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151 02 RENEWABLES 2014 GLOBAL STATUS REPORT BIOMASS ENERGY 1 International Energy Agency (IEA), World Energy Outlook 2013 (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/IEA, 2013), p. 200 states that traditional biomass accounted for 57% of total primary energy use from biomass in 2011. The data are very uncertain and other estimates put the share of traditional biomass consumption closer to two-thirds of total primary energy use from all biomass. For example, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that “roughly 60% share” of total biomass was deemed traditional but “in addition…there is biomass use estimated to amount to 20 to 40% not reported in official primary energy databases, such as dung, unaccounted production of charcoal, illegal logging, fuelwood gathering, and agricultural residue use”; see “Summary for Policymakers,” in O. Edenhofer et al., eds., IPCC Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (Cambridge, U.K. and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 9, http://srren.ipcc-wg3.de/report/IPCC_SRREN_Full_ Report.pdf. This would imply that total world primary energy use is higher than reported by the IEA and others. The GSR assumes here that the traditional biomass share has remained relatively unchanged over the past 2–3 years. 2 The distinction between traditional and modern biomass can be somewhat blurred, with some biomass being combusted on domestic open fires in developed-country dwellings on the one hand and modern large- to medium-scale biogas and bioenergy plants being installed in developing countries. There is a long-term ambition to create incentives for users of traditional, non-sustainable biomass in low-efficiency cookstoves (with health impacts from the smoke emissions) to use sustainably produced biomass in more efficient appliances in order to reduce losses; see Figure 5, GSR 2013, p. 27. Health issues arise from both traditional and modern use of biomass from particulates and black carbon that are formed during incomplete combustion of biomass and released as “smoke,” leading to poor health and some 4 million premature deaths each year as well as to greenhouse gas emissions. The climate benefits of reducing emissions of black carbon, a short-lived climate pollutant, are becoming better understood; see, for example, World Bank, Integration of Short-lived Climate Pollutants in World Bank Activities: A report prepared at the request of the G8 (Washington, DC: June 1013), http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2013/06/18119798/ integration-short-lived-climate-pollutants-world-bank-activities- report-prepared-request-g8. 3 Bioenergy Annex of Chapter 11, “Agriculture, Forests and Other Land Use Change,” in IPCC, Working Group III, Fifth Assessment Report: Climate Change – Mitigation (Cambridge, U.K. and New York: Cambridge University Press, April 2014),https://www.ipcc. ch/report/ar5/wg3/. Also note that short-rotation energy crops grown on agricultural land specifically for energy purposes currently provide about 3–4% of the total biomass resource consumed annually, as outlined in H. Chum et al., “Bioenergy,” Chapter 2 in Edenhofer et al., op. cit. note 1. 4 Sidebar 3 from the following sources: for research and policy endeavours, see, for example: J. Fargione et al., “Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” Science, vol. 319, no. 5867 (2008), pp. 1235–38, J. Melillo et al., “Indirect Emissions from Biofuels: How Important?” Science, vol. 326, no. 5958 (2009), pp. 1397– 99, and G. Berndes et al., “Bioenergy and Land Use Change – State of the Art,” Energy and Environment, vol. 2, no. 3 (2013), pp. 282–303; concern about time lag from idem; consensus around biogenic emissions from Pinchot Institute for Conservation, The Transatlantic Trade in Wood for Energy: A Dialogue on Sustainability Standards and Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Savannah, GA: 2013), http://cif-seek.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Trade-in-Wood- for-Energy_Savannah-Workshop-Summary_Final.pdf; carbon payback analysis from S.R. Mitchell, M.E. Harmon, and K.E.B. O’Connell, “Carbon Debt and Carbon Sequestration Parity in Forest Bioenergy Production,” GCB Bioenergy, vol. 4, no. 6 (2012), pp. 818–27; review of carbon payback times, including the use of residues, from P. Lamers and M. Junginger, “The ‘Debt’ Is in the Detail: A Synthesis of Recent Temporal Forest Carbon Analyses on Woody Biomass for Energy,” Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, vol. 7, no. 4 (2013), pp. 373–85, and from A. Agostini, J. Giuntoli, and A. Boulamanti, Carbon Accounting of Forest Bioenergy (Ispra, Italy: European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Institute for Energy and Transport, 2013), http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/bf-ca/ sites/bf-ca/files/files/documents/eur25354en_online-final.pdf; carbon payback from plantation pulpwood from G-J. Jonker, M. Junginger, and A. Faaij, “Carbon Payback Period and Carbon Offset Parity Point of Wood Pellet Production in the Southeastern USA,” GCB Bioenergy, early view, DOI: 10.1111/gcbb.12056 (2014); commonly used time frames from B. Dehue, “Implications of a ‘Carbon Debt’ on Bioenergy's Potential to Mitigate Climate Change,” Biofuels, Bioproducts & Biorefining, vol. 7, no. 3 (2012), pp. 228–34, and from B. Holtsmark, “Harvesting in Boreal Forests and the Biofuel Carbon Debt,” Climatic Change, vol. 112, no. 2 (2012), pp. 415–28; carbon cycling integration in LCA from T. Helin et al., “Approaches for Inclusion of Forest Carbon Cycle in Life Cycle Assessment – A Review, GCB Bioenergy, vol. 5, no. 5 (2012), pp. 475–86; in addition to aforementioned carbon studies, a modelling exercise that includes afforestation and reforestation from G. Zanchi, N. Pena, and N. Bird, “Is Woody Bioenergy Carbon Neutral? A Comparative Assessment of Emissions from Consumption of Woody Bioenergy and Fossil Fuel,” GCB Bioenergy, vol. 4, no. 6 (2012), pp. 761–72; U.K. draft calculator from Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), Government Response to the Consultation on Proposals to Enhance the Sustainability Criteria for the Use of Biomass Feedstocks under the Renewables Obligation (RO) (London: 2013), www. gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/ file/231102/RO_Biomass_Sustainability_consultation_-_ Government_Response_22_August_2013.pdf. 5 Fraunhofer Institute, “Biobattery – matching energy delivery with demand through storage,” BE Sustainable, 14 January 2014, http://www.besustainablemagazine.com/cms2/biobattery- matching-energy-delivery-with-demand-through-storage/; R. Sims et al., “Integration of Renewable Energy into Present and Future Energy Systems,” Chapter 8 in Edenhofer et al., op. cit. note 1. 6 E.J. Ackom et al., “Modern bioenergy from agricultural and forestry residues in Cameroon: Potential, challenges and the way forward,” Energy Policy, vol. 63 (2013), pp. 101–113. The issues of bioenergy data are discussed in International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), “Statistical issues: bioenergy and distributed renewable energy” (Abu Dhabi: 2013), http://www. irena.org/DocumentDownloads/Publications/Statistical%20 issues_bioenergy_and_distributed%20renewable%20_energy. pdf. To overcome these data limitations, as of 2013 IRENA is developing an improved methodology of data collection, the World Bioenergy Association is working to improve bioenergy-related data collection, and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) plans to undertake surveys of households and businesses. Montenegro is one such country undertaking household and business level surveys, from Statistical Office Montenegro, “Wood fuel consumption in 2011 in Montenegro – New energy balances for wood fuels,” updated February 2013, http://www.monstat.org/userfiles/file/publikacije/2013/22.2/ DRVNA%20GORIVA-ENGLESKI-ZA%20SAJT%20I%20STAMPU-. pdf. Figure 5 based on data from IEA, op. cit. note 1, and IEA, Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report 2013 (OECD/IEA: 2013). 7 Calculation based on the following: 744 Mtoe of primary energy for traditional biomass in 2011, which accounted for 57% of total bioenergy (implying total bioenergy consumption of approximately 1,300 Mtoe), from IEA, op. cit. note 1, Table 6.1, p. 200; average annual growth rate of primary bioenergy consumption of around 2% over the period 2006–2011, according to data from IEA, World Energy Outlook, various editions (2008–2013); and a growth rate of 1.8% in 2011 based on 1,277 Mtoe consumption in 2010 and 1,300 Mtoe consumption in 2011, from idem. It is assumed that the 1.8% growth continued during 2012 and 2013, bringing the estimated supply for 2013 to 1,352 Mtoe (56.6 EJ). Note that traditional biomass demand is now fairly static as improved efficiency stoves and solar PV home systems are being deployed more widely to reduce the demand for biomass for cooking and heating. See, for example, David Appleyard, “Burn it up – is biomass about to go bang?” Renewable Energy World, January/ February 2014, pp. 41–45. 8 It was assumed that the shares of global biomass use in 2012, as presented in Figure 5, “Biomass-to energy pathways” on p. 27 of the GSR 2013, remained similar for 2013 data. Other sources include: EurObserv’ER, The State of Renewable Energies in Europe: Edition 2012 (Brussels: 2012); F.O. Licht, “Fuel Ethanol: World Production, by Country (1000 cubic metres),” 2014, and F.O. Licht, “Biodiesel: World Production, by Country (1000 t),” 2014, used with permission from F.O. Licht / Licht Interactive Data. Modern biomass is converted into a range of energy carriers ENDNOTES 02 MARKET AND INDUSTRY TRENDS – BIOENERGY