1st Workshop – ESSP Bioenergy
Bioenergy and Earth Sustainability
19-22 July 2008
Piracicaba, Brazil
Workshop Outcomes
Draft version 1
Prepared by Pep Canadell
Science committee and contributions: Anand Patwardhan, Carlos Nobre, Jill Jaeger, Rik Leemans, Dennis
Ojima, John Ingram, Pep Canadell, Jean Ometto, Gernot Klepper, Mike Raupach, Norman Miller, Guenther
Fischer, and Workshop Participants
Earth System Science Partnership
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Outline
1.
How much bioenergy can be grown in sustainable ways?
1.1. Opportunity cost
1.2. Assessment of land availability
1.3. Assessment of optimality
2.
Scenario Development
3.
How Vulnerable Bioenergy Systems are to Climate Change?
4.
How Climate-Protective are Biofuels?
5.
Sustainability Standards for Bioenergy Systems
ESSP is a joint initiative of
1. How much bioenergy can be grown in sustainable ways?
There are several approaches to address this question which are largely
complementary:
1.1. Opportunity Cost (an economic approach) or through the
establishment of resilient systems and pathways (a system
approach). We want to pursue brining together these two lines of
work.
1.2. Assessment of Land Availability, eg. marginal or abandon lands.
What can we do with those lands and how one can overlay
potentials and constraints”; a synthesis product.
1.3. Assessment of Optimality, there are trade-offs and synergies,
therefore, there are combinations that work better than others for a
given region.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
1.1. Opportunity Cost
Although opportunity cost is traditionaly associated with a short
term economic profits, we use this approach here as one that
would be combined with principles to design resilient systems in
the long term. To explore the basic concepts and tools of economic
opportunity cost with the approaches of resiliance in complex
system science.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 1 (i)
Natural and economic potentials for additional food and
bioenergy production:
Exploring new modelling approaches (Leader: Gernot Keppler)
Goals of Initial Workshop:
• Informs the modellers in the different communities about the approaches
and strengths and weaknesses of the different model results.
• Provides a platform to discuss the methodologies with which the potentials
for food and bioenergy are computed.
• Allows for room to discuss ways to link the biogeochemistry assessments of
the natural scientists with the economic models describing the determinants
of land use decisions and the demand for bioenergy and food products.
• Looks at the trade-offs (opportunity costs in economic terms) that need to
be faced when a conversion of land to food or bioenergy production tales
place
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 1 (ii)
Initial thoughts on Participation
Models and institutions in economic modelling:
• Agricultural Market Models
– OECD Development Center
– IFPRI (www.ifpri.org)
– FAPRI (www.fapri.org)
•
Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Models
– MIT EPPA-Model (http://web.mit.edu/globalchange/www/eppa.html)
– Kiel Institute DART-Model
•
Integrated Assessment Models
– MNP IMAGE-Model (http://www.mnp.nl/en/themasites/image/index.html)
Models and institutions in biogeochemical modelling:
• Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (Jerry Melillo)
• Biome-BGC (Peter Thornton)
• LPJ (Colin Prentice)
• Others
ESSP is a joint initiative of
2. Assessment of Land Availability (i)
• From a biophysical perspective, there is interest to assess how much land is
potentially available for bioenergy production which would not compete with
other land uses. This has brought the research community to explore the
availability of land that is currently not in use as a simple criteria to ensure
sustainability :
– abandoned land
– marginal land
– waste land
– land under optimal productivity
There is a need to develope a functional definition of these type of lands.
• Once the availability of this type of land has been identified, it will be a
combination of social and technical dimensions that will determine the
actual potential of those lands to become productive (link to Proposed Task
#1).
• This approach needs to include exploring lands with productivity under its
realizable capacity which would allow additional cropping to take place.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
2. Assessment of Land Availability (ii)
Characterization of these type lands (indicators):
• Extending production boundaries of these lands to reduce land use change elsewhere
• Sustainability: biophysical, economic, and social
• Climate variability is greatest in these lands
• How technological advances can increase their productivity
Criteria of Marginal/abandoned Lands:
• Biophysical indicators (water availability, ground relief, soil fertility)
• Ecosystem services (what existing service they produce and what are the
consequences of losing them or can we substitute them. Opportunities/requirements).
