Winners and Losers in Energy Transition: Study Case of Wood Biomass Power-Plants Implementation in France

Roxane Sansilvestri,Mateo Cordier,Thibault Lescuyer

doi:10.3390/f12091139

Abstract

International policies promote renewable forms of energy to mitigate climate change. In Europe, the production of electricity using wood biomass represents one of the most popular energy alternatives. In 2012, France initiated a large-scale strategy to develop wood biomass energy. The biggest wood biomass power-plant project has been developed in the French Mediterranean area and its huge size raises several issues for the short- and long-term sustainability of local forests and associated economic sectors. The French Mediterranean forests provide four types of economic goods (private, club, common, and public goods) and multiple ecosystem services, which makes them complex to manage under an energy transition policy. In this paper, we applied three qualitative methods, namely interviews, participative workshops, and observant participation, and three conceptual models, namely (i) Ostrom’s (2010) self-organization key conditions, (ii) the types of economic goods classified according to their excludability and rivalry properties, and (iii) the ecosystem service categorization system of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). With our methods, we show that the renewable strategy chosen in France replicates the current centralized production model based on fossil and nuclear fuels. Thus, we demonstrate that European, national, and local authorities fail to consider the multiple ecosystem services that forest management strategies should include to face the energy transition, climate change, and the other ecological challenges of the 21st century.

Highlights

In the face of climate change and the energy crisis, international policies seek to accelerate renewable and low-carbon energy development
Policymakers are facing the difficult challenge of developing new renewable energy sectors and associated bioeconomy markets under high uncertainty while taking into account the three sustainability pillars: the ecological, the social, and the economic
As with many Mediterranean climate regions, PACA is exposed to a high fire risk, which creates fear among the community of forest owners and pushes them to focus forest management on reduction of the fire risk (Box 2)

Summary

Introduction

In the face of climate change and the energy crisis, international policies seek to accelerate renewable and low-carbon energy development (e.g., the “Paris agreement” held in 2015). One such renewable resource is wood biomass, proposed as an alternative source of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create a new bioeconomy market in the energy sector [1,2,3,4]. Policymakers are facing the difficult challenge of developing new renewable energy sectors and associated bioeconomy markets under high uncertainty while taking into account the three sustainability pillars: the ecological, the social, and the economic. The literature shows that many political instances of energy transition planning fail to consider some issues, such as landscape and cultural values, human health, and either equity or justice issues [10], as well as fail to consider environmental issues in developing new bioeconomy sectors [2,11,12]

Methods

Results

Conclusion