Open AccessThe role of biomass in meeting the Paris agreement
Author(s) -
José Roberto Moreira,
Sérgio Pacca,
José Goldemberg
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/354/1/012107
Subject(s) - biomass (ecology) , bioenergy , environmental science , biofuel , ethanol fuel , greenhouse gas , bio energy with carbon capture and storage , waste management , climate change mitigation , environmental engineering , engineering , agronomy , ecology , biology
Recent energy scenarios, dealing with Climate Change mitigation with the purpose to limit warming up to 2°C or less by 2100, report high biomass energy participation in the primary global energy portfolio. By 2017, global biomass contributed with 52.3 EJ and average annual growth rate, in the last four yrs was 2.23%. However, the recent bioenergy growth rate must increase to meet CO 2 concentration pathways aligned with the mitigation scenarios. This paper describes a bioenergy deployment strategy, based on liquid fuel and electricity joint production from sugar cane used for light duty vehicles. The pathway relies on 1 st generation ethanol production, and steam power cogeneration from sugar cane waste supplemented by planted forest. Both technologies are commercial, and when used in conjunction with Biomass Energy Capture and Storage (BECCS) from sugar fermentation CO 2 , reach negative CO 2e emissions. This yields a significant volume of GHGs abatement to contribute for the Paris Agreement. Exploring an area of 80 million hectares, from which 60 Mha is dedicated for sugar cane and 20 Mha for fast growing trees, it is possible to move a fleet of 1 billion plug-in hybrid light duty vehicles through the combination of ethanol and bioelectricity. The cost of ethanol and bioelectricity to consumers is lower than the cost of gasoline used in conventional cars and the net balance of GHGs emissions is lower than for electric vehicles.