Resources for Sustainability: Exploring NREL Bioenergy Sustainability Analysis for Viable Initiatives

Drawing on expertise and industry models from around the world, researchers have documented a variety of facets about complex bioenergy opportunities, resources, and more.

Team Gemini and the company’s pioneering team members develop closed-loop project models that apply a variety of industry-proven technologies to create and maintain sustainable communities and industries.

Perhaps the most significant component of achieving a 100% closed-loop model is properly handling and treating bio-products that, on the one hand, can be the source of significant amounts of waste; but that, on the other, can solve major pollution problems while at the same time providing a wealth of resources in terms of energy, fuels, and more. To use bio-products in an economically- and environmentally-sustainable way, one needs to analyze all the details contributing to such goals.

Understanding the resource potential, necessary infrastructure, technology options and solutions, financing requirements, policy frameworks, and a lot more are all part of creating working solutions. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy Bioenergy Technologies Office Sustainability Program and its performing organizations, has released an extensive body of research to aid in understanding these factors.

NREL’s bioenergy sustainability analysis group works with researchers around the world through global multilateral collaborations to assess bioenergy and bioeconomy developments in multiple scientific and social fields.

In this Resources for Sustainability article, we provide the overall outline of some of the complex details at work in the bioenergy sector:

• Introduction
• Executive Summary
• 1 – Technical Summary
• 2 – Bioenergy Numbers
• 3 – Energy Security
• 4 – Bioenergy and Food Security
• 5 – Environmental and Climate Security
• 6 – Sustainable Development and Innovation
• 7 – The Much Needed Science: Filling the Gaps for Sustainable Bioenergy Expansion
• 8 – Perspectives on Bioenergy
• 9 – Land and Bioenergy
• 10 – Feedstocks for Biofuels and Bioenergy
• 11 – Feedstock Supply Chains
• 12 – Conversion Technologies for Biofuels and Their Use
• 13 – Agriculture and Forestry Integration
• 14 – Case Studies
• 15 – Social Considerations
• 16 – Biofuel Impacts on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
• 17 – Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Bioenergy
• 18 – Soils and Water
• 19 – Sustainability Certification
• 20 – Bioenergy Economics and Policies
• 21 – Biomass Resources, Energy Access and Poverty Reduction
• End matter

Feel free to explore more topics on our Resources page, or contact us if you’d like to recommend others.

For a full listing of Team Gemini sustainability tools and resources, please visit our resources page at http://teamgemini.us/resources/.