The increased production and use of biomass for energy purposes and the creation of a market for modern bioenergy is actively pursued for disparate reasons and with diverse policies in different parts of the world (GBEP, 2008). Promotion policies and programmes – some of which are on a large scale – are based on arguments such as climate change miti-gation, conservation of the environment, energy and supply security and rural or national development. In its analysis WBGU focuses on the role of bioenergy in a sustainable global energy system and thus has a specific perspective on the global bioenergy discus-sion. In order to highlight the potentials and limits of bioenergy and the parameters of policy-making, it is important that the dimensions and dynamics of the overall debate are first understood.
The most important current discourses on bioen-ergy are briefly summarized below. Consideration of the different discourses, which tend to be conducted in parallel, reveals the commonalities and contra-dictions of present bioenergy policies. It will also become apparent that a wide range of political and economic interests come into play at both national and transnational level in industrialized and devel-oping countries; it is essential to be aware of these if one is to understand the current debate and the predicted prospects of a sustainable policy of the future. This chapter thus describes the wider context within which WBGU frames the formulation of its own objectives and priorities for a sustainable global bioenergy policy.
2.1
Current discourses on bioenergy
In the recent past at least three different bioenergy discourses have emerged, underpinned by diverse motives and stakeholder constellations. It is due to the dynamics of these different discourses that no predominant view of the benefits and disadvantages of bioenergy has as yet become established.
Firstly there is a discourse centred on environ-mental policy, which focuses on the contribution of bioenergy to climate change mitigation and resource conservation. Bioenergy is regarded as a ‘green’, cli-mate-friendly form of energy. It is therefore seen as playing an important role, particularly in the industri-alized countries, in enabling the Kyoto commitments to be met. In the long term it is thus envisaged that bioenergy will contribute to the transformation of energy systems towards a low-carbon economy. This discourse is currently supported by the IPCC guide-lines, which classify the use of bioenergy as in princi-ple carbon neutral (IPCC, 2006).
Typical of policies that are based on this dis-course is the EU’s Biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC), which aims to reduce traffic-induced CO2 emis-sions through the blending of biofuels. That the traf-fic sector’s contribution to climate change mitiga-tion should involve liquid biofuels can be explained in part by the vested interest of a major stakeholder in European economic policy: the automobile indus-try. The use of biofuels in conventional combustion engines requires only minor technical modifications;
by using biofuels, extensive and costly
technologi-Box 2.1-1
Terminology: Bioenergy, biofuels, agrofuels Many of the bioenergy-related terms that are bandied about in the public debate are not used in a standardized manner. Bioenergy is the final energy or useful energy that is converted and made available from biomass. Biofuels are liquid or gaseous fuels of biogenic origin; they can be used
as transport fuels or deployed in the stationary applications of power generation or cogeneration.
The prefix ‘bio’ has a positive connotation, but biofuels may also be derived from the non-sustainable cultivation of energy crops. Because of this, the term ‘agrofuels’ is now often used, or – less frequently – ‘agri-ethanol’, ‘agro-energy’ or ‘agrogas’. WBGU continues to use the original terminology, because ‘bioenergy’, ‘biofuels’ and ‘biogas’ are the more familiar terms.
22 2 Motives for deploying bioenergy
cal change can therefore be avoided, and the indus-try can at the same time claim to be making a seri-ous contribution to climate change mitigation. This provides companies with a low-cost means of demon-strating their commitment to tackling climate change, and relieves consumers of the need to change their behaviour directly, for example by reducing their car usage. Since the actual effectiveness of these biofuels in mitigating climate change was initially not seri-ously questioned, this approach appealed to deci-sion-makers in politics and industry and appeared to engender little opposition. The assumed effectiveness in mitigating climate change became a pivotal argu-ment in favour of subsidizing biofuels from energy crops, in the industrialized countries and elsewhere.
Now that greenhouse gas balances are better under-stood and interdependencies with food production and nature conservation have become apparent, sup-porters of biofuels face growing criticism. As a result first steps towards a correction of policy are already being taken, while some are going so far as to call for a moratorium on the cultivation of energy crops (Umwelt Aktuell, 2008).
