Where are the world’s major biomass resources and in what volumes are they being exploited to yield sustainable fuels, chemicals and other products? The answers are available in a new Global Biomass Resource Assessment compiled by the U.S. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).

The data are hosted on the Bioenergy Knowledge Discovery Framework portal, and a companion International Feedstocks data-sharing portal offers an aggregate analysis of sustainable biomass supplies for 55 countries. More than 2,740 million metric tons of sustainable biomass supplies are currently available. A projected expansion of the resource base bodes well for a sustainable global economy, as 42 nations that estimated supplies for 2030 identified up to 2,120 million metric tons of sustainable biomass. This represents an increase of 431 million metric tons of biomass production over what has been identified as currently available.

Trends in the production of corn, rice, sugarcane and other fuel crops are detailed, as are current and projected production volumes for wood chips, wood waste and additional processing waste categories.

The data assessment includes biomass resources available in many developing economies, which often do not have fully advanced biomass industries. The compilation is also intended to address the need for internationally accepted benchmarks quantifying sustainable biomass feedstock supplies that can be available to support a circular and climate-neutral bioeconomy.

To contact the author of this article, email shimmelstein@globalspec.com