Study shows impact of market forces on bioenergy GHG emissions

Biomass Power & Thermal
By Luke Geiver March 29, 2012

A new study completed by Christopher Galik, senior policy associate at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions highlights the important role market forces play in calculating the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from woody biomass used for bioenergy applications.

Market forces, Galik said, are shorthand for landowner and forestry industry response to changing market conditions created by an increased demand for forest biomass. “With changes in demand, you get changes in prices paid for forest biomass and a related change in landowner behavior—planting, management, conversion to other land uses, that sort of thing,” he said. Galik’s study, titled “The Effect of Assessment Scale and Metric Selection on the Greenhouse Gas Benefits of Woody Biomass,” shows that those changes result in more carbon being stored on the landscape, which in turn, lowers the net GHG emissions associated with widespread biomass use.

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