PhD ceremony: Quantifying and mapping bioenergy potentials in China. Spatiotemporal analysis of technical, economic and sustainable biomass supply potentials for optimal biofuel supply chains in China | Bingquan Zhang

Bioenergy plays a significant role in the energy transition to a carbon-neutral energy system in China in the future. The main objectives of this thesis are to spatially quantify the technical and economic potential of energy crops from marginal and degraded land and agricultural residues for biofuel production in relation to sustainability constraints and propose a modeling approach that can strategically design an economically optimal biofuel supply chain in China while simultaneously taking the GHG emission, soil health, and land management into account. The total technical bioenergy potential from the optimal zonation with only Miscanthus and switchgrass was calculated to be 34.4 and 41.8 EJ/yr for 2017 and 2040, respectively. For agricultural residues, the total technical bioenergy potential varies significantly from 0.4 to 3.9 EJ/yr at current depending on the target soil carbon content to be maintained. The potential will increase dramatically in 2050 when no-tillage management and improved crop yields are considered. The Miscanthus and switchgrass can be obtained at an average cost of 4.7 $/GJ, while the agricultural residues have an average procurement cost of 1.0 $/GJ. It was found that Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Fujian, and Jiangxi are the most suitable provinces for large-scale production of Miscanthus and switchgrass on marginal land, while Shandong, Henan, Jiangsu, Heilongjiang, and Hebei provinces are suggested for large-scale residue-derived biofuel production in China. Besides, a three-step optimization approach integrating a GIS-based MILP model was developed to economically optimize the biofuel supply chain on the premise of meeting a certain GHG emission criterion.

Dissertation: http://hdl.handle.net/(...)39-b3c5-324b1e8cc44c