ROSE: Role of Bioenergy in Sustainable Energy Systems

To combat climate change, the Paris Agreement established a global warming limit of 2℃ by the century's end. Numerous countries aspire to attain carbon neutrality by 2050, as evidenced by initiatives such as the European Union Green Deal. As the sole renewable energy that can provide negative emissions, bioenergy emerges as an appealing option yet with an unclear role in both long-term policy and current models.

Accordingly, this project aims to model the potential roles of sustainable bioenergy, taking into account both energy and food systems, to contribute to a more cohesive bioenergy policy framework aimed at achieving climate neutrality. The project answers this overarching research question through three contributions that investigate (1) the challenges and opportunities of bioenergy deployment, (2) strategic uses of land-free ancillary bioenergy in a carbon-neutral Europe, (3) the option space and trade-offs between sustainable bioenergy provision and food system designs.

Correspondingly, this thesis provides policy implications both on the European and global scales. For the European energy system, this thesis provides sector-coupling insights to help bioenergy policymakers answer systematic questions, like when, where, and how to best utilize what bioenergy. The identified synergies and trade-offs of different bioenergy use cases can help enhance the coherence of bioenergy policy framework. For the global energy and food systems, this thesis identifies a diverse option space allowing policymakers to explore the potential economic/environmental/emission impacts of different policy mixes. This option space also implies the trade-offs between enhancing the sustainability of the food system and maximizing ancillary bioenergy potential for energy provision or negative emissions. However, higher ancillary bioenergy provision or additional negative emissions may conflict with food system sustainability through nutrient deficits. Thus, policymakers should align planning for sustainability in the energy system with planning for sustainability in the food system.

This fellowship is hosted by the Energy Science Center.