Status and prospects for renewable energy using wood pellets from the southeastern United States

The ongoing debate about costs and benefits of wood-pellet based bioenergy production in the southeastern United States (SE USA) requires an understanding of the science and context influencing market decisions associated with its sustainability. Production of pellets has garnered much attention as US exports have grown from negligible amounts in the early 2000s to 4.6 million metric tonnes in 2015. Currently, 98% of these pellet exports are shipped to Europe to displace coal in power plants. We ask, ‘How is the production of wood pellets in the SE USA affecting forest systems and the ecosystem services they provide?’ To address this question, we review current forest conditions and the status of the wood products industry, how pellet production affects ecosystem services and biodiversity, and what methods are in place to monitor changes and protect vulnerable systems. Scientific studies provide evidence that wood pellets in the SE USA are a fraction of total forestry operations and can be produced while maintaining or improving forest ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are protected by the requirement to utilize loggers trained to apply scientifically based best management practices in planning and implementing harvest for the export market. Bioenergy markets supplement incomes to private rural landholders and provide an incentive for forest management practices that simultaneously benefit water quality and wildlife and reduce risk of fire and insect outbreaks. Bioenergy also increases the value of forest land to landowners, thereby decreasing likelihood of conversion to nonforest uses. Monitoring and evaluation are essential to verify that regulations and good practices are achieving goals and to enable timely responses if problems arise. Conducting rigorous research to understand how conditions change in response to management choices requires baseline data, monitoring, and appropriate reference scenarios. Long-term monitoring data on forest conditions should be publicly accessible and utilized to inform adaptive management

CMS physics technical design report : Addendum on high density QCD with heavy ions

Peer reviewe

Measurement of the inclusive W± and Z/γ* cross sections in the e and μ decay channels in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The production cross sections of the inclusive Drell-Yan processes W-+/- -> l nu and Z/gamma* -> ll (l = e, mu) are measured in proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. The cross sections are reported integrated over a fiducial kinematic range, extrapolated to the full range, and also evaluated differentially as a function of the W decay lepton pseudorapidity and the Z boson rapidity, respectively. Based on an integrated luminosity of about 35 pb(-1) collected in 2010, the precision of these measurements reaches a few percent. The integrated and the differential W-+/- and Z/gamma* cross sections in the e and mu channels are combined, and compared with perturbative QCD calculations, based on a number of different parton distribution sets available at next-to-next-to-leading order

Biofuels and biorefinery development in Canada: The question of sustainability

An overview of biofuel development in Canada including question of sustainability. If biofuels are developed carefully and deliberately, they can be the foundation for a more sustainable future. The utilization of biomass in Canada will represent a major shift and adaptation. Economic, environmental and social aspect to sustainable development require assessing the impacts of our first-generation investments. Agricultural biotechnology holds the promise of providing new feedstocks for energy production and other industrial products. Industrial biotechnology can be applied to both biobased and non-bio feedstocks, supplying processes that are less energy or chemically intensive

Critical aspects in the life cycle assessment (LCA) of bio-based materials – Reviewing methodologies and deriving recommendations

Concerns over non-renewable fossil fuel supply and accelerated climate change have been driving the Renaissance of bio-based materials. To substantiate environmental claims, the impacts of bio-based materials are typically quantified by applying life cycle assessment (LCA). The internationally agreed LCA standards provide generic recommendations on how to evaluate the environmental impacts of products and services but do not address details that are specifically relevant for the life cycles of bio-based materials. Here, we provide an overview of key issues and methodologies explicitly pertinent to the LCA of bio-based materials. We argue that the treatment of biogenic carbon storage is critical for quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions of bio-based materials in comparison with petrochemical materials. We acknowledge that biogenic carbon storage remains controversial but recommend accounting for it, depending on product-specific life cycles and the likely time duration of carbon storage. If carbon storage is considered, co-product allocation is nontrivial and should be chosen with care to avoid double counting of stored carbon in co-products. Land-use change as well as the land use-related, soil degradation, water use, and impacts on soil carbon stocks and biodiversity are important aspects that have recently received attention. We explain various approaches to account for these and conclude that substantial methodological progress is necessary, which is however hampered by the complex and often case-specific and site-specific nature of impacts. With the exception of soil degradation, we recommend preliminary approaches for including these impacts in the LCA of bio-based materials. The use of attributional versus consequential LCA approaches is particularly relevant for in the context of bio-based materials. We conclude that it is clearly more challenging to prepare accurate consequential LCA studies, especially because they should ideally account for future developments and secondary impacts around bio-based materials which are generally difficult to anticipate and quantify. Although hampered by complexity and limited data availability, application of the proposed methodological approaches to the extent possible would allow obtaining a more comprehensive insight into the environmental impacts of the production, use, and disposal of bio-based materials.JRC.F.8-Sustainable Transpor