Global (but Sustainable) Bioenergy Potential Can Meet Global Demand: WBA Position Paper

The World Bioenergy Association (WBA) recently released a position paper on the global potentials of biomass energy. The position paper (based on the report by the Department of Energy and Technology at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) says that "the potential to produce biomass for energy in a sustainable way is sufficient to meet global demand. Among the highlights of the position paper are: (1) the total global bioenergy production potential by 2050 (based on a scenario applying "best available technologies") is estimated at 1,548 Exajoules. (A "joule" is a unit of energy, and 1 Exajoule is equal to 10¹⁸ joules). On the other hand, global primary energy consumption (on a high end consumption scenario) is lesser and is estimated at 1,041 Exajoules, (2) there are no technical problems seen with respect to shifting the energy mix from fossil fuels to bioenergy; however, efforts to improve overall efficiency must be in place, (3) only about 0.19 percent of the total global land area is devoted to biofuels, while 0.5 percent of total global land area is agricultural land, (4) there is little public awareness on potential of bioenergy, and the establishment of an information/education campaign will be helpful to promote bioenergy, (4) "sustainable development of biomass and biofuel is a major challenge" in increasing biomass production for bioenergy; international efforts to establish "sustainability criteria" to regulate the production and trade of bioenergy are underway.

Related Information: World Bioenergy Association http://www.worldbioenergy.org/