Sustainable Farming of Bioenergy Crops

Summary

Bioenergy is one option to mitigate climate change in the energy sector. Sustainable bioenergy however faces several challenges. First, there is a widely discussed land competition between food and bioenergy crops. Second, there is a widely neglected competition for biomass between using it as a fertilizer for sustainable agriculture or as feedstock for bioenergy production. Sustainability standards for bioenergy capture several environmental, social and economic aspects and often also land competition, but neglect the agronomic aspects related to the fertilizer use of biomass. Accounting for this, however, the sustainable bioenergy potential seems rather low and may only be realized in biogas production. Such can make much sense, but expectation in bioenergy to contribute significantly to global primary energy supply in a sustainable manner should not be too high.