Impacts of biofuel production. Case studies: Mozambique, Argentina and Ukraine

Nov 2013

The objective of this study is to develop and demonstrate a methodological framework to enable an ex-ante assessment of the potential land availability for dedicated energy crops and the potential environmental and socio-economic impacts of large scale biofuel production. This research involves two methodological steps:
1. The assessment of the developments in land availability for dedicated bioenergy crops towards 2030, taking into account the development of other land functions on a national level. This is demonstrated for three case study countries: Mozambique, Argentina and Ukraine.
2. The assessment of the environmental and socio-economic impacts of large scale biofuel production, including greenhouse gas emissions, impacts on soil water and biodiversity, as well as legality, land rights, food security, economic viability, local prosperity, social well-being, labour conditions and gender. This was demonstrated for specific settings: Ethanol production from switchgrass and eucalyptus in the Gaza-Inhambane and the Nampula region in Mozambique and ethanol production from switchgrass and biodiesel from soy in Santiago del Estero and Buenos Aires in Argentina.
The studied impacts follow the recommendations made by the Biofuels Screening Toolkit produced for the GEF under the same project. The methodological concepts developed in the Biofuel screening toolkit, have been translated to a methodological framework to quantify the environmental and
socio-economic impacts of biofuel production on a regional level. This methodological framework is demonstrated for the three specific case studies but could also be applied to any bioenergy supply chain, any production scale level and any region in the world.

By: F. van der Hilst, J. van Eijck, J. Verstegen, V. Diogo, B. Batidzirai, A. Faaij

 
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