There are a number of trade-offs to be addressed when it comes to the choice of an energy path or even a specific energy project. For example, trade-offs may relate to immediate needs and scarce financial resources versus long-term societal objectives; environmental impacts versus social and economic gains; global and national societal and environmental gains versus cost allocation. The importance attached to each of these trade-offs may vary in time and place. However, the basis for dis­cussions about energy systems should be the need to guarantee the overall sustainability of human and natural systems.

Thus we need to go beyond the idea of trade-offs which gives a sense of conflict, and move towards the identification of what is essential in terms of energy provision. The World Energy Council has defined the three pillars of sustainable development in the context of energy as being accessibility, availability and acceptability of energy services. Accessibility is a challenge particularly focused on the need to provide 1.6 billion people in the world with modern energy services. Availability is related to the adequacy, reliability and quality of the energy supply. Finally, acceptability has to do with issues of economic affordability, as well as social and environmental impacts (WEC, 2001). This three-pillar concept contributes to highlight major foundations for future development of energy systems, going beyond the technical and supply orientation that used to characterize their expansion.

The benefits of accessing modern energy services are well known, and they have served to justify large investments in energy infrastructure. In fact, the focus on the benefits of energy provision added to little preoccupation with environmental impacts contributed to the rapid economic development observed in the past. The awareness about the full costs of achieving broad energy access is much more recent. For example, we are now aware that more than 40 per cent of lead emis­sions, 85 per cent of sulfur emissions and 75 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions originate from fossil fuel burning, with significant implications for the environment and health. These impacts and costs cannot be ignored in a society that aims at sustainability.

Today, we find ourselves entangled in a well-established infrastructure heavily dependent on nonrenewable resources. This infrastructure has been reliable because the technologies to deploy and use fossil fuels are mastered, synergies exist with other industries, and there are markets for these fuels operating internationally. It should not come as a surprise that fossil-fuel-based technologies have been developed and continuously improved to compete commercially, as they have been the focal point for such a long time.

There is also an established practice of subsidizing fossil fuels either directly as a way to retain jobs, for example, or by not internalizing the full costs implied in their deployment and utilization. This contributes to the strong competitiveness of fossil fuels and allows a continuous expansion of their use as if there were unlimited availability of these resources, and as if there were no limits to the resilience of our ecosystems. But fossil fuel markets are full of imperfections, particularly when it comes to oil, and affected by limitations of resource availability, and geopolitical complexities that increase price volatility with negative effects on the world economy as a whole.

In addition, previous practices contribute to the belief that energy is cheap. It gives the impression that the renewable technologies are far too expensive and not capable of competing commercially in an open market. In fact, energy has never been cheap; only we are not used to paying the full price for harnessing and using energy. The most obvious expression of the accumulated costs for energy used in the past is the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, most of which comes from fossil fuel burning. The costs of shifting energy systems towards renewable alternatives are not simply the costs of developing new technologies and creating markets for those, but also are the costs of shifting towards new infra­structure systems and paying accumulated rents.

While we are more aware of the impacts and costs of energy systems, it is important not to be trapped by them. For example, we could be trapped by the beaten track and continue the expansion of nonsustainable systems due to the political, institutional and economic difficulties implied in changing course. It could be actually claimed that this is partly happening as we watch the use of non­renewable resources advance more rapidly than justifiable because decision makers are reluctant to set new directions and because established structures are slow in implementing change. Thus we can be trapped by the difficulties to motivate good solutions to the general public, and gamble on our future instead. We need to be clear about what the trade-offs are when it comes to energy deployment and use. We need to improve understanding about the issues involved, find ways to extract synergy benefits of choosing renewable paths, and highlight them as a way to obtain broader support for change.

When energy accessibility is considered in the context of the affordability of poor populations, economic and social trade-offs are imposed. Energy services have to be affordable. A major question in many developing countries is how to mobi­lize financial resources to provide energy under conditions of volatile demand due to uneven affordability, and uncertain economic returns. This requires better distribution mechanisms which have to be developed both at country level and in cooperation with the international community. Only by making developing coun­tries part of the solution will we be able to deal with the energy and climate change debt. Bioenergy provides a road in this direction.

Using natural resources to generate social benefits is part of the sustaina­bility concept provided resilience levels are observed, and the options left to future generations are respected. In any case, trade-offs have to be made in terms of managing natural, financial and human resources. Appropriate methodologies need to be further developed for the appraisal of energy systems which capture local and global potential gains, and which are linked to proper international cooperative regimes that help foster the most desirable solutions. The global climate change agenda is a promising new platform whereby renewable technologies can receive support to gain new markets. Bioenergy is an attractive alternative at hand in this context as discussed throughout this book.

Besides being renewable, bioenergy can bring about many environmental benefits, including the recovery of degraded land, reduction of soil erosion and protection of watersheds. If properly managed, bioenergy can be C02 neutral which makes it particularly attractive as a climate change mitigation option. Bioenergy may bring about significant socioeconomic benefits in the form of rural employment and positive impacts on local economies. Thus bioenergy is not only attractive from the environmental point of view, but also provides socioeconomic advantages for both developed and developing countries (Woods and Hall, 1994).

This is not to say that bioenergy is totally free of controversy. Large expansion of monoculture, competition for land and water, and quality of soils are some of the major issues related to further development of bioenergy which shall gradually become more correlated to the evaluation of its benefits. While the possibility to use local and regional potential for bioenergy is a great advantage, the transformation of biofuels into commodities and the formation of international markets shall be determinant on the extent to which bioenergy will become a major modern energy source in the next few decades. The formation of biofuel markets will benefit developing countries which, in general, have favorable conditions for growing biomass. On the other hand, the formation of these markets will have to deal with established interests in agriculture and forestry sectors of industrialized countries, requiring innovative policies.

To be able to explore the benefits of bioenergy at full scale, we need a common dialog to try and understand the local and global trade-offs as they are perceived by different interest groups. Only then will we be able to find ways for combining top down and bottom up approaches to promote the technological and social transitions of energy systems that are needed, not least to solve the climate problem. At the end, it is a matter of bridging part of the technological and social divide that we have in the world today. In this context, bioenergy provides an alternative to tackle the energy divide while also contributing to development at large. A more open dialog would allow a clear evaluation of the trade-offs implied, avoiding the simplistic and often applied dichotomy of immediate local social benefits versus long-term global environmental gains which hampers change towards sustainable development.