Christopher Galik

To support the development of this TFD initiative, resources have been made available by Resources for the Future (RFF) to catalyze new analysis and facilitate the engagement of NC State faculty. In making use of these resources, NC State faculty and students will support the above initiative by undertaking the following tasks: ??? Work with external TFD partners through routine conference calls and associated email exchange to develop a collective understanding of stakeholder perspectives, concerns and priorities related to scaling up bioenergy from forests to mitigate climate change; ??? Work with external TFD partners through routine conference calls and associated email exchange to plan regional field workshops and initiative events (e.g., speaker series); ??? Provide written and verbal feedback on TFD initiative deliverables (e.g., scoping reports); ??? Undertake original quantitative analysis of localized and landscape-level effects to support development of new TFD deliverables; ??? Participate in TFD events (field workshops, stakeholder meetings) if they are not otherwise supported by outside funding.

Dr. Galik will assist the Principal Investigator in the documentation of policy and market barriers to the use of forest biomass for energy production, and the assessment of state and national policies that could address those barriers. Specifically, Dr. Galik will assist Dr. Becker and the project team in scoping an initial literature review of research on the adoption of forest biomass for heat and electricity production in the United States, the identification of potential case study locations for further investigation, the development of a white paper on the economic contributions of utilizing forest biomass for energy production, and the drafting of a final report that includes a summary of project findings and recommendations of policy options for addressing barriers to utilizing forest biomass for energy in the United States.

The objective of this project is to better understand alternative implementation strategies to achieve enhanced levels of GHG mitigation from U.S. agricultural and forest lands within the context of a broad suite of State and national GHG policy goals, including developing State Implementation Plans (SIPS) to reduce power sector emissions under the Clean Power Plan (CPP), expanding markets for forest and agricultural energy feedstocks and harvested wood products, and considering new policy portfolios to increase U.S. land-based carbon mitigation potential. Achieving these objectives will increase understanding of: 1.) State-led efforts to develop biomass energy options as part of their overall strategies to meet CPP related emissions targets; 2.) The potential roles that biomass energy and forest products markets could play in meeting the U.S. commitment to reduce national GHG emissions by about 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 (made at the 2016 UNFCCC COP in Paris); and 3.) How broad suites of policies focused on increasing carbon storage or reducing GHG emissions may interact, whether there is an optimal or most efficient mix of policies to achieve improved land carbon trajectory, and how these policies can be deployed to better inform goals for land carbon sequestration while flagging areas in need of further work.