Study / Summary of prospective studies on the availability of and demand for biomass for industrial energy use
The growing need for biomass to decarbonise the economy raises questions about its availability and competition for use between now and 2050.
On a global scale, biomass consumption for energy purposes is expected to increase sharply (the International Energy Agency, for example, forecasts a 48% increase between 2020 and 2050 in its Net Zero scenario).
This increase will be driven mainly by the need to produce carbon-free electricity and heat and by demand from the industrial sector. In France, although electricity is already largely decarbonised, consumption of heat from combustion and biogas is also expected to increase.
However, bio-resources use much more land than other decarbonisation options, and their limited potential raises a number of key questions:
On a global scale, biomass consumption for energy purposes is expected to increase sharply (the International Energy Agency, for example, forecasts a 48% increase between 2020 and 2050 in its Net Zero scenario).
This increase will be driven mainly by the need to produce carbon-free electricity and heat and by demand from the industrial sector. In France, although electricity is already largely decarbonised, consumption of heat from combustion and biogas is also expected to increase.
However, bio-resources use much more land than other decarbonisation options, and their limited potential raises a number of key questions:
- What is the best land use trade-off?
- How can biomass be developed while preserving biodiversity and carbon sinks?
- How can we prioritise the use of biomass to meet all our needs and optimise the decarbonisation of our society?
- Quantification du gisement de biomasse mobilisable en 2030 et 2050 Quantifying the biomass resource that can be mobilised in 2030 and 2050
- Biomass demand scenarios
- Competition and prioritisation of uses
- Identification of key factors for optimising the use of the resource
