Growing biomass on non-agricultural land could potentially deliver renewable energy services without displacing land from food production, avoiding the social and environmental conflicts associated with bioenergy. A variety of derelict underutilized and neglected land types are possible candidates, sharing a number of challenges for agronomy, including contaminants in soils, potential uptake and dispersion through energy use. Most previous field trials have grown woody biomass species during phytoremediation. Five one-hectare brownfield sites in NE England, were each amended with c.500 t ha−1 of green-waste compost, planted with short-rotation coppice willow, Miscanthus, reed canarygrass and switchgrass,1 and then harvested for 3–5 years.Critical issues for the economic and environmental viability of energy production on brownfield land were investigated: The yields achieved on non-agricultural land; the potential for fuel contamination; the suitability for use and potential markets for any biomass produced. RCG appears best suited to the challenging soil conditions found on non-agricultural land, outperforming other species in ease of establishment, cost, time to maturity, yield and contamination levels. Invasive spreading and low melting ash compositions were not observed. Annual yields of 4–7 odt ha−1 from the second growth season were found consistently across a range of previously-developed, capped or former landfill sites, with a gross annual energy yield of 97 GJ ha−1 at contamination levels acceptable for domestic pellets. The analogy with marginal agricultural land suggests that this species and approach could help boost biomass production while avoiding the natural capital “nexus” related to global food-fuel-land-water limits

This article was submitted for publication in the journal, Biomass and Bioenergy [© Elsevier]. The website is at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09619534The drive for sustainable energy production is leading to increased deployment of land based renewables. Although there is public support, in principle, for renewable energy at a national level, major resistance to renewable energy technologies often occurs at a local level. Within this context, it can be useful to consider the "energyscape" which we initially define as the complex spatial and temporal combination of the supply, demand and infrastructure for energy within a landscape. By starting with a consideration of the energyscape, we can then consider the positive and negative interactions with other ecosystem services within a particular landscape. This requires a multidisciplinary systems-approach that uses existing knowledge of landscapes, energy options, and the different perspectives of stakeholders. The approach is examined in relation to pilot case-study comprising a 155 km2 catchment in Bedfordshire, England

During the last ten years significant concentrations of Pt and Pd (more than 1000 ppb Pt + Pd) have been reported from several ophiolite complexes including Shetland, Leka, Al 'Ays, Zambales, Ceruja and Thetford. Similar studies on others, including those in Cyprus and Oman, have failed to reveal equivalent concentrations. Here we compare the characteristics of these ophiolite sequences and propose that Pt- and Pd-rich ophiolites contain thick sulphur-bearing ultramafic crustal units that crystallized from PGE-rich boninitic magmas produced by excess partial melting in a water-rich subduction zone.