Renewable Sources Availability Are Being at Risk Due to Climate Change

According to a new study, as temperatures increase, the window of opportunity for maximizing the use of biomass from plants, wood, and garbage as a renewable energy source and alternative to petrochemicals is shrinking.

Climate change puts renewable energy sources at risk

(Photo : Andreas Gücklhorn/Unsplash)

According to a recent study, climate change is threatening the supply of biomass fuels and technology, which are an important alternative to fossil fuels, as per ScienceDaily.

The study, published in Nature and led by experts from the universities of York and Fudan in China, looked at the sustainability of biomass harvesting.

The researchers discovered that if quick action is not done to cut fossil fuels in favor of bioenergy and other renewables, climate change would diminish agricultural yields, limiting the supply of biomass feedstocks.

Reducing food production is also likely to encourage farmland expansion, boosting greenhouse gas emissions from land use change and hastening the rate of climate change, according to the study.

"Biomass fuels and feedstocks provide a sustainable source of energy and a viable alternative to petrochemicals," said co-author Professor James Clark of the Department of Chemistry.

There will come a day when we will be unable to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change.

Biomass with carbon capture and storage, as well as the production of bio-based products, must be exploited today if we are to maximize its benefits.

The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous climate mitigation assessments have emphasized bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) as a critical component of the plan for attaining the Paris Agreement's objective of 2 °C or 1.5 °C warmings.

The researchers analyzed worldwide data to simulate agricultural production responses to rising average temperatures, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, nitrogen fertilization intensity, and precipitation.

They discovered that if the transition to BECCS is delayed until the second half of this century, climate change will significantly limit biomass output, resulting in a failure to meet the 2 °C targets and jeopardizing global food security.

For example, researchers discovered that delaying BECCS from 2040 to 2060 will diminish agricultural residue yields for biomass technologies, increasing global warming from 1.7 to 3.7 °C by 2200, and reducing the world average daily crop calories per capita from 2.1 million to 1.5 million calories.

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Benefits from renewable energy

According to the researchers, in this scenario, the volume of the food trade would need to expand by 80% from 2019 levels in order to avert serious food shortages in many of the developing world's most vulnerable areas, as per the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Professor Clark noted that if negative-carbon mitigation technology based on biomass could be extensively deployed in the short future, there is still hope that global warming and a worldwide food catastrophe may be avoided.

In contrast, most renewable energy sources emit minimal or no greenhouse gas emissions.

Even when "life cycle" emissions of clean energy are included, the global warming emissions connected with renewable energy are negligible.

Renewable power generation from biomass may produce a wide range of global warming emissions, depending on the resource and whether or not it is produced and harvested in a sustainable manner.

Increasing the availability of renewable energy would allow us to replace carbon-intensive energy sources and dramatically cut US global warming emissions.

According to a 2009 UCS research, a 25% by 2025 national renewable electricity mandate would reduce power plant CO2 emissions by 277 million metric tons annually by 2025-the equivalent of the yearly production of 70 Average (600 MW) new coal plants.

The air and water pollution released by coal and natural gas facilities has been related to respiratory issues, neurological impairment, heart attacks, cancer, early mortality, and a slew of other major issues.

Pollution impacts everyone, according to one Harvard University research, the life cycle costs and public health effects of coal are projected to be $74.6 billion per year.

This equates to 4.36 cents per kilowatt-hour of power produced, which is around one-third of the average electricity rate for a typical US home.

The majority of these negative health effects are caused by air and water pollution, which clean energy solutions do not create.

Wind, solar, and hydropower technologies create electricity while emitting no pollutants into the atmosphere.

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