Thomas Seifert, Pierre Ackerman, Paxie W. Chirwa, Clemens von Doderer, Ben du Toit, Johann Gorgens, Cori Ham, Anton Kunneke, and Martina Meincken

1.1 Woody Biomass — An Antiquated or a Modern Source of Energy?

Bioenergy production from wood is one of the oldest forms of energy and it was for a long time considered a primitive energy source in many industrialised countries. However, it is currently experiencing an increase in attention worldwide. Consid­ering its importance and history, it is astonishing that the widespread cognizance of wood as an important energy source in modern times is a recent phenomenon. It has been mainly driven by the pressure of diminishing fossil fuel resources in industrialised countries, as well as the wish to become more independent from nuclear power and its risks in some developed countries. In addition, amongst other renewable energy sources, bioenergy was identified as an alternative to

T. Seifert (H)

Department of Forest and Wood Science, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, 7602 Stellenbosch, South Africa e-mail: seifert@sun. ac. za

P. Ackerman • B. du Toit • C. Ham • A. Kunneke • M. Meincken Department of Forest and Wood Science, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, 7602 Matieland, South Africa

P. W. Chirwa

Forest Science Postgraduate Programme, University of Pretoria,

5-15 Plant Sciences Complex, Pretoria 0028, South Africa e-mail: paxie. chirwa@up. ac. za

C. von Doderer

Department for Agricultural Economics, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1, 7602 Matieland, South Africa

J. Gorgens

Department of Process Engineering, Stellenbosch University,

Private Bag X1, 7602 Matieland, South Africa

T. Seifert (ed.), Bioenergy from Wood: Sustainable Production in the Tropics, Managing Forest Ecosystems 26, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-7448-3__1,

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

fossil fuels, which could also help to prevent furthering an anthropogenic climate change by attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, two different development routes are recognizable, which appear to go in opposite directions and result in competition for land resources in tropical countries. One route is driven by developing countries and the other by developed countries. Globally, wood is the most important source of renewable energy and is used to produce more energy than all other renewable energy sources combined (ren21 2013; FAO 2011). According to (FAO 2011), the global annual woodfuel consumption, which comprises fuelwood, charcoal and other wood based energy sources, sums up to 1.87 billion m3. Of this amount, 13 % are consumed in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of America and the Caribbean region, 30 % in Africa and 30 % in Asia and the Pacific region. In total, almost three quarters of the global woodfuel consumption occur in tropical countries.