Sustaining the Soil Resource While Moving Toward the Bioenergy Mandate.

Challenges associated with energy security and the need to migrate towards more carbon neutral energy production systems, as well as the strong political pressures to rejuvenate rural economies has driven bioenergy to the forefront of renewable energy strategies. Federally mandated targets of replacing 30% of the U.S. transportation fuel consumption by bio-based fuels by 2030 along with the current administration's goal of having 25% of the U.S. electricity generation capacity become bio-based by 2025, are important policy instruments driving the bioenergy enterprise. The “Bioenergy and Bioprodcuts: The technical feasibility of a billion-ton annual supply” report, now widely known as the billion ton report, concluded that a “sustainable” billion tons of biomass would be readily available to supply the anticipated emerging bioenergy enterprise at a production level needed to meet the mandated targets. While the ability to generate a “sustainable” billion tons of biomass using the assumptions made within the report is questionable, a much greater challenge is sustainably producing this amount of biomass using existing agroecosystem and forestry based management systems from the standpoint of the soil resource, i.e., the primary resource being exploited in bioenergy production. This is particularly true when considered in the context of the food, energy, and environment trilemma where food security must be the prevailing priority. This presentation will focus on the challenges associated with the development of sustainable bioenergy production systems from the standpoint of the soil resource, the policy implications, and the implications for moving toward a carbon neutral energy generation future.