Documenting sustainable biomass supplies: Plans for quantification and interpretation of data
Workshop organized by IEA Bioenergy Task 43-Sustainable Biomass, in coordination with the Clean Energy Ministerial Biofuture Platform Initiative, and the 11th GBEP Bioenergy Week, in Rome Italy
Overview:
Date: Monday, 17 June 2024
Time: 13:30 – 17:00 (CET)
Invitees: Open to all GBEP Energy Week Participants and other stakeholders
Note: Venue capacity is 50 participants
Location: Italian Geographical Society – Palazzetto Mattei, within the Villa Celimontana, via della Navicella, 12 – 00184 Roma
Link to register:
Background: The increased use of biomass for energy is a critical component of global efforts to decarbonize transportation, industry and buildings and achieve net zero goals. The IEA
The IEA estimates that modern bioenergy production would need to almost double by 2030 to enable a global net-zero trajectory by mid-century, and other modern forms of bioenergy would need to nearly double. A debate over the availability of sustainable feedstocks has hampered investments needed to mobilize, diversify, and expand supplies. In addition, every region has its unique resources and capabilities which will lead to different development paths.
The Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) Biofuture Platform Initiative (Biofuture) developed a priority task for 2024 to address the need for Internationally accepted benchmarks for quantifying sustainable biomass feedstock supplies. The U.S. Department of Energy provided support to Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to initiate this task and to establish a framework for processing and sharing relevant information. The goal is to eventually establish a permanent institutional home that will maintain a clearing house that offers public access to the best available data and most current studies on sustainable biomass feedstock availability around the world.
In launching this effort, ORNL has documented several challenges related to data quality, underlying assumptions, sustainability criteria, time frames, terminology, units, and other variables. The widely divergent approaches, assumptions, and reporting make fair and simple comparisons of quantified volumes of sustainable biomass difficult. Thus, an important element of future work is to better understand:
- Who are the primary users of the data?
- What are the intended purposes when accessing the data?
- What are specific needs of target audience(s) in terms of feedstock and sustainability qualifications?
- What research should be prioritized by IEA Bioenergy Task 43 to enable continued improvement of the information and public access to reliable data on the availability of sustainable biomass resources at the global scale?
This workshop will share the plans and current status of the ORNL work sponsored by the Biofuture Initiative and US DOE, and the current draft work plan related to continuation of the effort, which is under review as a Work Package for IEA Bioenergy Task 43 over the next three years.
IEA Bioenergy Task 43 and ORNL are interested in gathering comments from stakeholders regarding the report and the proposed plans for next steps. An interactive portion of the workshop will solicit input from participants. IEA Bioenergy Task 43 welcomes all interested representatives to consider engaging in the next steps of planning and implementation as well.
Contact information:
Contact Kelly Stewart <KAMurphy@usc.edu.au> or Mark Brown <mbrown2@usc.edu.au> for more information about IEA Bioenergy Task 43 and this workshop.
Contact Daniel De La Torre Ugarte <danieltu@ornl.gov> and Ryan Jacobson <jacobsonra@ornl.gov> for comments on the 2024 Biofuture global biomass assessment task.
Contact <facilitator@ieabioenergy.com> for more information about IEA Bioenergy Tasks.
AGENDA: Documenting Sustainable biomass supplies: plans for quantification & interpretation of data
17 June 2024
Specific goals of this workshop are to (a) contribute to improve the focus and presentation of the preliminary results of a global sustainable biomass assessment being developed under the Biofuture Initiative, and (b) provide guidance that improves the planning of next steps for this effort to be coordinated under IEA Bioenergy Task 43, over the 2025-2027 timeframe.
13:30 Registration (refreshments on arrival)
14:00 Welcome, review of agenda and goals of workshop (Mark Brown, IEA Bioenergy Task 43)
14:15 Global Biomass Resource Assessment – plans, status, challenges (Ryan Jacobson, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
14:35 Q&A (Keith Kline, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
14:45 IEA Bioenergy Task 43 – Preliminary plan for continuing work on the global biomass resource assessment (Mark Brown)
15: 00 Moderated discussion – identify themes for break out discussions (Keith Kline and Bruno Gagnon, Natural Resources Canada)
15:30 Breakout discussions on priorities for next steps
16:15 Report back – focus on concrete, practical recommendations and clear priorities
16:45 Closing remarks (Mark Brown)
Attendees will be invited to share feedback and suggestions regarding the materials presented and discussion, during and following the workshops.
