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Summary The use of biomass to produce bioenergy in order to provide a wide range of energy services (heat, light, comfort, entertainment, information, mobility etc.), and to produce biomaterials as substitutes for those presently manufactured from petro-chemicals, is an integrating response to a number of global problems. These include equity, development, energy supply security, rural employment, and climate change mitigation. Biomass provides fuel flexibility to match a wide range of energy demands and is a renewable energy source that can be stored, which is an advantage over several other forms of renewable energy. It has been identified by the European Union as a significant contributor to its 12% renewable...
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By replacing fossil fuels bioenergy has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, but indirect effects might partly or even completely eliminate this benefit. Production of bio-energy products, such as biofuels for transport, causes several indirect effects through their interactions with the global economic and physical systems. Indirect land-use change leads to GHG emissions – in some cases in the same order of magnitude as the fossil emissions – and loss of nature, but there are other relevant indirect effects as well. Intensification of agricultural production is another indirect effect and could be stimulated more to minimise the undesirable land conversion. However, intensification through increased...
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