Spatial Mapping and Evaluation of Energy Crop Distribution in Great Britain to 2050

该项目的目的是使用一个整体系统的方法来探索生物能源发展的空间方面在英国到2050年，受环境，经济和社会因素。我们将在以往强有力合作的基础上，利用已开发的数据、模型和工具，预测当前和未来气候（到2050年）下能源作物的潜在空间分布。在这些条件下，能源作物的预计产量代表了经济、社会和环境限制的一个方面，通常被称为这些作物生产和使用的“生态系统服务”，它们共同形成了未来的生物能源供应曲线。该项目将利用现有基础设施（即需求）和未来潜在基础设施的情景，研究能源作物的优化空间分布和原料供应，并量化这种分布在经济、社会和环境方面的总影响。该分析将使用部分均衡模型，将农场规模优化与全球投入和价格以及燃料替代品的投入和价格联系起来。我们的重点将局限于第二代专用能源作物（草和树），因为这些作物与粮食作物的冲突较少，而且很可能生长在质量较差的农业用地上。考虑到Gallagher关于可持续生物燃料的建议（RFA, 2008），粮食作物不太可能在2020年后的英国在生物能源供应方面发挥任何重要作用。产出将是优化能源作物分布的空间地图和相关的供应曲线，以及这些分布的经济、社会和环境后果的地图，这些地图将免费提供给英国能源研究中心的其他研究人员。

The aim of the project is to use a whole systems approach to explore spatial aspects of bioenergy development in the UK to 2050, subject to environmental, economic and social factors. We will build on our previous strong collaboration, and draw on the data, models and tools already developed, to project the potential spatial distribution of energy crops under current and future climate (to 2050). The projected yields of energy crops under these conditions represent one aspect of the economic, social and environmental constraints, often termed 'ecosystem services' on the production and use of these crops, which together shape prospective bioenergy supply curves. The project will, examine the optimised spatial distribution and feedstock supply of energy crops using current infrastructure (i.e. the demand), and under scenarios of future potential infrastructure, and quantify the total impacts of such distributions in economic, social and environmental terms. The analysis will use a partial equilibrium model to link farm-scale optimisation to a global input and prices and that of fuel substitutes. Our focus will be restricted to second generation dedicated energy crops (grasses and trees) since these conflict less with food crops and are likely to be grown on low quality agricultural land. Given recommendations by Gallagher on sustainable biofuels (RFA, 2008) it is unlikely that food crops will have any significant role in the UK post 2020 for the supply of bioenergy. Outputs will be spatial maps and related supply curves of optimised energy crop distributions and maps of economic, social and environmental consequences of these distributions, which will be made freely available to other UKERC researchers.