Poster's note : Relevant to BECCS, but also note that VOC emissions from vegetation adjust albedo due to production of haze over forests (eg the "Smoky Mountains")
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.5b00266 Impact of Biofuel Poplar Cultivation on Ground-Level Ozone and Premature Human Mortality Depends on Cultivar Selection and Planting Location Kirsti Ashworth†, Oliver Wild*†, Allyson S. D. Eller‡ and C. Nick Hewitt† *E-mail: [email protected]; phone: +44 (0)1524 594871; fax: +44 (0)1524 593985 Environmental Science & Technology Vol. 49: Issue. 14: Pages. 8566-8575 (Volume publication date: July 2015) DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.5b00266 Isoprene and other volatile organic compounds emitted from vegetation play a key role in governing the formation of ground-level ozone. Emission rates of such compounds depend critically on the plant species. The cultivation of biofuel feedstocks will contribute to future land use change, altering the distribution of plant species and hence the magnitude and distribution of emissions. Here we use relationships between biomass yield and isoprene emissions derived from experimental data for 29 commercially available poplar hybrids to assess the impact that the large-scale cultivation of poplar for use as a biofuel feedstock will have on air quality, specifically ground-level ozone concentrations, in Europe. We show that the increases in ground-level ozone across Europe will increase the number of premature deaths attributable to ozone pollution each year by up to 6%. Substantial crop losses (up to ∼9 Mt y–1 of wheat and maize) are also projected. We further demonstrate that these impacts are strongly dependent on the location of the poplar plantations, due to the prevailing meteorology, the population density, and the dominant crop type of the region. Our findings indicate the need for a concerted and centralized decision-making process that considers all aspects of future land use change in Europe, and not just the effect on greenhouse gas emissions -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
