Forecasting the magnitude of sustainable biofeedstock supplies: the challenges and the rewards

Forecasting the magnitude of sustainable biofeedstock supplies is challenging because of 1) myriad potential feedstock types and their management; 2) the need to account for the spatial variation of both the supplies and their environmental and economic consequences; and 3) the inherent challenges of optimizing across economic and environmental considerations. Over the last two decades, US biomass forecasts have become increasingly complex and sensitive to environmental and economic considerations; however, more model development and research is needed. In particular, the landscape and regional tradeoffs of differing biofeedstock supplies need to be addressed, especially with regard to water quality concerns and wildlife/biodiversity. Feedstock assessments need to be done in the context of the direction of land-use change induced by biofeedstock production; they need to take into consideration both the starting environmental and economic conditions before the land was used to supply biofeedstocks and the probable future conditions that would result in the absence of biofeedstock production. To evaluate sustainability, process-oriented models need to be coupled or used to inform sector models and more work needs to be done on developing environmental metrics that are useful for evaluating economic and environmental tradeoffs. These challenges are exciting and worthwhile as they will enable the bioenergy industry to capture the environmental and social benefits of biofeedstock production and reduce risks. Published in 2007 by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.