The aim of this study is to provide a preliminary overview of the potential inherent in the sustainable production of biomass and bioenergy, while, in addition,providing an analysis of their regional impacts in the Nordic countries. Nordregio Working Paper 2008:5.
Over the last twenty years the Nordic regions have witnessed both the expansion of the bioenergy market and increasingly polarized economic development. Urban areas are rapidly growing while sparsely populated areas continue to face difficulties in finding new sources of income, and thus becoming ever more dependant on active
national and EU support. Given the desire to find new ways to restore and improve regional economic structures and provide additional income for these areas, the
expansion of the bioenergy market, in particular through first and second generation biofuels, is viewed as a potentially beneficial strategy towards the realisation of this ambition.
The aim of this study is to provide a preliminary overview of the potential inherent in the sustainable production of biomass and bioenergy, while, in addition, providing an analysis of their regional impacts in the Nordic countries. Which Nordic regions are more suitable for biomass- and bioenergy production? Which bioenergy
alternatives are likely to be more sustainable, and what are the likely social and environmental consequences of an increase in bioenergy production? These are the
central questions this study attempts to investigate.