Indirect land use change emissions related to EU biofuel consumption: an analysis based on historical data

Overmars, Koen P.; Stehfest, Elke; Ros, J. P.; Prins, Anne Gerdien

doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2010.12.012

Cited by 76 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…For the West Kalimantan case in Indonesia, the Michoacan and Chiapas cases in Mexico, and the Guarantã do Norte, Alta Floresta, and Santarém cases in Brazil, iLUC carbon debts were calculated for low, medium, and high iLUC corresponding to 25% (iLUC Low ), 50% (iLUC Medium ), and 75% (iLUC Max ) of the area of biofuel expansion occurring on land converted from permanent or shifting agricultural systems, respectively (Fritsche et al 2010a). In addition, this represents the same range as the net displacement factors of different corn ethanol studies summarized by Plevin et al (2010) and the iLUC values used for soybean and oil palm (48%-49%) in Overmars et al (2011). Furthermore, the iLUC estimates from the Ghanaian and Zambian cases (29% and 52%, respectively) ) also fall within these ranges.…”

Section: Land-use and Carbon-stock Changementioning

confidence: 53%

Implications of Biodiesel-Induced Land-Use Changes for CO2 Emissions: Case Studies in Tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia

Achten¹,

Verchot²

2011

E&S

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ABSTRACT. Biofuels are receiving growing negative attention. Direct and/or indirect land-use changes that result from their cultivation can cause emissions due to carbon losses in soils and biomass and could negate any eventual greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction benefit. This paper evaluates the implications of land-use change emission on the climate-change mitigation potential of different biofuel production systems in 12 case studies in six countries. We calculated carbon debts created by conversion of different land-use types, ranging from annual cropland to primary forest. We evaluated case studies using three different biofuel crops: oil palm, Jatropha, and soybean. The time needed for each biofuel production system to pay back its carbon debt was calculated based on a life-cycle assessment of the GHG reduction potentials of the system. Carbon debts range from 39 to 1743.7 Mg C0 2 ha -1 . The oil palm case studies created the largest carbon debts (472.8-1743.7 t C0 2 ha -1 ) because most of the area expansion came at the expense of dense tropical forest. The highest debt was associated with plantation on peatland. For all cases evaluated, only soybean in Guarantã do Norte and Alta Floresta, Brazil needed less than one human generation (30 years) to repay the initial carbon debt. Highest repayment times were found for Jatropha (76-310 years) and oil palm (59-220 years) case studies. Oil palm established in peatlands had the greatest repayment times (206-220 years). High repayment times for Jatropha resulted from the combined effects of land-cover change and low CO 2 emission reduction rate. These outcomes raise serious questions about the sustainability of biofuel production. The carbon implications of conversion of (semi-)natural systems with medium to high biomass indicate that, in order to generate climate benefits, cultivation of biofuel feedstocks should be restricted to areas that already have low carbon content.

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Section: Land-use and Carbon-stock Changementioning

confidence: 53%

Implications of Biodiesel-Induced Land-Use Changes for CO2 Emissions: Case Studies in Tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia

Achten¹,

Verchot²

2011

E&S

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“…Assumptions on the interaction between land use for food and biomass feedstock production are central in different ways. First, biomass feedstock production may act as an additional driver for intensification of food and feed production as competition [5,14,24,25] for land increases [28,29]. Assumptions on intensification rates of food and feed crops are critical in the estimation of land availability.…”

Section: Land Potential For Biomass Feedstock Productionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biomass Resources: Agriculture

Kluts¹,

Brinkman²,

Jong³

et al. 2017

Advances in Biochemical Engineering/Biotechnology

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Bioenergy is the single largest source of renewable energy in the European Union (EU-28); of this, 14% was produced from agricultural feedstocks in 2012. This chapter provides an overview of the current use (for bioenergy) and future potential of agricultural feedstocks for (amongst others) biorefinery purposes in the European Union. The main application of these feedstocks is currently the production of biofuels for road transport. Biodiesel makes up 80% of the European biofuel production, mainly from rapeseed oil, and the remaining part is bioethanol from wheat and sugar beet. Dedicated woody and grassy crops (mainly miscanthus and switchgrass) are currently only used in very small quantities for heat and electricity generation. There is great potential for primary agricultural residues (mainly straw) but currently only part of this is for heat and electricity generation. Agricultural land currently in use for energy crop cultivation in the EU-28 is 4.4 Mio ha, although the land area technically available in 2030 is estimated to be 16-43 Mio ha, or 15-40% of the current arable land in the EU-28. There is, however, great uncertainty on the location and quality of that land. It is expected that woody and grassy crops together with primary agricultural residues should become more important as agricultural feedstocks.

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“…The energy system costs include investment, operation and maintenance costs, plus the costs of imported fuels, minus the incomes of exported fuels, and the residual value of technologies at the end of the horizon (Loulou et al 2005). The Irish TIMES model (Ó Gallachóir et al 2012) has been used to test a number of future energy and emissions' policy scenarios, such as impact of climate mitigation policy on Irish energy system by 2020 (Chiodi et al 2013a) and 2050 (Chiodi et al 2013b), energy security (Glynn et al 2014), impact of limiting the bioenergy resources (Chiodi et al 2015a), and integrated agricultural and energy systems modelling (Chiodi et al 2015b).…”

Section: Energy Systems Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of including land-use change emissions from biofuels on meeting GHG emissions reduction targets: the example of Ireland

Czyrnek-Delêtre

Chiodi

Murphy

et al. 2016

Clean Techn Environ Policy

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The greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from land-use change are of particular concern for land-based biofuels. Emissions avoided by substituting fossil fuels with biofuels may be offset by emissions from direct and indirect land-use changes (LUC). There is an urgent need to investigate what impact land-use change emissions may have on the expansion of bioenergy and biofuels, in the context of EU mitigation policies. This paper focuses on Ireland, which faces a number of challenges in delivering its renewable energy and GHG reduction targets. The Irish TIMES energy systems model was used to assess the impact of a range of land-use change emissions' levels on the evolution of Ireland's low-carbon energy system. A reference scenario was developed where LUC is ignored and Ireland achieves a least-cost low-carbon energy system by 2050. If high indirect land-use change (ILUC) emissions are included, this results in a decrease by 30 % in bioenergy and a 68 % increase in marginal abatement costs by 2050. Hydrogen is used instead of bioenergy in the freight sector in this scenario, while private cars are fuelled by renewable electricity. If GHG emissions from ILUC were considered less severe, indigenous grass biomethane becomes the key biofuel representing 31 % of total bioenergy consumption. This is in line with recent research in Ireland of the key role that grass biomethane can play.

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Indirect land use change emissions related to EU biofuel consumption: an analysis based on historical data

Cited by 76 publications

References 11 publications

Implications of Biodiesel-Induced Land-Use Changes for CO2 Emissions: Case Studies in Tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia

Implications of Biodiesel-Induced Land-Use Changes for CO2 Emissions: Case Studies in Tropical America, Africa, and Southeast Asia

Biomass Resources: Agriculture

Impact of including land-use change emissions from biofuels on meeting GHG emissions reduction targets: the example of Ireland

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