• Governance (land tenure: who owns the land and the services that would create
difficulties of access to these lands). How cultural systems are part of ecosystem and
maintaining those services).
• Technology (that can improve the chances to make the land more profitable)
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 2
Top-down assessment of land availability
Steps on project Implementation:
• To take currently available global maps and databases of the
following types of lands: marginal, abandoned, degraded, waste,
others, and synthesize the criteria, indicators and estimates
underlying each category.
• Generate a biophsyical carbon map and potential productivity on the
available lands.
• Do an analyses to show the extent these existing classifications can
be useful to understand new land available for bioenergy crops and
its potential. Publish these syntheses products.
• To identify and develop sustainability filters which would exclude land
for bioenergy production (eg, conservation areas; step topography,
high biodiveristy areas, etc).
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 3 (i)
Bottom-up assessment of land availability
Assessment of land availability at the national and regional level with stakeholder
involvement to provide detail information on land use, tenure, productivity,
opportunity costs, population density, income levels, household size etc.
• Where is the extra carbon/bioenergy potential?
– What types of approaches are available
– Evaluation of existing datasets, requirement of establishing new databasets,
assessment of the different resources
• Why is this potential not realized?
– Check yield gaps there is information on this (at the global scale).
• Where are the opportunity costs?
– if we want to achieve these targets, what is required and what is the cost?
Trade offs need to be built in.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 3 (ii)
Candidate regions
• South America: Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, and Uruguay.
• Central America: Guatemala, Southern Mexico and Honduras.
• Others: India, Southern Africa, and China.
• IAI has already an stakeholder network which could support Central
and South America. The project is appropriate for GEF funding.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 4
Assimilation of top-down and bottom-up information to produce
realistic estimates of bioenergy potential
•
To generate global maps of marginal land by iteration between the
estimates from bottom-up and top-down.
•
Using biogeochemical models to estimate the potential for bioenergy
production.
•
To outline the options for transition to bioenergy taking into account the
regional realities with emerging markets, financial incentives, etc.
•
To identify the sustainability criteria which shoud underpin any new land use
development.
•
To develop scenarios of bioenergy production over time based on climate
change, technology innovation, test multiple trade-offs, constrained by
sustainable criteria, etc. (linked to 2. Scenario Development)
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Summary Proposed Task # 2, 3, 4
Assessment of how much marginal land exist
Steps on project Implementation:
•
Top-down: take currently available global maps and databases of the following
types of lands: marginal, abandoned, degraded, waste, others, and synthesize the
criteria, indicators and estimates underlying each category (Proposed Task # 2).
•
Do an analyses to show the extent these existing classifications can be useful to
understand new land available for bioenergy crops. Synthesis product.
•
Bottom-up: Take 6-8 national cases studies to contrast global approaches with
regional expert opinion (Proposed Task # 3).
•
To generate global maps of marginal land by iteration between the estimates from
bottom-up and top-down (Proposed Task # 4).
•
Using biogeochemical models to estimate the potential for bioenergy production.
•
Develop scenarios of bioenergy production over time based on climate change,
technology innovation, test multiple trade-offs, constrained by sustainable criteria,
etc.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 5
An initial workshop organized by Norman Miller (UC, Berkeley)
Initial exploration of the following questions:
• How much abandoned and marginal lands are available for
bioenergy crops?
• What bioenergy crop species are most suitable on the different
available lands, what types are most optimal with minimal ecologic
(and socio-economic) impacts?
• How well do bioenergy crop models compare with observations and
to one another?
• What level of process detail is suitable at site-, hectare-, and
regional-scales?
• What domains, time periods, and datasets will be used for this
baseline intercomaprison?
