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Forest biomass supply for bioenergy in the southeast: Evaluating assessment scale

Informally Refereed

Abstract

This study evaluates the potential impacts of expanded forest biomass use in the Southeast from present year through 2036, focusing on the forest supply, industrial, and GHG emissions implications of maximizing biomass co-firing with coal. We model demand scenarios at the state, subregional, and regional levels, and assess the influence of study scale on the observed results. We find that pricing effects are greatest under a state-level assessment scenario, followed by subregional and regional assessments. This has important impacts on observed shifts in forest land use and forest stand carbon, with the state-level assessment resulting in the greatest amounts of forested acreage and carbon relative to the other assessment scales. State-level assessments also experience the lowest relative displacement of pulpwood capacity of the three scales considered, with spatial and temporal dynamics of resource allocation playing a strong role in our findings. If forested acres, forest carbon, and aggregate displacement are the only issues of concern, then these results would suggest that a program encouraging the use of forest biomass for renewable energy production may be best implemented at the state level, rather than at some larger scale. Given the wide variety of other environmental, economic, and social objectives that must be satisfied, however, continued careful evaluation of the multiple impacts of increased forest biomass use is necessary.

Parent Publication

Citation

Galik, Christopher S.; Abt, Robert C. 2012. Forest biomass supply for bioenergy in the southeast: Evaluating assessment scale. In: McWilliams, Will; Roesch, Francis A. eds. 2012. Monitoring Across Borders: 2010 Joint Meeting of the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Symposium and the Southern Mensurationists. e-Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-157. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 255-263.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/41014