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The global sustainable bioenergy potential until 2050 in global-national resolution

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  • Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai
  • Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon
  • Breyer, Christian

Abstract

Climate change mitigation scenarios have identified the use of bioenergy as a crucial strategy to limit the global mean temperature rise to 1.5°C by 2050. In this context, numerous studies have projected the potential of bioenergy. However, persistent research gaps remain, including the reliance on overnight approaches, a predominant focus on energy crops, unavailability of bioenergy potential data in temporal resolution, and the aggregation of results at a global-regional resolution in bioenergy potential studies. This study demonstrates novelty through the development of the innovative LUT-Bioenergy model, which estimates waste and biomass residues potential from 2015 to 2050 in 5-year step, creating the first open-access global-national bioenergy potential database. Two scenarios, ‘Business-as-Usual’ and ‘Towards Sustainability,’ were adopted from the Food and Agricultural Organization for analysis. Results are categorised into crop residue, biogas (from livestock manure, humanure, and organic biowaste), forest residue, and municipal solid waste. The results indicate a total sustainable bioenergy potential of 33,182 TWh/yr (119 EJ/yr) and 24,288 TWh/yr (87.3 EJ/yr) in the Business-as-Usual and Towards Sustainability scenarios, respectively, by 2050. Crop residue dominated with 18,022 TWh/yr (64.9 EJ/yr) and 16,786 TWh/yr (60.4 EJ/yr) of the total potential in the respective scenarios by 2050. The results indicate that by 2050, bioenergy from waste and residues can supply a noticeable share of energy in the energy transition. This study's limitations include climate change effects on agricultural and forest productivity, lack of energy return on energy invested estimation, and the assumption that key variables remain constant throughout the study period.

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  • Mensah, Theophilus Nii Odai & Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon & Breyer, Christian, 2025. "The global sustainable bioenergy potential until 2050 in global-national resolution," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 400(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:400:y:2025:i:c:s0306261925011948
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2025.126464
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