Potential of biomass energy out to 2100, for four IPCC SRES land-use scenarios

The availability of the resources is an important factor for high shares of biomass to penetrate the electricity, heat or liquid fuel markets. We have analysed the geographical and technical potential of energy crops for the years 2050-2100 for three land-use categories: abandoned agricultural land, low-productivity land and 'rest land', i.e. remaining no-productive land. We envisaged development paths using four scenarios resulting from different future land-use patterns that were developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Special Report on Emission Scenarios: A1, A2, B1 and B2. The geographical potential is defined as the product of the available area for energy crops and the corresponding productivity level for energy crops. The geographical potential of abandoned agricultural land is the largest contributor. For the year 2050 the geographical potential of abandoned land ranges from about 130 to 410 EJ yr−1. For the year 2100 it ranges from 240 to 850 EJ yr−1. The potential of low-productive land is negligible compared to the other categories. The rest land area is assumed to be partly available, resulting in ranges of the geographical potential from about 35 to 245 EJ yr−1 for the year 2050 and from about 35 to 265 EJ yr−1 in 2100. At a regional level, significant potentials are found in the Former USSR, East Asia and South America. The geographical potential can be converted to transportation fuels or electricity resulting in ranges of the technical potential for fuels in the year 2050 and 2100 equal to several times the present oil consumption.