Open AccessCarbon payback period and carbon offset parity point of wood pellet production in the South‐eastern United States
Author(s) -
Jonker Jan Gerrit Geurt,
Junginger Martin,
Faaij Andre
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
gcb bioenergy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.378
H-Index - 63
eISSN - 1757-1707
pISSN - 1757-1693
DOI - 10.1111/gcbb.12056
Subject(s) - carbon offset , carbon sequestration , environmental science , offset (computer science) , payback period , softwood , coal , pellets , greenhouse gas , carbon accounting , pulp and paper industry , agricultural economics , economics , production (economics) , engineering , waste management , chemistry , ecology , carbon dioxide , geology , microeconomics , computer science , oceanography , biology , programming language , organic chemistry
This study examines the effect of methodological choices to determine the carbon payback time and the offset parity point for wood pellet production from softwood plantations in the South‐eastern United States . Using the carbon accounting model GORCAM we model low‐, medium‐ and high‐intensity plantation management scenarios for a single stand level, an increasing stand level and a landscape level. Other variables are the fossil‐fuel reference system and the electrical conversion efficiency. Due to the large amount of possible methodological choices and reference systems, there is a wide range of payback times (≤1 year at landscape to 27 years at stand level) and offset parity points (2–106 years). Important aspects impacting on the carbon balances are yield, carbon replacement factor, system boundaries and the choice of reference scenario used to determine the parity point. We consider the landscape‐level carbon debt approach more appropriate for the situation in the South‐eastern United States , where softwood plantation is already in existence, and under this precondition, we conclude that the issue of carbon payback is basically nonexistent. If comparison against a protection scenario is deemed realistic and policy relevant, and assuming that wood pellets directly replace coal in an average coal power plant, the carbon offset parity point is in the range 12–46 years; i.e. one or two rotations. Switching to intensively managed plantations yields most drastic reduction in the time to parity points (≤17 years in 9 of 12 cases).