Abstract
The paper clarifies the social and value dimensions for integrated sustainability assessments of lignocellulosic biofuels. We develop a responsible innovation approach, looking at technology impacts and implementation challenges, assumptions and value conflicts influencing how impacts are identified and assessed, and different visions for future development. We identify three distinct value-based visions. From a techno-economic perspective, lignocellulosic biofuels can contribute to energy security with improved GHG implications and fewer sustainability problems than fossil fuels and first-generation biofuels, especially when biomass is domestically sourced. From socio-economic and cultural-economic perspectives, there are concerns about the capacity to support UK-sourced feedstocks in a global agri-economy, difficulties monitoring large-scale supply chains and their potential for distributing impacts unfairly, and tensions between domestic sourcing and established legacies of farming. To respond to these concerns, we identify the potential for moving away from a one-size-fits-all biofuel/biorefinery model to regionally-tailored bioenergy configurations that might lower large-scale uses of land for meat, reduce monocultures and fossil-energy needs of farming and diversify business models. These configurations could explore ways of reconciling some conflicts between food, fuel and feed (by mixing feed crops with lignocellulosic material for fuel, combining livestock grazing with energy crops, or using crops such as miscanthus to manage land that is no longer arable); different bioenergy applications (with on-farm use of feedstocks for heat and power and for commercial biofuel production); and climate change objectives and pressures on farming. Findings are based on stakeholder interviews, literature synthesis and discussions with an expert advisory group.
Highlights
Expectations are high for the development and commercialisation of second-generation biofuels as a sustainable way of meeting renewable transport fuel policy targets [8,13,49]
A case for lignocellulosic biofuels in the UK has been made from a techno-economic perspective
The technology could be developed to contribute to energy security with greenhouse gas benefits and few or none of the problematic sustainability impacts of first-generation biofuels and fossil fuels
Summary
Expectations are high for the development and commercialisation of second-generation biofuels as a sustainable way of meeting renewable transport fuel policy targets [8,13,49]. Set up in response to sustainability concerns over first-generation biofuels derived from food crops, the UK Gallagher Review [42] called for policies to support biofuels based on non-food feedstocks including perennial crops (miscanthus and short rotation coppice willow) and agricultural residues. Some suggest that second-generation advanced biofuels are unlikely to pose any significant ethical or social challenges (e.g., [6,35]). Established to support research into advanced biofuel options that could overcome the problems of first-generation biofuels, the UK Biotechnological and Biological Sciences Research Council's (BBSRC) Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) included work within one of six projects (Lignocellulosic Conversion to Bioethanol or LACE) on the three pillars of sustainability: environmental, economic and social
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