Mobilizing Sustainable Supply Chains for Forest Biomass for Energy

IEA Bioenergy Task 43
Charleston, South Carolina, USA February 21, 2012

Summary of IEA Bioenergy Task 43 Workshop – Prepared by J. Joudrey

Presentations for download:

Estimates of sustainable feedstocks in the US – the Billion Ton 2 report
Marilyn Buford, US Forest Service

Forest biomass in the EU how much is available and how to mobilize the potential?
Antti Asikainen, Finnish Forest Research Institute, METLA

Feedstocks for energy production in Ireland – challenges in developing economically sustainable supply chains
Ger Devlin, School of Agriculture, Food Science & Veterinary Medicine

Research efforts to improve the harvesting of forest biomass from the mountainous areas in Italy
Raffaele Spinelli, CNR-IVALSA

Mobilizing sustainable supply chains – opportunities and challenges
Tat Smith, University of Toronto

Forest biomass supply chains from natural forests in Canada: Integrating ecological and local constraints
Evelyne Thiffault, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada

Constraints to mobilizing sustainable biomass supply chains – the ecological perspective
Inge Stupak, Copenhagen University

Challenges of sustainable supply chains in the Southeast US
Moderator: Brian Kittler, Pinchot Institute

Wood procurement in a highly heterogeneous landscape
Pellet Export Perspective: Steven Meyers, FRAM Renewable Fuels

Sustainability Criteria and Practices in the Southeast U.S.
Environmental Perspective: Will McDow, Environmental Defense Fund

IEA Bioenergy Task 43 efforts in “Mobilizing economically sustainable supply chains”
Tanja Ikonen, Finnish Forest Research Institute, METLA

Workshop Summary

The foundation for mobilizing sustainable bioenergy supply chains must be a competitive business case that is efficient along the whole supply and value chain from the management and harvesting of managed forests to conversion facilities, energy markets and consumers. Sustainability criteria can often be viewed as constraints on the system, but also provide an adaptable framework that provides an opportunity for all actors to engage and contribute to sustainable development and deployment of bioenergy systems that satisfy economic, social and environmental criteria. The major challenges to resolve include:

• accurate and precise estimates of bioenergy feedstock supply rates from sustainably managed private and public forests that justify long-term investments in conversion facilities to competitively produce electricity, heat and manufactured biofuels and secondary bio-products;
• assessment of benefits and possible negative impacts of bioenergy supply chains at local, regional and national and global scales, involving environmental impact assessment, life cycle assessment, and broader modelling approaches;
• assessment of the tradeoffs that occur when applying sustainability criteria to bioenergy supply chains; and
• analysis of impacts of alternative governance models on likely expansion of different bioenergy supply chains, considering market impacts, social impacts; assessment of the viability of different bioenergy supply chains.

This workshop presents an opportunity to study these challenges in the southeastern U.S., a region undergoing significant growth in biomass production for local energy facilities and international export. In this region, mobilizing sustainable biomass supply chains on the scale necessary to meet current and future demand is confounded by the heterogeneous mix of sustainable forest management programs operating at various scales across the region. The coverage of certified forest land in the U.S. South is limited, suggesting that certification systems may not serve as the singular governance strategy to ensure domestic and international consumers that feedstocks are procured from sustainably managed forests. The workshop will discuss the challenges and opportunities to engage the region’s diverse landowners and develop a broad array of effective sustainable forest management programs and practices along supply chains to satisfy sustainability criteria.

The overarching goal of this one-day workshop is to examine the issues involved in mobilization of competitive, sustainable forest bioenergy supply chains from regional to international scales. This will be achieved through five (5) sessions which include presentations by invited bioenergy experts from Europe and North America and interactive panel discussion sessions.