A second discourse on resource scarcity, rising energy prices and energy security regards bioenergy as an alternative to the fossil energy carriers – coal, oil and natural gas. It builds on the assumption that the use of biomass can contribute to greater energy and supply security and to reduced dependence on fossil and nuclear fuel imports.
Sharp price rises and the predicted scarcity of fos-sil fuels, particularly oil (‘peak oil’), and the growing demand from newly industrializing countries, have in recent years kindled a new debate on security of sup-ply (Worldwatch Institute, 2007; Economist, 2008a).
Since the production of mineral oil is concentrated in a small number of regions, many of which are politically unstable, security-related and geostrategic motives for the substitution of oil imports are also coming to the fore (Mildner and Zilla, 2007; Adel-phi Consult and Wuppertal Institut, 2007). This com-bination of reasons plays a particularly important role in the USA (White House, 2006). In the Euro-pean Union, too, dependence on Russian gas and oil is seen as a serious risk to the security of supply (EU Commission, 2005c). In both cases these argu-ments have been used to support ambitious plans for expanding the use of biomass for energy, and in par-ticular the use of liquid biofuels.
Reducing dependence on imports is, however, also an explicit goal of the bioenergy programmes of many newly industrializing and developing coun-tries. The main aim of such a reduction is to circum-vent rising procurement costs for fossil resources.
The high oil prices of recent years have significantly worsened the balance of trade of many countries, and
import substitution through bioenergy is extolled as a possible way out of this situation (UN-Energy, 2007b). For example, high crude oil prices and the goal of self-sufficiency of supply were major determi-nants of the biofuel policy used by the Brazilian gov-ernment in 2006 to achieve its goal of self-sufficiency in crude oil (IEA, 2006a). Other newly industrializ-ing and developindustrializ-ing countries, such as India and Indo-nesia, also point to import substitution as an impor-tant motive for their biofuel strategies (e.g. Planning Commission, 2003).
This discourse, too – which is encountered in equal measure in developing, newly industrializing and industrialized countries – is frequently confined to liquid biofuels and the transport sector. Along-side the mineral oil suppliers and small and medium-sized businesses that perceive major market open-ings for biofuels in industrialized countries (Econ-omist, 2008a), there are also powerful arguments in developing and newly industrializing countries for a development pathway that involves crude oil substi-tution. These include the growing affluent consumer groups and the rapidly rising demand for motor cars.
Within such specific national supply discourses the argument of improved access to energy in rural areas plays only a subordinate role. In consequence, prior-ities and support policies are insufficiently geared to the needs of countries and regions affected by energy poverty.
In a third discourse centring on rural development and economic potential the fresh opportunities for growth and employment in agriculture are empha-sized. In industrialized countries the increased use of biomass for energy is seen as an opportunity to revitalize the sectors of the economy based on agri-culture and forestry and secure jobs in these areas (DBV, 2004). This combination of reasons plays an important role in both the USA and the European Union, not least because it can be used to legitimize new or continuing agricultural subsidies (Koplow, 2007; Kutas et al., 2007).
Many newly industrializing and developing coun-tries likewise support the expansion and promotion of specialized energy crop farming. Many of these countries are predominantly agrarian and they par-ticularly stress the opportunities for national devel-opment that arise from employment effects in agri-culture and the possible growth potentials of the export-oriented production of energy crops and biofuels (Lula da Silva, 2007). It is argued that nat-ural geographical conditions, regional climate, the availability of agricultural and forestry land and low wage costs result in comparative cost advantages on the world market; these would open up global sales opportunities, perhaps extending to specific trade partnerships with industrialized countries where
Sustainable global energy systems and land-use systems 2.2 23
2.2
Sustainable global energy systems and land-use systems
When seen in terms of its multiple interlinkages, bioenergy is the most complex of all the known forms of renewable energy. The potential benefits and the risks of extensive undesirable effects are both high.
