Abstract
In Germany, government policies supporting the growth of renewable energies lead to a rapid increase in energy crop cultivation. This increase is linked to possible conflicts between different sustainability goals which so far have been rarely considered in the planning procedure. This article looks at different approaches of assessment and planning methods on a region-specific level. It describes the methodology of the project Efficient Bio-Energy in the Perspective of Nature Conservation - Assessment and Recommendations to Protect Biodiversity and Climate which aims to establish the basis for an integrated sustainability assessment of energy crop cultivation for decentralized energy production in Germany and has been conducted by the author. The method takes into account the three main requirements of agricultural profitability, greenhouse gases (GHG) efficiency, and environmental sustainability of energy crop cultivation for decentralized energy production and has been applied for two sample regions. Using ArcGIS, the suitability of energy crops can be displayed, and regional aspects can be considered by overlaying and intersecting the individual output of all three requirements. This allows the definition of ‘no-go’ areas as well as the overall estimation of the maximum sustainable production capacity for each energy crop or energy path in a specific region. It enables an estimation of the profitability and GHG efficiency of energy crop cultivation paths at regional or communal level under consideration of different indicators for environmental sustainability. The article closes with a discussion of the methodological challenges of this integrative method. The conclusion gives an outlook in which planning and policy processes could be beneficial to apply such an integrative method in order to assess the suitability of certain landscape areas for energy production paths.
Highlights
In Germany, government policies supporting the growth of renewable energies lead to a rapid increase in energy crop cultivation
Recent German climate and energy policies such as the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG),a the biofuel quota law, and similar policies have resulted in an increase of energy crop cultivation in Germany in the last few years
The analysis demonstrates that agricultural reference systems, including direct and indirect land use changes, have a significantly larger influence on the values of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions than the selection of crop species, the conversion technology, or the target product does
Summary
In Germany, government policies supporting the growth of renewable energies lead to a rapid increase in energy crop cultivation. Current subsidy policies lead to higher shares of certain energy crops such as maize and rapeseed [3] This is a result of the EEG, which rewards a facility's energy output and, implicitly supports the cultivation of certain substrates. The majority of Brandenburg's farmers have viewed this positively and have proposed a continuous expansion of biomass production for energy production, assuming an increase from currently 4% to up to 22% [4] Such an expansion which is explicitly proclaimed by the National Biomass Action Plan would certainly result in increased pressure on the land as well as an increase in total cultivation and higher productivity [5]. The entire agricultural cultivation has not been the subject to environmental assessment or any quota regulation regarding the cumulating effects of cultivation of any kind of crops on environmental goods, for example.b To date, this is dependent on the farmers how they respect good agricultural practice (cf. [7])
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