Download The Dependancy of Biomass Production on Climate Change

THE DEPENDENCY OF BIOMASS PRODUCTION ON CLIMATE
CHANGE
Sponsor of the Research: MOL Inc. (Division of Sustainable Development & Health
Protection, Safety Engineering, and Environment Protection)
Project leader:
Prof. Dr. Michael Palocz-Andresen
Participating researcher:
Dóra Szalay environment protection engineer MSc
University of West-Hungary, Faculty of Forestry, Institute of Environmental and Earth
Sciences
9400 Sopron, Cházár András tér l.
The Aim of the Research, Achievable Results
Hungary’s climate will have an ever increasing Mediterranean character according to climate
scenarios. Climate will be hotter, the amount of precipitation will decline. The unequal pattern
of rainfall and the recurring phenomenon of droughts might cause particularly severe
problems.
Changes may have serious impacts on biomass production, may strongly influence the
biomass utilization targeted by the EU until 2020, also may endanger domestic economy. The
EU has set the goal of 13 % biomass use in Hungary, and the share of biomass based products
– in heat equivalent – should be 10 % of the entire fuel turnover.
The aim of the research was to create such climate scenarios until 2100 that would help to
make an adaptable strategy to the expected changes. Beside climate change we must consider
energy and raw material markets at home and abroad. The increasing competition between
agriculture and biomass production, the rising prices, the expected supply troubles, increasing
international tensions and the world-wide economic crisis all require that native fuel
production based on biomass should be ready for changes with the help of an in-depth
analysis.
To achieve this goal it is necessary to examine the biomass production programmes of
neighbouring countries and their export-import potentials. It is appropriate to widen the
discussion with the examination of:

the quality and capacity of synthetic fuel production technologies,

the improvement of climate compatible methods of biomass production

the introduction of plants breeds that are more resistant to climate change impacts,

the analysis of process methods of organic based products and

the financial impacts.