Historical deforestation due to expansion of crop demand: implications for biofuels

The report presents an independent estimate of the part of LUC emissions due to deforestation, starting from the 29% of historical deforestation area (and estimated emissions) caused by expansion of different crops. The deforestation area and emissions per tonne of extra crop are converted to emissions per MJ biofuel from that crop. The average global deforestation caused by increase in production of a crop or biofuel is estimated, making no geographical differentiation in where the extra demand occurs or where that would provoke deforestation. The source of historical deforestation data is a report published by DG ENV [EC 2013] which estimates which areas of forest were lost to different crops and to other land uses (grazing, logged forest, urban and others) between 1990 and 2008. It used historical deforestation data from FAO’s Forest Resource Assessment 2010, interpreted with other FAO data. The emissions are calculated only from deforestation and peat forest drainage, attributed to each MJ biofuel. This does not include emissions from the grassland area converted to cropland. This method gives an independent verification of the general magnitude of LUC area and emissions which should be expected from bottom-up models of LUC for scenarios, and the results indicate that historical LUC emissions were higher than those estimated by most economic models.JRC.F.8-Sustainable Transpor

2013 Technology Map of the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) - Technology Descriptions

The Technology Map is one of the principal regular deliverables of SETIS. It is prepared by JRC scientists in collaboration with colleagues from other services of the European Commission and with experts from industry, national authorities and academia, to provide: • a concise and authoritative assessment of the state of the art of a wide portfolio of low-carbon energy technologies; • their current and estimated future market penetration and the barriers to their large-scale deployment; • the ongoing and planned R&D and demonstration efforts to overcome technological barriers; and, • reference values for their operational and economic performance, which can be used for the modelling and analytical work performed in support of implementation of the SET-Plan. This fourth edition of the Technology Map, i.e. the 2013 update, addresses 22 different technologies, covering the whole spectrum of the energy system, including both supply and demand technologies, namely: Wind Power Generation, Solar Photovoltaic Electricity Generation, Concentrated Solar Power Generation, Hydropower, Geothermal Energy, Marine Energy, Cogeneration or Combined Heat and Power, Carbon Capture and Storage in Power Generation, Advanced Fossil Fuel Power Generation, Nuclear Fission Power Generation, Nuclear Fusion Power Generation, Smart Grids, Bioenergy - Power and Heat Generation, Biofuels for the Transport Sector, Fuel Cells and Hydrogen, Electricity Storage in the Power Sector, Energy Efficiency and CO2 Emission Reduction in Industry (The Cement Industry, The Iron and Steel Industry, The Pulp and Paper Industry), Heating and Cooling, Heat Pumps, and Energy Performance of Buildings.JRC.F.6-Energy systems evaluatio