)

Supply curves: Residues



SSP1: Lots of natural lands are protected High abandonement of productive lands


Supply Energy crops



SSP3: Expansion of land for food Low protection of natural lands


Supply Energy crops



How much land available?

Source: PhD thesis V.Daioglou



Availability of high quality lands in SSP1 leads to extremely high and low cost availability of biomass

Supply Curves

2100



How much & where?



For what end-use?


BaU BaU BaU

CC Mitigation CC Mitigation CC Mitigation

2nd gen liquid biofuels dominant in SSP1/2


For what end-use?


BaU BaU BaU


But solid biomass for heating also important!


For what end-use?


BaU BaU BaU


…as is Electr/ H2 with CCS in mitigation scenario’s production of liquid fuels persists for use in transport -bioenergy is the only cost-effective substitute for oil in several subsectors, e.g.aviation and freight


For what end-use?


BaU BaU BaU


Use for biochemicals strong relative increase, but limited absolute use


Intermezzo:

• Short introduction to the debate about Carbon neutrality and carbon debt

• Needed?


Basic principle of GHG emission reductions through bioenergy

Source: adapted from

IEA Bioenergy Task 38

The fact that bioenergy is ultimately renewable is not debated, but the time until the repayment of any potential carbon debt is repaid is under debate

Rapid removal

Slow uptake


Bioenergy routes

Source:

N. Bird, IEA

Bioenergy

Task 38


Stand-level

Source: Eliasson et al. 2011


Landscape-level

Source: Eliasson et al. 2011


Carbon debt & parity points

Visual representation of the carbon payback period and the carbon offset parity point, taken from Mitchell [2012]


Carbon debt & energy crops

• For energy crops, the ‘carbon debt’ debate plays less than for forestry due to very short (annual) rotation times, but…

• Significant emission due to direct & indirect Land-use change…

• And again the definition of the counter-factual: the same land would also (likely?) sequester carbon anyway…

• counterfactual in IAM’s fairly easy to model -> back to Vassilis’ PhD thesis


How much GHG emissions?


CC Mitigation with bioenergy

CC Mitigation without bioenergy

Substantial savings compared to no-bioenergy, but mainly on the longer-term, not within 20 years


How much GHG emissions?


Especially for production of liquid biofuels, production potential with short pay-back times is limited


Total emission reduction for each end-use sector: • At taxes > 200$/tC, limiting bioenergy to power production is more effective than

having it compete freely

What is the overall greenhouse gas impact of biomass deployment for bioenergy and biochemicals, taking the potential dynamics of future land use and the energy system into account?

Biomass competes everywhere

Biomass limited to specific sectors



Conclusions - Biomass sources:


• Perennial grasses most attractive feedstock in terms of potential, costs and associated emissions, due to comparatively high yields, diverse range of applications for energy and chemicals and their short growing cycles

• Large scale production and delivery of these resources at high enough yields may be achieved through incentives and stable policies.

• Residues can also form a significant low cost and low emission source (>=50 EJprim/yr), as long as ecological constraints and other current uses are managed effectively.


Conclusions:Minimise supply emissions


• Minimising land required for food production (especially pasture) & increasing land quality =>availability of large volumes of productive land

• In such cases the availability of biomass with low emission (<20 kgCO2-eq/GJ prim) effects could be greater than 100 EJPrim/yr.

• Modernization of food production systems and adoption of approaches such as integrated crop-livestock farming may offer an opportunity to increase the productivity, decrease emissions and restore degraded lands


Conclusions - Conversion and use


• Mitigation scenarios depend on the availability of affordable lignocellulosic (2nd gen.) biofuels, biomass feedstocks in power production, and their combination with CCS

• Bioenergy can meet heat demand in buildings and industry at a low cost and may also become very competitive in transport.

• Unless biofuel-CCS technologies are available, the emission reduction per unit bioenergy for these sectors (20-80 kg CO2/GJSec) is lower than if used for power production (>100 kg CO2/GJSec) due to larger reduction potential when replacing coal


Conclusions - Conversion and use


• Biochemicals may be an attractive use of biomass, their overall contribution to climate mitigation is limited when compared to other biomass options.

• Cascading uses of biochemicals through recycling and incineration with power generation were investigated. Carbon emissions benefit accrued in either case are limited, and may be counter-productive

• To maximise benefits of cascading uses, improved recycling and incineration technologies as well as management of what chemicals are cascaded is required


Conclusions- Policy timeframes

Source: PhD thesis V. Daioglou

• Due to high up-front emissions from land-use change, bioenergy often offers serious mitigation only when used in long-term contexts

• Short accounting periods used by some policies (e.g. EU RED) limits the potential for biofuel supply below what is required for strict climate targets

• Allowing for longer accounting periods (>20 years) would streamline policies with the biomass volumes IAMs suggest are required for strict climate goals.


Conclusions- Supply chains

Source: PhD thesis V. Daioglou

• Large scale use of bioenergy in mitigation scenarios will require large-scale production of primary biomass and international trade

• Projected growth rates are large (≈4% per year), but not without precedent as similar (and larger) growth rates in production and international trade of energy, metals and agricultural commodities have been witnessed

• Important focus areas include the adoption of fully functioning markets for residues and second generation feedstocks, biomass certification schemes, harmonisation of quality standards and scaling up of international maritime trade.


Thank you for your attention

[email protected] Daioglou, V., The role of biomass in climate change mitigation. Assessing the long-term dynamics in the land and energy systems. PhD thesis, Utrecht University, May 2016.

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