Climate 2030 Blueprint

The document outlines conservative estimates for biomass energy supply in the US, focusing on energy crops, agricultural residues, forestry residues, and urban/mill residues. It details the use of the POLYSYS model to assess land-use changes, specifically for switchgrass, and provides the methodology for calculating land-use impacts for other renewable energy technologies and avoided coal mining.

• The Climate 2030 Blueprint adopts conservative biomass supply estimates, including only about 60 percent of the supply used in the EIA's 25x25 analysis, one-half of the DOE's moderate-yield scenario, and one-third of the DOE's high-yield scenario.
• To mitigate indirect land-use effects and global warming emissions associated with growing energy crops on croplands, the analysis applies a 50 percent exclusion to the switchgrass supply used in the EIA 25x25 analysis, resulting in an assumed availability of 121 million dry tons.
• Economic modeling suggests that at $50 per dry ton, over 50 million acres of switchgrass could be viable in the US by 2025, with 78 percent (39 million acres) converted from pastures and the rest primarily displacing wheat and soybeans.
• The analysis estimates the potential availability of other biomass feedstocks as 158 million dry tons of agricultural residues (corn stover and wheat straw), 88 million dry tons of forestry residues (63 million logging residues and 25 million other removals), and 27 million dry tons of urban and mill residues.
• The document argues that using switchgrass to displace coal-fired electricity provides greater heat-trapping emissions reductions than displacing gasoline because coal has approximately 34 percent higher carbon emissions per unit of energy.
• The report establishes methodologies for calculating land-use impacts for various technologies: solar PV and concentrating solar power (CSP) use land area to power ratios, wind uses an area to power ratio with a footprint of 2 to 5 percent of total land, and avoided coal mining is calculated via ratios of mountaintop removal and surface mining acreage to coal produced.

APA

Union of Concerned Scientists (n.d.). Climate 2030 Blueprint. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/climate2030-app-g-biomass.pdf

Chicago

Union of Concerned Scientists. Climate 2030 Blueprint. n.d. https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/climate2030-app-g-biomass.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Union of Concerned Scientists |title=Climate 2030 Blueprint |url=https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/climate2030-app-g-biomass.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{unionofconcernedscientistsndclimate, author = {{Union of Concerned Scientists}}, title = {{Climate 2030 Blueprint}}, institution = {Union of Concerned Scientists}, url = {https://www.ucs.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/climate2030-app-g-biomass.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }