Toward Sustainable Production of Second Generation Bioenergy Feedstocks

Some analysts point to continuing advances in agricultural technology and declining global population growth rates to predict a substantial surplus of agricultural land by 2050. Such surplus land could be diverted into growing biomass for renewable energy to help overcome the global challenge of climate change. Others suggest that diversion of agricultural land into bioenergy will exacerbate risk of chronic food shortage by 2050. On balance it appears that declining population growth rate, continuing technology advance, and intensifying use of existing global agricultural land could support sufficient food production as well as some bioenergy production. Competitive bioenergy requires development of second-generation (lignocellulosic) feedstocks rather than first-generation (starch, sugar, and oilseed) feedstocks. Second-generation feedstocks from woody crops have the potential to complement intensive agriculture and ameliorate its environmental impacts. Woody biomass crops may therefore have a lower effe...