The potential of biomass supply for energetic utilization in a small Italian region: Basilicata

Abstract

The European Union Directive 2009/28/EC (European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 2009 on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources and amending and subsequently repealing directives 2001/77/EC and 2003/30/EC, Directive 2009/28/EC) establishes a common framework for the use of energy from renewable sources in order to reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on fossil fuels from foreign markets; more specifically the EU has the ambitious goal of reaching a 20 % share of energy from renewable sources in the overall energy mix by 2020. These objectives could drive policies that offer substantial economic subsidies for the use of renewable energy, both in Italy and in many other European countries. For all these reasons, biomass (one of the major sources of renewable energy) plants are getting a lot of attention in Italy, but it is necessary to determine whether using of this type of energy is environmentally beneficial and economically feasible. In this study, we evaluate the energy and so the environmental aspects by considering both current and potential biomass supplies available for energy utilization in a small region in the South of Italy: Basilicata, as well as the consequences of this energy conversion at both the local and the global scale.