Welcome to the Biomass Energy, Forests and Climate library. It has been brought together by the Forest, Climate and Biomass Working Group of the Environmental Paper Network. We want activists, communities, scholars – anyone who’s interested in forest biomass issues – to be able to find all the key resources in one place. So we’ve gathered together key resources that present case studies and explain the science behind biomass energy and its impacts on forests and climate.
If you have any suggestions for resources we should have in this library or any comments about it, please contact us. You may also find our Frequently Asked Questions helpful.
The UK’s largest power station began importing wood from Canadian pellet plants 12 years ago. The mills, bought by Drax Group in 2021 & 2022, have breached environmental regulations 189 times.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Land and Climate Review
Author: Jaysim Hanspal and Bertie Harrison-Broninski
Date: 2024
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Article
Topics:
The European Environment Agency (EEA) released (March 2024) its yearly overview of renewable energy deployment in the EU for 2022: 23% of the energy consumed in the EU during 2022 came from renewable sources, an increase driven mainly by strong growth in the solar and wind sectors. But solid biomass – essentially, wood burning – still represented 40% of the renewables mix that year, a proportion that decreases only slowly. In absolute terms, the biomass sector continues to grow.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Fern
Author: Martin Pigeon
Date: 2024
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Article
Topics:
Given the short time-frame to limit global warming, and the current emissions gap, it is criticalto prioritise mitigation actions. To date, scant attention has been paid to the mitigation benefits of primary forest protection. In this paper we estimate tropical forest ecosystem carbon stocks and flows.
Read More (PDF)Organization: Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (2020) 25:763–787
Author: Brendan Mackey, et al.
Date: 2020
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
A new report by Spatial Informatics Group, LLC (SIG), commissioned by the Southern Environmental Law Center and the National Wildlife Federation, takes a closer look at the carbon profile of wood pellets produced at Drax’s three U.S. wood pellet mills. Building on previous studies, SIG conducted a carbon life-cycle assessment tailored to Drax’s presumed wood sourcing for these mills. SIG found that the accumulated emissions of burning wood pellets from these mills to produce electricity in the UK increases carbon pollution in the atmosphere for more than 40 years, well beyond the timeframe identified by the IPCC as critical for carbon reduction.
Read More (PDF)Organization: Southern Environmental Law Center
Author: Southern Environmental Law Center
Date: 2024
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Fact Sheet
Topics:
This is a list of papers on GHG emissions from bioenergy related land-use. The list is not complete, and will most likely be updated in future in order to make it more thorough and more representative.
Read More (Web page)Organization: AGW Observer
Author: Various
Date: 2014
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: List
Topics:
With results from a forest economics model, spatially explicit state-and-transition simulation models, and species–habitat models, we projected change in habitat amount for 16 wildlife species caused by meeting a renewable fuel target and expected demand for wood pellets in North Carolina, USA.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Wiley online library
Author: Nathan M. Tarr et al
Date: 2016
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
This study extends existing life cycle assessment (LCA) literature by assessing seven environmental burdens and an overall monetized environmental score for eight recycle, bury, or burn options to manage clean wood wastes generated at construction and demolition activity sites.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Journal of Industrial Ecology
Author: Jeffrey Morris
Date: 2016
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
Accurately assessing the delay before the substitution of fossil fuel by forest bioenergy starts having a net beneficial impact on atmospheric CO2 is becoming important as the cost of delaying GHG emission reductions is increasingly being recognized. We documented the time to carbon (C) parity of forest bioenergy sourced from different feedstocks (harvest residues, salvaged trees, and green trees), typical of forest biomass production in Canada, used to replace three fossil fuel types (coal, oil, and natural gas) in heating or power generation.
Read More (Web page)Organization: GCB Bioenergy
Author: Jérôme Laganière et al
Date: 2015
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Academic article
Topics:
Thinning and energy production from biomass are being increasingly implemented in the Western U.S. as a “win-win” approach to reducing fire risk and replacing fossil fuels. Yet questions and uncertainty about ecological impacts and carbon neutrality are highlighted in recent research.
Read More (Web page)Organization: Geos Institute
Author: D.A. DellaSala and M. Koopman
Date: 2015
Location: Array
Language: English
Type of resource: Report
Topics:
