Estimates of world regional potentials of the sustainable use of biomass fo
r energy uses through the year 2050 are presented. The estimated potentials
are consistent with scenarios of agricultural production and land use deve
loped at the International institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria.
They thus avoid inconsistent land use, in particular conflicts between the
agricultural and bioenergy land use. As an illustration of the circumstanc
es under which a large part of this potential could be used in practice, a
global energy scenario with high economic growth and low greenhouse gas emi
ssions, developed by IIASA and the World Energy Council is summarised. In t
hat scenario, bioenergy supplies 15% of global primary energy by 2050. Our
estimation method is transparent and reproducible. A computer program to re
peat the calculation of the estimates with possibly changed assumptions is
available on request. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.