Zero, one, or in between: evaluation of alternative national and entity‐level accounting for bioenergy

Abstract

Accounting for bioenergy's carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, as done under the Kyoto Protocol (KP) and European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme, fails to capture the full extent of these emissions. As a consequence, other approaches have been suggested. Both the EU and United States already use value-chain approaches to determine emissions due to biofuels -an approach quite different from that of the KP. Further, both the EU and United States are engaged in consultation processes to determine how emissions connected with use of biomass for heat and power will be handled under regulatory systems. The United States is considering whether CO 2 emissions from biomass should be handled like fossil fuels. In this context, this article reviews and evaluates the three basic bioenergy accounting options.1 CO 2 emissions from bioenergy are not counted at the point of combustion. Instead emissions due to use of biomass are accounted for in the land-use sector as carbon stock losses -a combustion factor (CoF) = 0 approach; 2 CO 2 emissions from bioenergy are accounted for in the energy sector -a CoF = 1 approach; and 3 End users account for all or a specified subset of CO 2 emissions, regardless of where geographically these emissions occur -0 < CoF < 1.Following short descriptions of the basic options, this article discusses variations to these options and uses numerical examples to illustrate the impacts of approaches at a local and international level. Finally, the alternative accounting systems are evaluated against general criteria and for impacts on selected stakeholder goals. General criteria considered are: (a) comprehensiveness, (b) simplicity, and (c) scale independence. Stakeholder goals reviewed are: (a) stimulation of rural economies, (b) food security, (c) GHG reductions, and (d) preservation of forests.

Global biomass potentials under sustainability restrictions defined by the European Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC

“…In favor of our methodological choice for the land use change emission compensation period to represent Article 17(2) stands the work of Laborde (2011), who identified the high relevance of land use change emissions from biomass extraction to the effectiveness of the European biomass policy. Further, the analysis of the carbon-debt of biomass and emissions from indirect land use changes (Searchinger et al, 2009;Lapola et al, 2010;Bird et al, 2011) indicate the high relevance of land use change with regard to biomass production and support our method. The fact that we do not perform a fuel type specific LCA can be interpreted as conservative method, because it does not take into account energy losses in fuel production and a low efficiency of combustion engines.…”

Net land‐atmosphere flows of biogenic carbon related to bioenergy: towards an understanding of systemic feedbacks

“…the assumption that C released when biomass is burned is compensated by plant growth and hence need not be counted when accounting for the GHG emissions of bioenergy. Nevertheless, this assumption is still explicitly or tacitly taken for granted in much research, policy-making and even laws (Searchinger, 2010; Bird et al ., 2012; Haberl et al ., 2012). Correcting the errors introduced by that assumption is a key prerequisite for prioritizing bioenergy options that are either C negative (A–D in Fig.…”

Correcting a fundamental error in greenhouse gas accounting related to bioenergy

“…Although these policies may acknowledge the carbon emissions from using fossil fuels to produce and refine biomass, as well as trace-gases, they omit the carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) released by the burning of the biomass itself (Bird et al, 2011). They do so either by omitting these emissions when accounting for emissions from bioenergy or by simply endorsing all bioenergy on the assumption that it emits no net carbon dioxide (Searchinger et al, 2009).…”

“…If the land were used instead to grow energy crops to be burned in a power plant, fossil fuel emissions would decline but not the carbon emitted by the power plant chimneys. Per unit of energy, the CO 2 emissions would typically even be higher than those of a fossil fuel-burning power plant because (i) biomass contains less energy per unit of carbon than petroleum products or natural gas do and (ii) biomass is usually burned with a lower efficiency than fossil fuels (Bird et al, 2011). Although the growth of bioenergy crops absorbs carbon, using the land to grow bioenergy crops sacrifices the sequestration of carbon in the forest.…”