Bioenergy - a renewable resource
Because bioenergy is mainly produced from crops and forests it is a renewable resource. Therefore, unlike fossil energy, bioenergy is carbon dioxide neutral, which means that it does not contribute to increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere apart from the effect of the fossil fuel used in the supply chain. As the raw materials for bioenergy can be produced in Sweden and other EU countries, increased bioenergy use also contributes to increasing the security of our energy supply.
Investments in bioenergy can also increase job opportunities, particularly in rural areas. Forest owners and farmers will have a broader range of uses for their raw materials and, in time, obtain better prices for their products.
Rural businesses that do not belong to the green sector can also develop products and services in the energy area. Bioenergy is often a way of making good use of waste from other production processes.
Sustainable cultivation
It is important that the cultivation of energy crops is carried out in a sustainable way and that it meets the same environmental requirements that apply to the production of food or raw materials for the forest industry. The size of the environmental impact depends on nutrient leakage and other facts of production. Grain ethanol production is energy intensive. For this reason it is also important to develop more efficient second-generation biofuels. Increased biomass production can also create competition between the production of bioenergy and other products. For example, more extensive cultivation of energy crops on arable land may lead to a drop in food production. Similarly, the forest industry may experience difficult in obtaining forest raw material. These types of problems already exist today, for example, in the particleboard industry, which has been hard hit by the rising price of sawdust resulting from a growing demand from heating plants and pellet factories.
