Sustainability challenges and energy production from biomass

Dinya, László

Keywords: sustainable energy management, bioenergetics, bioenergy potential, social and environmental effects

The increasing importance of energy supply among the global challenges of mankind is drawing the attention of many people to the possible role of agriculture in this field. Taking into account the outstanding agricultural potential of Hungary some experts consider our country a leading power in biomass. When discussing the potential and limitations of energy production from biomass (i.e. bioenergetics), however, a very common mistake is to ignore its sustainability aspects. This leads to misleading calculations becoming a basis of false business or even economic policy decisions at national, industry or project level. In our study we propose to make sustainable energy management the starting point for strategic development in the bioenergy industry. We outline the relevant system and its elements, as well as the role of bioenergetics as one of the components. To promote consistent use of terminology, we propose to use sustainable capacity as the basis for assessing bioenergetics potential – out of the various potential concepts with widely differing content –, as calculation and realization of bioenergetics potential are two very different things. The paper points out some open questions which need to be properly addressed if the emerging new industry, bioenergetics is to reach maturity. These include issues such as the comprehensive analysis of environmental benefits and disadvantages, as well as the analysis of a social aspect, the industry’s direct and indirect effect on job creation.

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