Quantifying biodiversity trade-offs in the face of widespread renewable and unconventional energy development

Viorel D Popescu,Pascale Gibeau,Atte Moilanen,Wendy J Palen,Matt Horne,Evgenia Dubman,Robin G Munshaw,Federico Montesino Pouzols,Nancy Shackelford

doi:10.1038/s41598-020-64501-7

Abstract

The challenge of balancing biodiversity protection with economic growth is epitomized by the development of renewable and unconventional energy, whose adoption is aimed at stemming the impacts of global climate change, yet has outpaced our understanding of biodiversity impacts. We evaluated the potential conflict between biodiversity protection and future electricity generation from renewable (wind farms, run-of-river hydro) and non-renewable (shale gas) sources in British Columbia (BC), Canada using three metrics: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, electricity cost, and overlap between future development and conservation priorities for several fish and wildlife groups - small-bodied vertebrates, large mammals, freshwater fish – and undisturbed landscapes. Sharp trade-offs in global versus regional biodiversity conservation exist for all energy technologies, and in BC they are currently smallest for wind energy: low GHG emissions, low-moderate overlap with top conservation priorities, and competitive energy cost. GHG emissions from shale gas are 1000 times higher than those from renewable sources, and run-of-river hydro has high overlap with conservation priorities for small-bodied vertebrates. When all species groups were considered simultaneously, run-of-river hydro had moderate overlap (0.56), while shale gas and onshore wind had low overlap with top conservation priorities (0.23 and 0.24, respectively). The unintended cost of distributed energy sources for regional biodiversity suggest that trade-offs based on more diverse metrics must be incorporated into energy planning.

Highlights

The challenge of balancing biodiversity protection with economic growth is epitomized by the development of renewable and unconventional energy, whose adoption is aimed at stemming the impacts of global climate change, yet has outpaced our understanding of biodiversity impacts
Neither form of new energy development is currently regulated by land use planning that accounts for the potential for regional biodiversity impacts concomitant with meeting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets
The extraction and combustion of natural gas from shale deposits had the highest potential for future GHG emissions (310–367 g CO2-eq/kWh), up to 1000 times higher than what we estimated for run-of-river hydro or wind energy (0.3–13 and 3–45 g-CO2/kWh respectively), but could be produced for the least cost (Fig. 2)

Summary

Introduction

The challenge of balancing biodiversity protection with economic growth is epitomized by the development of renewable and unconventional energy, whose adoption is aimed at stemming the impacts of global climate change, yet has outpaced our understanding of biodiversity impacts. Shale gas extraction and transportation is characterized by a dense network of well pads, access roads, seismic lines, and pipelines which can cumulatively affect large geographic areas[12,13] As such, both renewable distributed energy resources and shale development may result in similar spatial footprints that can be difficult to evaluate or integrate into land use planning, as well as conservation planning. Neither form of new energy development is currently regulated by land use planning that accounts for the potential for regional biodiversity impacts concomitant with meeting GHG emissions targets This is an important gap, as British Columbia harbors some the last pristine ecosystems and large mammal assemblages in North America, free-flowing salmon rivers, while many ecosystems and iconic species are under threat from land conversion and other forms of human impacts, including energy development[34,35,36]

Objectives

Methods

Results