In a free public seminar at 3:30 PM on February 25, in room 1130 of the Wisconsin Energy Institute, Forest and Wildlife Ecology Assistant Professor Craig Johnston will speak about the future of forestry biomass and carbon management.
Abstract: Renewable energy is seen as way of mitigating climate change, and while wind, solar, and hydro are often advertised, many countries around the world are turning to modern forest based bioenergy to meet their self imposed emissions targets. The idea is that the release of emissions from burning wood for energy today is recaptured by the future growth of trees, and that there is no net contribution to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. This has been a hotly debated issue across academics and policy makers, and this really only applies under certain restrictive scenarios. In the fall of 2018, the international community has called on large scale implementation of bioenergy to limit global warming to no more than 1.5C by 2100. Not only would this require a complete transformation of the global energy grid, but it will also require significant amounts of biomass inputs from forests. The benefits from this strategy are already being debated within top academic journals.