Session 7.04: An integrated analysis tool to guide sustainable biomass production

The guy started by saying that producing significant amounts of carbon based biofuels will have significant land use impacts, that these impacts will be ubiquitous and continuous, and that small changes on many acres can make big impacts.  Responses to land use change are threefold: extensification (bringing new land into production), substitution (changing crops on existing acres), and intensification (increasing inputs).  He then showed examples of many modeling tools, and showed that switchgrass would cause the least erosion in the simulations.  The models also showed that changing one thing, like planting switchgrass across Kansas, can cause large changes, like rain in Michigan.  A thorough analysis is needed.