Paying for What You Get: Accounting for the Nonrenewable Component in Wood to Energy

Abstract Growing international trade in wood pellets is one response to regional efforts to mitigate the global problem of climate change. With this growing use of wood energy, there is increased scrutiny of the associated environmental impacts and concern over possible unintended consequences (e.g., nonrenewable energy inputs) that may detract from the carbon savings provided by such renewable energy sources. The focus of this article is to present an accounting system for the embodied fossil fuels in wood energy systems. This system is based on life-cycle assessment methodology and could accommodate fairly the variability in fossil fuel inputs for various bioenergy systems. Such a system could be incorporated into biofuel subsidies or carbon taxation policies. We use three scenarios as examples to illustrate (1) that wood-to-energy systems entail the use of fossil fuels and that the amount of this “embodied fossil carbon” varies with the processing inputs and transportation required and (2) that carbon ...

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