PNNL

Abstract

Bioenergy is projected to have a prominent, valuable, and maybe essential, role in climate management. However, there is significant variation in projected bioenergy deployment results, as well as concerns about the potential environmental and social implications of supplying biomass. Deployment projections are market equilibrium solutions from integrated modeling, yet little is known about the underlying modeling of the supply of biomass. We undertake a novel diagnostic analysis with ten global models to elucidate, compare, and assess biomass supply modeling within the models used to inform long-run climate management. With experiments that isolate and reveal biomass supply modeling behavior and characteristics (costs, emissions, land use, market effects), we learn about biomass supply modeling tendencies and differences. The insights provide a new level of modeling transparency and understanding of the potential for bioenergy in managing climate. We characterize the potential global distributions of biomass supply for increasing levels of quantity supplied, as well as some of the potential societal externalities of doing so. We also evaluate the biomass supply implications of managing these externalities. Finally, we interpret biomass market results from integrated modeling in terms of our fresh understanding of biomass supply. Overall, we find stark differences between models in the estimated regional and feedstock composition of the biomass supply and its implications. We also reveal model specific biomass supply narratives. We then use these insights to interpret integrated modeling results, and learn that, even when internalizing externalities, largescale use of biomass in managing the climate, and trade-offs, could be cost-effective.