ESSP is a joint initiative of
1.3. Assessing for Optimality
Energy Security
resources
•Energy vs. Sequestration
•Biophysical
•Full radiative forcing (multiple
GHGs, albedo, energy
partitioning)
•Food security
•Water availability
•Domestic vs. export
•Farms vs. large industry
•Soil conservation
•Biodiversity
•Equity
There are trade-offs and synergies between the three components
(Energy Security, Climate Mitigation, and Development) and within each
component.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
2. Scenario Development (i)
Purpose of scenario development
• Develop story-lines with regard to land use/resource
competition/development /environmental targets; focusing on bioenergy development; based on/ consistent with (existing)
global/regional energy scenarios. It is more important the pathways
to reach a target than the target itself.
• Identify axis/dimensions of choices to be made and provide
parameterization based on global story-lines and regional priorities
and constraints.
• Identify feasible (technologically, resource constraints, regional
priorities) pathways to meet bio-energy targets.
• Assess scenarios to determine and quantify trade-offs (synergies and
antagonisms) in terms of a common set of system dimensions/axis.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
2. Scenario Development (ii)
Scenario dimensions/axis
• Local/regional – global emphasis (trade; technology transfer;
security)
• Slow – fast technology deployment (technology options and
availability; regional technology adoption; surprises)
• Energy access, energy security
• Climate mitigation (GHG reduction; full radiative forcing)
• Robustness/resilience
=> yet, do not forget that pathways are the outcome
ESSP is a joint initiative of
2. Scenario Development (iii)
Tasks
• Establish links to existing/ongoing scenario work.
• Define dimensions/axis of choices used in scenario story-lines.
• Bio-energy systems (technology issues related to feedstock types and
productivity; biomass use and conversion; agriculture technologies).
• Link to resources (water; marginal land; intensification potential; biodiversity
impacts).
• Establish dialog between global and regional level to achieve consistency.
• Scenario assessment.
• Capacity development.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
3. Vulnerability of Bioenergy Systems to Climate Change
• Climate change is predicted to increase climate variability in the
future, and therefore pose an inherent greater risk to any land-based
industry. As large scale land transformation occurs driven by
socioeconomic changes at the farm and industrial levels, climate
change and its climate variability component must be evaluated to
avoid creating risks for new agricultural systems in parts of the world.
• Climate change and climate variability can now put at risk the
production of both food and energy. Examples of great success such
as Mauritius where 40% of all energy comes from biofuels requires
further analyses to ensure the resilience of its food and energy
production systems. Target region should be semi-arid regions and
Sub-Sahara Africa.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
4. How Climate-Protective are Biofuels?
Full radiative forcing of bioenergy pathways
Three components need to be considered:
•
Industrial life-cycle
– Cultivation, harvest, conversion, including fertilizers, energy requirements, embedded C
in machinery, etc. (sensitive to boundary conditions)
– Co-products (easy for electricity and heat co-generation, difficult for others)
– Full GHGs life cycle (CO2 equivalents)
•
Ecological life-cycle
– Shifting from GHG emissions per GJ biofuel or per v-km to emissions per ha y-1.
– Land use change and ecosystem carbon lost (Ecosystem Carbon Repayment Time,
ECRT)
– Soil carbon sequestration
– CO2 sink lost
•
Full radiative forcing life-cycle
– All GHGs
– Biophysical factors, such as reflectivity (albedo), evaporation, and surface roughness
ESSP is a joint initiative of
Proposed Task # 5
To extend the mandate of the Full Radiative Forcing activity of the
Global Carbon Project to include biofuels. At present the group
(funded by US-NCEAS) is focusing on plantations for carbon
sequestration. Link to existing work from Carnegie Institution and
John Foley’s group.
ESSP is a joint initiative of
5. Sustainability Standards for Bioenergy Systems
Many countries are developing bioenergy plans, many with little
experience and exposure to the larger issue of sustainability
pathways, both at the regional and global levels.
There was interest from the group to develop sustainability
guidelines with principles general enough that could be useful
to countries around the world beginning to develop their
bioenergy plans.
ESSP is a joint initiative of