Biomass energy in central British Columbia: framing the issues

"Bioenergy, or energy derived from biomass, was the predominant energy source for humans from prehistory to the mid-19th century. With on-going energy security issues, rising greenhouse-gas (GHG) levels driven by fossil fuel energy consumption and volatile natural resource prices, the biomass energy of yesterday is now being re-evaluated as the energy source for tomorrow. The technology of bioenergy production has evolved considerably in recent years, such that heat, electricity and liquid fuels for transportation can all be derived from a wide variety of biomass starting materials. Though the transformation of sunlight energy into chemical biomass energy in plants is in theory an endlessly renewable process, the way in which we manage our lands to generate this biomass energy can be degradative and unsustainable when all of the land-use values are taken into account. This paper evaluates bioenergy through the prism of sustainability, highlighting issues relating to the physical and temporal scales of the resource and impacts of its use, technological opportunities and limitations, net environmental impacts, and community concerns and needs. The geographic focus is the central interior of British Columbia, however, the issues raised in this paper will be relevant to all locations considering bioenergy."