This makes it all the more urgent to question the globally sustainable deployment of bioenergy: what should the use of biomass for energy achieve, what can it achieve and what are the associated risks and limits?
Bioenergy is in the first place a form of energy.
As WBGU has already shown in previous reports, it is essential to turn energy systems towards sustain-ability worldwide – both in order to protect the natu-ral life-support systems on which humanity depends, and to overcome energy poverty in developing coun-tries (WBGU, 2004a). The increased use of bioen-ergy must therefore be evaluated in terms of whether and to what extent it contributes to this global shift towards sustainable energy systems.
A sustainable energy system must be anchored in a general process of sustainable development in order to ensure that the use of bioenergy is not at the expense of other sustainability dimensions. Further-more, conversion into energy is not the only use of biomass. The issue of the sustainable use of bioenergy is therefore just one aspect of a wider question – in view of the fact that biomass, while it is renewable, is not available in unlimited quantities, in what way and for what purposes should it be used in order to facil-itate globally sustainable development?
The following sections elucidate the areas of bioenergy use in which WBGU considers a signifi-cant contribution to sustainable development to be possible and which therefore form the core of the report’s analysis.
2.2.1
Bioenergy, energy system transformation and climate change mitigation
Effective climate change mitigation is essential if there is to be any prospect of globally sustainable development (WBGU, 2007). In order to avoid dan-gerous climate change, within the next ten years the emissions trend must be reversed and by 2050 global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions must be cut to half their 1990 level. Currently (2004), 56.6 per cent of glo-bal greenhouse gas emissions are CO2 emissions from the combustion of fossil energy carriers. Overall, cen-tral energy generation contributes 25.9 per cent of global GHG emissions, transport contributes 13.1 demand is located (Mildner and Zilla, 2007;
Math-ews, 2007). In particular, the major agricultural pro-ducers among the newly industrializing and devel-oping countries – such as Brazil, Indonesia, Malay-sia, South Africa and Argentina – have high hopes of an emerging world market in biofuels. Even though this development discourse has recently been put on the defensive as the possible social and ecological consequences have been pointed out (slogans have included: ‘food, not fuel’, ‘tortilla crisis’ and ‘destruc-tion of the rainforest’), the argument centred on new development opportunities arising from bioenergy continues to play an important role.
Beyond these primarily macro-economic consid-erations, multinational companies also see significant commercial potential in the areas of agrochemistry and plant biotechnology (Bayer CropScience, 2006;
Economist, 2008a). As a result, the interests of agri-cultural policy and energy policy stakeholders some-times coincide, a situation that amplifies the impact and forcefulness of this discourse.
When viewed as a whole there is a great deal of overlap between the individual discourses and the interests of the stakeholders pushing them. It is often suggested that bioenergy as such – without differenti-ating further – could have positive effects in a number of issue areas (‘win-win-win’). Interactions, conflict-ing objectives and risks are overlooked – partly out of ignorance, partly as a calculated strategy. Different interest groups compete to dominate the discourse on bioenergy and thus assert their influence on rele-vant policy-making processes.
It is noticeable that in the public debate on alter-native energies there is still little attempt to distin-guish between different production and deployment forms of bioenergy. In particular, liquid biofuels are often equated with bioenergy in general. It is even rarer to encounter any differentiation between the use of bioenergy in fundamentally different energy sectors such as power, heat and transport. The same attitude is revealed in the narrow focus of bioenergy policy to date on the transport sector and biofuels.
Otherwise unheard-of alliances of different interest groups – such as the automobile industry and envi-ronmental conservationists, or groups representing agricultural interests and energy companies – have been able to state their case with particular forceful-ness. In consequence, a policy of promoting bioen-ergy appeared to everyone involved to be a worth-while strategy. But it is an open question whether the bioenergy policy that is currently being pursued is meaningful and effective in the sense of involv-ing coherent promotion of climate change mitigation and energy security while also heeding the principles of sustainable development.
