2015 Volume 94 Issue 6 Pages 548-554
We evaluated the global technical potential of energy crop production up to the year 2100, maintaining consistency with agricultural land use change under three different socioeconomic development and climate change scenarios. Our evaluation shows that the energy potential will increase from 160 EJ yr-1 in 2000 to 180-200 EJ yr-1 by 2050, and to 220-270 EJ yr-1 by 2100, reflecting the increase in the potential land area for energy crops. The upper limits of the aforementioned potential correspond to the scenario with low population growth and high economic growth, while the lower limits correspond to the scenarios with moderate economic and population growth. It was clearly demonstrated that differences of socioeconomic development substantially impact the evaluation results, while differences in the level of global warming have little impact on the results. Furthermore, it is shown that land having relatively high crop yields and high land accessibility will be limited and concentrated in some developing regions such as Africa and Latin America.
