Economic evaluations of biomass oriented systems for fuel

The application of systems analysis in evaluating biomass energy supply systems in member countries within the International Energy Agency (IEA) Bioenergy Agreement is discussed. A review of the state of the art was given at an international workshop, arranged at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Garpenberg, 6–7 June 1988. The workshop covered a wide range of applications and clearly demonstrated the large variety and viability of existing concepts. The energy supply situations and policies of different countries strongly influence the directions in which systems are developed. Established methods for systems and economic analysis are sufficient as long as the applications are on the systems or corporate levels. Evaluations are more difficult on the national level. The neoclassical economic theory has severe shortcomings, when considering long range aspects on limited resources.