Energy from biomass a decision support system for integrating sustainability into technology assessment

Kyoto Protocol, set specific targets of CO2 reduction and furthermore, European climate and energy policy package by 2020 fixed a set of actions encompassing: cutting energy consumption by 20% of projected 2020 levels by improving energy efficiency; cutting greenhouse gases by at least 20% of 1990 levels; increasing use of renewables (wind, solar, biomass, etc) to 20% of total energy production. Within this context, a number of actions have to be implemented to comply with environmental targets, especially defining a framework for energy planning at local scale. To be sustainable, energy planning process at local scale requires an integrated assessment to individuate the best solution, considering resources of all types (physical, human and capital) available in the specific context. Many environmental, economic, technological and social issues should be considered to define a sustainability level of a technological choice. In this study, we present a decision support system for assessing sustainability of using local biomasses as energetic source. The aim of the research is to define a set of indicators to assess feasibility of biomass sources exploitation, underlying critical issues and potential areas of optimization providing a valuable Decision Support System (DSS) for decision makers. This work was based on the analysis of different energetic potentialities of local contexts in term of forest biomass resources availability, taking into account also environmental, economic and social local conditions. The assessment of environmental, economic and social sustainability of a plant producing electricity powered by Syngas, which comes from gasification of woody forest biomasses, was performed. The case of an Italian mountain community (Comunità Montana delle Alpi Lepontine) in northern Italy is presented