trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

Economic: part of the technical potential that is economically exploitable in the context ofgiven current basic conditions. Implementation potential: refers to the expected actual contribution, usually lower than theeconomic potential. Heavily affected by policy and can even be greater than the economicpotential, if for example the option for using renewable energy is subsidised (e.g. marketintroduction programme).The ideal study would estimate the technical potential through an intersection of a supply curve(supply as a function of price) with a demand curve (demand as a function of price), but the reality isthat most studies focus on either side and some do not specify clearly to which type of potential they arereferred to (Thrän et al., 2010).The estimations of bioenergy potentials and land availability for bioenergy production imply a set ofassumptions related to their main drivers. These are, among others, the development of the globalpopulation, the impacts of climate change, growth rates of per-capita consumption of food anddevelopments in agricultural yields.From a review of calculations in this field, two relevant issues can be pointed out: in the first placethat there is a huge variety in the results, and in the second place that the contribution of bioenergyproduced developing countries is much more relevant than that of industrialized regions.As explained above, the variations in results are due to the difference in assumptions and calculationprocedures, as well as in the classification of certain bioenergy sources: this is the case of forest residues,which in some studies are restricted to the residues resulting from thinning and logging, industrialproduction processes, and waste, while in others include also the annual forest increment. This leads toestimations of potential of this fraction of bioenergy which range from zero to 150 EJ/yr in 2050 (Thränet al., 2010). If potentials of other residues are more stable according to the different studies (i.e.estimations of potentials of crop residues in 2050 range from about 20 to 70 EJ/yr), in the case ofenergy crops the potentials calculated are between 0 and 1272 EJ/yr (Thrän et al., 2010). This is duemainly to two factors: estimation of actual availability of plantation areas and estimation of actual yieldlevels of new generation crops. This is particularly evident in the study by Lashof et al. (1990), in whicheven the lowest assumptions of global average yield are significantly higher than in the other studies,and even higher than the indicated maximum woody biomass yield level (Berndes et al., 2003). Theseuncertainties are reflected in the results.3. EU bioenergy policy – and its critiqueCurrently the European Union is a major promoter of bioenergy. By 2020, 20% of the total energy usedin the EU and 10% of the transport fuel in each member state must come from renewable sources. In thebackground of the ambitious bioenergy policy are three important factors: peak oil, climate change andthe dependency of the European economy on the vast and ever growing transport sector, which currentlyruns on fossil fuels. The EU biofuel policy is being justified by three key assumptions: by replacing fossilfuels with biofuels it’s possible to gain remarkable reductions in GHG emissions, increase energysecurity in the EU and spur rural development both in the EU and in developing countries.232