The limits of bioenergy for mitigating global lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

Abstract

In this Article we quantify the optimal allocation and deployment of global bioenergy resources to offset fossil fuels in 2050. We find that bioenergy could reduce lifecycle emissions attributable to combustion-fired electricity and heat, and liquid transportation fuels, by a maximum of 4.9-38.7 Gt CO2e, or 9-68%, and that offsetting fossil fuel-fired electricity and heat with bioenergy is on average 1.6-3.9 times more effective for emissions mitigation than offsetting fossil fuelderived liquid fuel. However, liquid fuels make up 18-49% of global optimally allocated final bioenergy in our results for 2050. This indicates that a mix of bioenergy end-uses maximizes lifecycle emissions reductions. Finally, our findings demonstrate that emissions reductions are maximized by limiting deployment of total available primary bioenergy to 29-91%, and that lifecycle emissions are a constraint on the usefulness of bioenergy for mitigating global climate change.