Reduction of emissions from Brazilian cattle raising and the generation of energy: Intensification and confinement potentials

The identification of the main sources of anthropic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with the mitigation and removal of these emissions has become an important instrument in the attenuation of the climatic changes predicted by the IPCC. The largest emission source in Brazil is forest conver...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Energy policy Vol. 68; pp. 28 - 38
Main Authors:	Palermo, Giuseppe Cernicchiaro, d׳Avignon, Alexandre Louis de Almeida, Freitas, Marcos Aurélio Vasconcelos
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Kidlington Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2014 Elsevier Elsevier Science Ltd
Subjects:	Agricultural economics Agricultural industry Agriculture Agronomy. Soil science and plant productions Air pollution Animals Applied sciences Biogas Biogas energy generation Biological and medical sciences Brazil Carbon Carbon emissions Cattle Cattle industry Cattle raising technology Climate change Climatology. Bioclimatology. Climate change Confinement Deforestation Earth, ocean, space Economic data Electric energy Electrode potentials Emission mitigations Emissions Emissions control Energy Energy economics Energy policy Exact sciences and technology External geophysics Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology General, economic and professional studies Generalities. Biometrics, experimentation. Remote sensing Grain Greenhouse effect Land use Land utilization Latin America Mathematical analysis Meteorology Natural energy Pollution control Pollution sources Power generation Reduction Studies Brazil Emission mitigations Biogas energy generation Cattle raising technology
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Summary:	The identification of the main sources of anthropic greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) associated with the mitigation and removal of these emissions has become an important instrument in the attenuation of the climatic changes predicted by the IPCC. The largest emission source in Brazil is forest conversion. This land use change has always had a strong relationship with the expansion of agriculture, an activity of great importance in the country, which has the largest commercial cattle herd in the planet. Following the considerable reduction in emissions from deforestation, agriculture has been since 2010 the most important source (MCTI (Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação), 2013. Brasília: Ministério daCiência, Tecnologia e Inovação, Brasil). Seeking to discover the possibilities of altering the emissions profile in the agricultural sector, four scenarios were developed related to how this is dealt with in the beef cattle sector, calculating the potential removal of carbon from the atmosphere through natural regeneration of biomes. The results suggest that picketing and rotation scenario has the greatest potential, with a carbon reduction of 17.7GtCO2eq, while the shared raising with grain legumes scenario has the lowest calculated reduction potential of 7.1GtCO2eq was calculated. The animal confinement scenario had an intermediary reduction potential of 8.3GtCO2eq. The mosaic of methods scenario, in which it is attempted to simulate the parallel adoption of the measures proposed in all other scenarios, had a reduction potential of 13.1GtCO2eq. In the scenarios where animal confinement occurs, the treatment of waste with biodigestion allows the generation of biogas and biofertilizers, contributing to an increase in the potential carbon reduction. •We identify one main source of anthropic GHG in Brazil after forest conversion (deforestation), the beef cattle raising.•Four scenarios to mitigate emissions from cattle raising (agriculture sector) are modeled.•We calculate potential removals of carbon from the atmosphere through natural regeneration of biomes for each scenario.•The results suggest that picketing and rotation has the greatest potential, with a carbon reduction of 1.8MtCO2eq/yr.•Biodigestion of manure allows the generation of biogas and biofertilizers, increasing carbon reduction potentials.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-1 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-1 ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:	0301-4215 1873-6777
DOI:	10.1016/j.enpol.2014.01.041