BEFS Operator Level Tool - Agriculture residues

Crop residues

Dear Assessor,

Welcome to the Bioenergy and Food Security Operator Level Tool (Agriculture Residues).

The goal of this tool is to assist in environmental, social and economic assessment of bioenergy projects related to agriculture residue pathways. The BEFS OLT (Agriculture Residues) covers crop and livestock specific bioenergy pathways that involve utilization of crop and/or livestock residues for energy production.

The main purpose of the BEFS OLT (Agriculture Residues) is to perform an initial screening of specific bioenergy projects to assess the projects’ environmental, social and economic performance according to good international practice. This can often be a requirement when a project developer is seeking funding for a project or when a funding institution would like to understand if a project proposal meets specific sustainability requirements. The tool is structure by bioenergy component, namely feedstock, storage, transport, storage and processing and screens sustainability at the level of each component of the chain.

As a result of the assessment, the tool provides an initial indication of the projects’ sustainability. Through the tool, a clerarer understanding of the overall sustainability of the specific project can be understood including both strengths and weaknesses. If the outcome of the performance is not acceptable or poor, the assessment will identifiy which areas of the chain would need further development so as to improve the sustainability performance of the tool.

Crop residues used as bioenergy feedstock encompass a variety of different residue types. According to the location of their generation, residues can be categorised as primary and secondary. Primary residues are generated in the fields, where they are left upon harvesting and removal of the main produce. Cereal straw, corn stover and cotton stalk are primary residues. On the other hand, secondary residues are generated during crop processing and are thus located in agro-food processing facilities. Examples of secondary residues include rice husk, corn cob, sugar-cane bagasse, sunflower husk, etc. Consequently, an assessment of a bioenergy project using secondary residues does not include collection and storage I component.

BEFS Operator Level Tool - Agriculture residues

Further detailed information can be found in the manual of the tool.

There are 285 questions in this survey.

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