Methodologies for environmental, micro- and macro-economic evaluation of bioenergy systems

Abstract

An overview is given of methodologies used for evaluation of bioenergy systems on envoronmental, micro- and macro-economic spects. To evaluate micro-economic impacts net present value and annualised cost calculation are used. For environmental impacts, methods used are: qualitative studies, energy analyses, life cycle assessments, LCA-related methods specially developed for bioenergy systems, and externality studies. Macro-economics impacts can be assessed by single direct indicators, efficiency prices, input-output analyses, social accounting matrices and general equilibrium models. Problems in the various methodologies are: assesment of costs for farm labour and land prices, environmental aspects an land-use, and weighing of different environmental impacts. Input-output analysis is a helpfull tool, but also has several limitations. An important input parameter in all assessments is the energy crop yield. It can be based on testplots, crop production models and comparable crops in practice. Because statistical data lack, extrapolation tyo commercial farm practice remains a problem in all approaches.