24 2 Motives for deploying bioenergy
2.2.3
Specific properties of biomass
Since the amount of biomass that is annually renewed in the biosphere is limited and conversion into energy is only one of a number of ways in which biomass can be used, any expansion of energy crop cultiva-tion needs to be evaluated in the context of compet-ing demands. In particular, the area of land availa-ble for energy crop cultivation is limited by the abso-lute necessity of ensuring an adequate level of food production. Similarly, the energy yield achievable per unit of land cannot be increased indefinitely, since there is a theoretical upper limit to the efficiency of photosynthesis in converting incident solar energy into biomass. This makes it all the more important not simply to regard bioenergy as a mere quantita-tive contribution to overall energy, but to conduct a general evaluation of the qualitative properties of biomass in order to identify how they might contrib-ute to the objectives of a sustainable energy system.
Properties of biomass as an energy carrier Plants are able to absorb and store solar energy with-out technological intervention. Humans can utilize this property by burning biomass in various forms.
Conversion and storage of bioenergy requires only the simplest of technology; bioenergy has therefore been utilized since the dawn of human history. Today bioenergy is used predominantly by the poor, for whom it represents an affordable and easily manage-able form of energy. From the point of view of utili-zation, biomass and fossil fuels – which are ultimately stored biomass from prehistoric times – share similar properties. In particular, biomass can be used upon demand. This means that even in complex energy systems it can play an important part in securing the energy supply: as the proportion of renewable ener-gies increases, biomass can balance and supplement the intermittent feed-in of wind and solar energy in electricity supply systems.
Properties of biomass as a carbon sink and carbon reservoir
At the same time as storing energy, plants also store carbon, which is removed from the air in the form of CO2. If the biomass is used as energy, the stored CO2 is again released. As with the use of fossil fuels, it is technologically possible – although not straightfor-ward – to separate and store the CO2 in the course of energy generation. In generating biomethane, some of the CO2 must in any case be separated in order to make the gas usable. In the case of biomass, how-ever, it is also possible and technologically fairly sim-ple to store CO2 temporarily if some or all of the uti-lization for energy is foregone or delayed. Depend-per cent and industry 19.4 Depend-per cent (IPCC, 2007c). A
transformation of energy systems is therefore indis-pensable for attainment of the climate change miti-gation targets (WBGU, 2003, 2004a).
Two other sectors that are highly relevant to cli-mate change mitigation are forestry and agriculture, which contribute respectively 17.4 per cent and 13.5 per cent to global greenhouse gas emissions. Emis-sions from the forestry sector are predominantly CO2 emissions from ongoing deforestation; those from agriculture are attributable in approximately equal proportions to emissions of methane and nitrous oxide (IPCC, 2007c). Whether the climate change mitigation targets can be achieved therefore depends not only on the transformation of energy systems but also to a significant extent on the future development of global land use.
Bioenergy, provided that it is not limited to the use of wastes and residues, is directly linked to land use and therefore has the potential to lead to a change in emissions in the agriculture and forestry sectors. It thus forms an interface between the two most signif-icant drivers of climate change – global energy sys-tems and global land use.
2.2.2
Bioenergy, energy system transformation and energy poverty
A further goal of the global reconfiguration of energy systems is to overcome energy poverty in develop-ing countries. Energy poverty involves a lack of ade-quate options for access to affordable, reliable, high-quality, safe and environmentally sound energy serv-ices to meet basic needs (WBGU, 2004a). Access to modern energy is an important element in tackling poverty and a condition for attainment of the Mil-lennium Development Goals (WBGU, 2004a). Some 2500 million people presently depend on biomass as the primary source of energy for cooking. In many countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, biomass accounts for more than 90 per cent of household energy consumption (IEA, 2006b). The majority of this bioenergy is used in traditional form; it there-fore frequently involves inefficient technologies and major risks to health (Section 8.2). In WBGU’s view, further development of existing bioenergy use or its replacement by low-emission forms of energy is key to overcoming energy poverty.
Sustainable global energy systems and land-use systems 2.2 25
ing on the use of the biomass and the way in which it
ing on the use of the biomass and the way in which it