Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat - Recent Advances and Issues in Environmental Science - page 20

are relatively modest [19] and some groups argue that energy conservation has greater
potential [20].

Habitat Impacts
The major terrestrial habitat types (Figure 2) impacted domestically by energy devel-
opment varied among energy production technique (Table 1). Regardless of scenar-
io, the major habitat types with the most new area affected, summing over all energy
production techniques, are Temperate Deciduous Forests and Temperate Grasslands.
In the Reference Scenario, Temperate Deciduous Forests have between 95,000 km 2
(most compact estimate) and 229,000 km 2 (least compact estimate) impacted, while
Temperate Grasslands have 65,000-168,000 km 2 impacted. In the Core Cap-and-Trade
Scenario these types have 119,000-254,000 km 2 and 88,000-191,000 km 2 impacted,
respectively. Patterns of total new areal impacts are driven by biofuel production, which
peaks in these two habitat types. Biomass burning for electricity and coal mining are
also concentrated in Temperate Deciduous Forests and Temperate Grasslands. Wind
production onshore is likely to affect Temperate Conifer Forests and Temperate
Grasslands in the western US disproportionately. The least impacted habitats are: Tundra;
Boreal Forest; Tropical Dry Forests; Flooded Grasslands; and Tropical Moist Forests.
All of these habitat types have less than 150 km 2 impacted by energy development in
the Reference Scenario and less than 600 km 2 impacted by energy development in the
Core Cap-and-Trade Scenario, using the minimal sprawl estimates from Figure 3.

Table 1. Minimum new area (km 2 ) of habitat types impacted in the US.

Habitat Type Coal Biomass Biofuels Wind

Boreal Forests

94 (- 27) 2 (+12) 3 (+0) 6 (+9)

Deserts

2,310 (- 662) 257 (+1244) 372 (+14) 884 (+ 1 ,300)

Flooded Grasslands

0 (0) 30 (+143) 41 (+1) 0 (0)

Mediterranean Habitat

5 (- 1) 123 (+596) 1,699 (+37) 54 (+79)

Temperate Conifer Forests

4,936 (- 1,413) 1,883 (+9,106) 12,977 (+739) 2,835 (+4, 169)

Temperate Deciduous Forests

10,297 (- 2,945) 4,014 (+19,415) 76,841 (+6,751) 428 (+630)

Temperate Grasslands

7,508 (-2,147) 3,760 (+18,185) 46,821 (+4,136) 1,392 (+2,047)

Tropical Dry Forests 0 (0) 4 (+18) 5 (0) 34 (+50)
Tropical Grasslands 1 ,304 (- 373) 59 (+284) 1,583 (+65) 3 (+5)
Tropical Moist Forests 0 (0) 7 (+32) 9 (0) 78 (+115)
Tundra 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0) 0 (0)
Data are from the Reference Scenario for four major types of energy development: coal production, biomass burning for
electricity, biofuel production, and wind power. Energy development is partitioned among habitat types, as depicted in
Figure 2. Numbers in parentheses are the change in value under the Core Cap-and-Trade Scenario. For example, boreal
forests have 94 km 2 affected under the Reference Scenario by coal, but have 27 fewer km 2 affected by coal under the
Core Cap-and-Trade Scenario (i.e., 67 km 2 ).
doi: 1 0.1371 /journa l.pone.0006802.t001