Global bioenergy potentials through 2050

Estimates of world regional potentials of the sustainable use of biomass for energy uses through the year 2050 are presented. The estimated potentials are consistent with scenarios of agricultural production and land use developed at the International institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria. They thus avoid inconsistent land use, in particular conflicts between the agricultural and bioenergy land use. As an illustration of the circumstances under which a large part of this potential could be used in practice, a global energy scenario with high economic growth and low greenhouse gas emissions, developed by IIASA and the World Energy Council is summarised. In that scenario, bioenergy supplies 15% of global primary energy by 2050. Our estimation method is transparent and reproducible. A computer program to repeat the calculation of the estimates with possibly changed assumptions is available on request. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.