Biorenewables Café

Our next Biorenewables Café will happen on Thursday February 16th, 5-6:30pm at the Chemical and Biological Engineering Building (CHBE Building, 2360 East Mall, Room 204 – UBC Point Grey Campus). The speaker for the evening will be Catalin Ristea, Ph.D. Candidate at the UBC Department of Wood Science.

Abstract – To Bioenergy or not to Fossil Fuels

In light of recent biofuel policies in BC and Canada, we try to answer the Question: “Under what conditions it is feasible to displace fossil fuels with renewable wood biofuels, from both a financial and a greenhouse gas balance perspective?” First we analyze the climate mitigation potential of biofuels from wood, and we submit that both space and time matter, and they need to be considered in life-cycle GHG analyses. Then we take a closer look at the “magnificent three” – the carbon, the land, and the dollar. We discuss their impact on the Question and, in turn, what variables are they impacted by.

About Catalin Ristea

Catalin is a PhD Candidate in carbon and bioenergy modelling in the Faculty of Forestry at UBC. Catalin’s research interests include multi-objective forest planning to meet environmental, social and economic criteria. More recently, Catalin’s focus has been the development of decision support tools for modeling of large-scale wood bioenergy production operations, which include tactical forest planning, economic analysis, greenhouse gas balances, carbon budgets, and systems analysis approaches for life-cycle studies of renewable bioenergy projects.