Second-generation biomass energy potential for the world and the associated environmental impacts on the water consumption and nitrogen fertilizer inputs

Abstract

 Current many climate change mitigation scenarios that meet so-called 2°C or 1.5°C target intending to keep global average temperature rise below 2 or 1.5 °C show that around 20-30% of total energy would be supplied by bioenergy. Despite a critical role of bioenergy in the climate change mitigation, the secondary environmental impacts of large-scale biomass energy crop implementation, especially those on water resources and nitrogen fertilizers, have not yet been fully evaluated. Therefore, this paper attempts to show the potential environmtal impacts of biomass energy production in terms of the amount of nitrogen fertilizer required and the amount of water consumed. The results show that the potential nitrogen fertilizer requirement for biomass energy production to achieve the 2°C target is 9 TgN/year for miscanthus with irrigation. On the other hand, irrigation increased the water consumption by 392㎦/year, suggesting the need to consider managing water resources and nitrogen application simultaneously with the achievement of ultimate climate goals.