Showing 53 results for Author: Esther S. Parish
Apr, 2026
Journal
This article summarizes eight discussions with > 70 farmers held in 2025 across the Corn Belt, the Southeast, and the Great Plains. Bioenergy researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory held these discussion to get an unfiltered look at the future of biomass resources from the U.S. agricultural sector.
Aug, 2025
Journal
The United States (US Mid-Atlantic Region (MAR) has the potential to grow a variety of perennial feedstocks such as switchgrass and shrub willow to increase domestic energy production. These cellulosic feedstocks have also shown improved ecosystem services, such as soil carbon sequestration, nitrate leaching reduction, and flood mitigation along rivers and streams as parti…
Aug, 2025
Journal
Scientists and stakeholders can inform the process of siting renewable energy facilities in ways that do not perpetuate socioeconomic disparities associated with fossil fuel industries or create new ones. Procedural justice indicators and distributional justice indicators that incorporate environmental, social, and economic objectives can be used to site energy facilities…
May, 2025
Journal
Adapting to future climate change in flood-prone landscapes will require climate-resilient agricultural systems. Planting perennial crops, like switchgrass and willow, along river corridors can mitigate future flooding while supporting bioenergy markets. We developed an integrated assessment linking climate, hydrologic, and inundation model results to assess future flood r…
Nov, 2023
Journal
European demand for renewable energy resources has led to rapidly increasing transatlantic exports of wood pellets from the southeastern United States (SE US) since 2009. Disagreements have arisen over the global greenhouse gas reductions associated with replacing coal with wood, and groups on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean have raised concerns that increasing biomass ex…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Wood pellet exports from the Southeastern United States (SE US) to Europe have been increasing. The pellet exports are driven by policies that aim to displace coal with renewable biomass for industrial power plants. Increasing pellet production has raised concerns about the sustainability of supplies, carbon emissions, and potential impacts on the forests where the wood is…
Nov, 2023
ORNL Report
Evaluating the sustainability of new U.S. hydropower development will necessitate an approach that is comprehensive, transparent and consistent. The ORNL Environmental Metrics for Hydropower (EMH) project team addressed this need by conducting a literature review to extract and analyze a swath of environmental metrics related to hydropower projects. The assessed documents…
Nov, 2023
Journal
As U.S. hydropower development continues to expand, a thorough inventory of potentially relevant environmental metrics will provide a comprehensive and transparent starting point for stakeholders seeking to evaluate the sustainability and environmental effects of this anticipated expansion. To address this need, we conducted a literature review to extract and analyze a swa…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Documenting reference conditions is essential when assessing the effects of industrial wood pellet production. Reference conditions describe what is expected to occur in the absence of pellet production. Forests in the southeastern United States (SE US) are under pressure from development and other disturbances. Reference conditions need to consider the alternate fates of…
Nov, 2023
Journal
Hydropower generation has advantages for societies that seek low-carbon, renewable energy alternatives, but sustainable hydropower production will require an explicit consideration of potential tradeoffs between socioeconomic and environmental priorities. These tradeoffs are often explored during a formal environmental impact assessment process that can be complex and cont…