Lecture #5: Bioenergy, Climate and Development

“Cannot afford the risks of doing bioenergy badly, but also cannot afford to forego the benefits of doing bioenergy well.” (Francis X. Johnson, 2012).

Thank you all for a great discussion about bioenergy expansion and its role and impacts to climate change mitigation actions and development.

The lecture voice memos and presentation from Mr. Francis X. Johnson is available at Bilda and I would like to point out some key points of the presentations. Please, feel free to add your opinions and thoughts about the topic in this page. That’s what KTH Social is for.

Things to remember:

* Biomass ≠ Bioenergy
* There are many driving forces behind bioenergy development such as energy demand, environmental impacts, development needs, and so forth.
* Currently, the most efficient way to use biomass resources in based on CHP technologies.
* A big plus for bioenergy when it is compared to other renewable alternatives is the fact that it provides all sorts of energy carriers such as heat, electricity, hydrogen and liquid, solid and gas fuels. Other renewables are often limited to electricity as the main energy carrier.
* Bioenergy development options vary on scale. Meaning, scale matters when design a bioenergy system.
* Finally, a good question: “Do we need to grow biomass in land to produce bioenergy carriers?”
That’s all folks! See you all on our next class.

Cheers,

Alessandro

(Course Assistant)

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