Biomass energy demand and supply for South and South-East Asia - assessing the resource base

One of the many activities undertaken by the FAO-Regional Wood Energy Development Program has been to shed more light on the wood and, other biomass energy situation in its 16 member countries in Asia. Analyzing the demand for and supply of biomass energy is important if these sources of energy are to be used on a sustainable basis. One of the conclusions drawn, based on the results of these efforts, was that biomass played an important role as a source of energy in the region and this would remain so in the near future. In fact. although the importance of biomass was declining in relative terms, in absolute terms its use appears to be increasing. Another conclusion drawn is that reliable information on the demand for biomass energy is hard to come by and in some cases is non-existent. Much of the available data is aggregated with few time-series available: many uncertainties exist with regard to definitions used while many organizations active in the biomass energy field make use of each-others data. With regard to the biomass energy supply situation the picture is even more fuzzy-very little if any information. other than generalizations, is available on the source of the biomass used as a source of energy. In order to be able to determine the sustainability of biomass energy demand and supply, a resource base analysis was carried out. While this analysis showed that in most of the member countries the potential supply will be sufficient to sustain the demand for some time to come, for some countries the situation in the near future is expected to change to a potential deficit. However, much depends-on the underlying assumptions that were made and a more detailed analysis is needed, using demand and supply more attuned to the real situation on the ground. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.