Significance Under China's carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals, bioenergy is expected to contribute not only to fossil-energy substitution but also to organic-waste management and biogenic carbon storage. Unlike wind and solar power, which mainly expand low-carbon electricity supply, biomass has both energy-carrier and carbon-carrier attributes. It can be converted into electricity, heat, gaseous fuels and liquid fuels, and it can also contribute to carbon removal through biochar and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). However, sustainable bioenergy deployment cannot be assessed only by theoretical resource abundance or installed capacity. It depends on three interrelated questions: how much biomass remains available after collection losses, competing uses and ecological requirements are considered; which utilization routes match different feedstocks and end-use demands; and whether the resulting life-cycle emission reductions or carbon removals can be measured, reported and verified. Existing studies often examine global low-carbon scenarios, China's biomass resource potential, or individual conversion technologies separately. As a result, the link between global changes in bioenergy functions, China's non-food biomass constraints and project-level implementation conditions remains insufficiently integrated. This review therefore combines global scenario analysis with evidence from Chinese biomass resource studies, publicly available project information and life-cycle accounting literature to clarify sustainable bioenergy pathways for China. Progress This study selected biomass-related indicators from the "World" region of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report (IPCC AR6) Scenarios Database (World v1.1). The analysis focused on C1, C2 and C3 mitigation categories in 2030 and 2050. C1 represents pathways that limit warming to 1.5 ℃ with no or limited overshoot, C2 represents pathways that return warming to 1.5 ℃ after a larger overshoot, and C3 represents pathways that limit warming to 2 ℃. The screened C1, C2 and C3 categories contained 97, 133 and 311 model-scenario combinations, corresponding to 24, 24 and 32 Model entries, respectively. To reduce the influence of models contributing different numbers of scenarios, indicator values were first calculated for each model-scenario combination. Medians were then taken within each Model entry, category and year, and inter-model medians and interquartile ranges were calculated across Model entries. The results were used to identify global changes in bioenergy functions under low-carbon pathways. They were not downscaled, scaled or numerically converted into China-specific deployment levels. The AR6 scenario results show that biomass retains a long-term role in global low-carbon energy systems, but its functional emphasis changes as decarbonization deepens. In 2050, biomass accounts for 18.4%‒25.9% of global primary energy across C1‒C3, while biomass power accounts for only 3.5%‒4.9% of electricity generation. This indicates that biomass power remains a complementary and dispatchable resource rather than the main source of low-carbon electricity expansion. The major increase in low-carbon electricity comes from wind and solar power, whereas bioenergy becomes more relevant in non-electric fuel supply and carbon removal. Biomass liquid-fuel supply increases from 5.97‒8.33 EJ/a in 2030 to 19.21‒23.74 EJ/a in 2050. Transport liquid biofuels also increase, although the number of models reporting this indicator is limited, so the result is used mainly to identify the direction of change. BECCS deployment further reflects differences among temperature pathways. Median annual CO2 storage through BECCS reaches 4.34 Gt in C1, 4.20 Gt in C2 and 2.34 Gt in C3 by 2050. C1 requires earlier fossil-energy reduction and earlier carbon removal, whereas C2 shifts more removal demand to later stages after overshoot. At the same time, energy-crop land reaches median values of 226.4, 184.2 and 161.3 million ha in C1, C2 and C3, respectively, by 2050. These results suggest that global low-carbon scenarios can provide a functional reference for China, but they also highlight the land pressure associated with large-scale energy-crop expansion. China's bioenergy development must therefore be grounded in non-food, low-land-competition biomass resources. A national assessment based on 2020 data for 31 provincial-level regions estimated that agricultural residues, forestry residues and livestock manure had a combined theoretical potential of about 36 EJ. After accounting for collection difficulties and losses during collection, storage and transport, the collectable potential decreased to about 26 EJ. After further deducting quantities required for straw return, animal feed, fertilizer use, existing energy use and other competing purposes, the sustainable bioenergy potential decreased to about 10 EJ, representing only 27% of the theoretical potential. This gap indicates that theoretical biomass abundance cannot be directly translated into project capacity. Local deployment must consider resource density, collection radius, existing uses, end-use demand, by-product outlets and environmental constraints. Different utilization routes require different implementation conditions. High-moisture feedstocks such as livestock manure, vegetable residues and food waste are more suitable for anaerobic digestion, provided that methane control, energy recovery and digestate utilization can be integrated. Dry residues, including sustainably removable crop residues and forestry processing residues, can support direct heating, combined heat and power, biochar production and lignocellulosic fuels, but their use must account for soil carbon maintenance, nutrient cycling and stable heat demand. Bioenergy power generation should be evaluated separately from direct heat supply and combined heat and power because their useful energy outputs, system roles and life-cycle performance differ. Waste oils can support biodiesel, renewable diesel and sustainable aviation fuel in the near term, but feedstock traceability, export flows, double-counting risks and competition among fuel uses constrain expansion. Lignocellulosic fuels remain important for broadening the non-food feedstock base in the medium term. Biochar and BECCS can contribute to carbon removal, but their net removal depends on feedstock sustainability, process emissions, carbon stability, final storage and monitoring, reporting and verification systems. BECCS demonstrations in China can begin with concentrated and measurable biogenic CO2 streams from ethanol fermentation and biomethane upgrading, while broader deployment requires CO2 transport, geological storage and long-term monitoring infrastructure. Conclusions and Prospects The analysis supports a four-step judgment sequence for China's bioenergy development: global functional reference, domestic resource verification, feedstock-end-use matching, and life-cycle verification. Before 2030, bioenergy deployment can focus on organic-waste treatment and on heating or combined heat and power in regions with stable feedstock supply and heat demand. From 2030 to 2050, biomethane, lignocellulosic liquid fuels and biochar projects can be advanced according to regional resource conditions, infrastructure availability and verification capacity. Toward the carbon neutrality goal before 2060, BECCS demonstrations can be developed from high-concentration biogenic CO2 sources while transport, storage and monitoring systems are gradually established. Public project cases should be used to identify implementation conditions and evidence gaps rather than to derive nationally uniform cost-benefit rankings. Future research should develop high-resolution biomass resource inventories with unified accounting boundaries, link resource density with transport distance, end-use demand and environmental capacity, and strengthen long-term monitoring and third-party verification for biochar and BECCS projects. These efforts would improve the regional suitability, engineering feasibility and verifiable climate contribution of China's sustainable bioenergy pathways.
生物炭项目应建立覆盖原料来源、热解过程、产品质量、农田施用和储存持续性的MRV(monitoring,reporting and verification)链条,记录原料可持续性依据、干基质量与运输距离、过程能耗与生物炭产率、稳定碳与污染物水平、最终施用地块。净移除量以进入合格长期用途的稳定碳为基础,扣除全生命周期排放;副产能源替代、生物炭碳移除和肥料替代效益应分别核算。《生物炭还田固碳减排量核算与报告指南》(NY/T 4867—2025)可作为国内核算与报告基础[42],碳市场应用还需明确基准线、额外性、泄漏、持续性和第三方核查规则。
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