Biomass Co-Firing Potential and Land Use Changes: A General Equilibrium Study in the United States

Electricity generation in coal-fired power plants results in one quarter of US GHG emissions and is the single largest sources of GHG emissions in the United States (US EPA GHG Inventory 2014). Co-firing biomass in the existing coal-fired power plants has been considered as an effective and efficient way to reduce emissions (McGlynn et al. 2014); many policies are also implemented or proposed to stimulate biomass co-firing both in the U.S. and in other countries, especially Europe. Due to the high transportation cost associated with biomass feedstock, the potential for co-firing at a given coal-fired power plant depends very much on the local availability of biomass. For large-scale co-firing, a stable supply of biomass is required, and for this, the planting of dedicated energy crops is essential (Evans et al. 2010, IRENA 2013). This, in turn results in land use change, which itself can have undesirable emissions impacts and causes concern in term of food security throughout the world. The main objective of this study is to explore the potential for co-firing and associated land use changes in the United States. Specifically, we investigate: (1) the total potential of co-firing and the associated land use changes in the United States; (2) heterogeneity in the potential for co-firing across different existing power plants and heterogeneity in the induced land use changes in different areas; (3) the co-firing threshold that requires dedicated energy crops involved as feedstock beyond residues from forest and agriculture; and (4) heterogeneity in these thresholds for different power plants in different areas.