Winners and Losers in Energy Transition: Study Case of Wood Biomass Power-Plants Implementation in France

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript studies local stakeholders’ organization by analysing the case of a large-scale biomass power plant in southern France. The author ground their theoretical approach upon Ostrom’s common pool resources seminal work. The literature review is relatively short in face of the considerable amount of publication covering this topic. The selected case is, I find, a particularly rich, interesting and complex case. The authors present, rather convincingly, it’s regional and historical context. In the Result section they bring to light different aspects that, in their view, allows to understand the consequences of the conversion of the E-On/Uniper power plant (stakeholders attitude towards the project, network configuration, etc.).

Overall the paper addresses very topical and interesting issues, relevant on both scientific and policy matters. However, I find that, in its present form, the manuscript need to be revised for the following reasons:

1. The manuscript requires to be thoroughly checked and rewritten as certain statements are not understandable for non-French speakers. Also the language sometimes appears to be too informal (e.g. “who work hard for the forest sector” line 308)
2. More importantly, I would recommend adjusting the structure of the manuscript, especially the Result section, to improve its consistency. Explicitly referring to the commons in the introduction would be appropriate in view of the methods. Methods could be specified (see below). The different subsections of the Result part do not seem to fit the analytical framework presented in the method section which blurs the lines of the arguments.
3. The methods should be a little more detailed (what kind of workshop have been organized? With whom and for what purpose?).
4. The authors do not demonstrate the “common pool resource” status of the forests in their case. In Table 2 they characterise forest common pool resources as goods of high reality and low excludability, giving examples such as recreational activities and other NWFPs. In my view this is problematic - or at least generates confusion - as the rest of the manuscript almost exclusively tackles fuelwood and timber provisioning. Thus it is unclear how Box 1, specific to common pool resources management, relates to the storyline that follows. Why would it be an objective to fulfil Ostrom’s criteria whereas it has been shown that the current system does not fit the definition of a common pool resource?
5. In Table 3, information is needed on how this table has been constructed (based on document analysis, personal judgment, stakeholders’ insights?). Also the “sustainability potential” line needs to be explained (sustainability of what? and how is it assessed?). This is all the more questionable than the sustainability issue is then left aside.
6. The authors seldom quote their interviewees. Since they have made a substantial number of interviews, it would be normal and expected that the point of view of the interviewed actors be given more space and recognition in this paper. This seems important not only to recognize the contribution of those who were interviewed but also to potentially better reflect the fact that these issues are sometimes controversial.
7. Although this is debatable, I do not agree with several statements made in this paper. In Figure 2, the authors write “A more profitable and structured forestry sector should involve [a] regional wood supply chain with both first and second transformation processes”. I am not aware of published studies demonstrating this statement. As a matter of fact, “profitable” and “structured” are context, scale and objective dependent. Also “first and second transformation” does not have the same meaning in English.
8. The authors seem to consider the PACA region as a closed operating system (for example in Figures 4 and 5). I feel that there is an overlap between the described SES and administrative boundaries. Discussing this point would be interesting to elicit the multi-scalar interplay in which this case study belongs (as raised line 500 and 509).
9. Some seemingly key concepts are never defined (social capital, transition) despite the existence of an extensive literature.
10. The authors must be very careful when laying charges on explicitly mentioned stakeholders. Line 330, the authors write that the Préfet blackmailed several local stakeholders. Such personal accusations are inappropriate in research papers if they do not rely on well-established and public facts (otherwise the author must assume legal responsibility). Regardless of the facts, I advise the author to change the wording.
11. Another question remains unclear: why do the forest owners give preference to supply contracts if this contradicts their own interests? Unlike for publicly owned forests, private owners do not have to comply with such sales mode. Also, recent publications pointed out potential trade-offs in implementing contracts for timber sales in France. Is it possible to analyse the phenomenon in the PACA region in view of these contributions?
12. Where do the policy measures presented in Table 4 come from? It looks like the authors made them up without tangible link with the case studied (e.g. “design an environmental tax”). These recommendations appear to exceed by far the scope of the case. The consequences of such measures seem to be pure expectations (e.g. “Owners […] would receive the expression of informal moral rewards from other members”, line 573). Policy implication would benefit from being discussed in the light of recent relevant strategic documents (e.g. UE and FR bioeconomy strategies).
13. I would suggest an alternative title as the paper is more about regional sectoral organization than transition per se. Also referring to a biomass power plant in France seems more accurate that “European woody biomass policy” (as policy appears to be a contextual element).

Other minor issues:

• Line 49. Check consistency between “wood” and “woody” through the text.*
• Line 55. An increase in stock does not imply an increased availability.
• Line 59. “Dutch” spelling.
• Line 117. “The PACA forests are underexploited”. According to what reference? This posture is very controversial. What would be a “sufficiently exploited” forest ecosystem in this context? If not explained this constitutes a value judgment.
• Line 363. “Hard mechanisation”. The meaning of this is unclear to me.
• Line 448. Why is it likely to generate low services? Is it based on Table 3 (and then on what is based Table 3, see comment above) or is it a justification for Table 3?
• Line 471. “Forest Cooperative” is a generic term, “Provence Forêt” would be more accurate.
• Line 472. The ONF does not own any forest: it only manages most of the publicly owned forests.
• Line 489. Forest cooperatives do not prospect private forest owners using an address book: they manage the forest of their clients (shareholders) and may prospect for new clients.
• Line 492. “They are numerous”. This needs to be specified or removed.

This paper addresses the interesting and urgent issue for a more sustainable and inclusive development of the forest sector in France and in Europe. I more than acknowledge the necessity for more studies of this type. However, as mentioned above, and for the reasons stated, I think the paper need to undergo major revisions. Nonetheless, I strongly encourage the authors to propose a revised version to Forests.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1

First of all, we would like to thank the reviewer 1 for his very helpful review. The bioeconomical point of view was a really interesting suggestion, and all of his comments helped to improve the manuscript.

Please find below, in blue, our responses to the different comments:

1. The manuscript requires to be thoroughly checked and rewritten as certain statements are not understandable for non-French speakers. Also the language sometimes appears to be too informal (e.g. “who work hard for the forest sector” line 308)

The manuscript was sent to an independent English-speaking office for correction before the submission and we had incorporated all of the corrections suggested. We therefore consider the English to be correct. Moreover, due to the time frame for the revision process, we do not have time to send it a second time, and unfortunately we also do not have the budget.

2. More importantly, I would recommend adjusting the structure of the manuscript, especially the Result section, to improve its consistency. Explicitly referring to the commons in the introduction would be appropriate in view of the methods. The different subsections of the Result part do not seem to fit the analytical framework presented in the method section which blurs the lines of the arguments.

Thanks for this suggestion, we changed all section and subsection titles in order to fit with the Ostrom’s framework and thus support our arguments.

3. The methods should be a little more detailed (what kind of workshop have been organized? With whom and for what purpose?).

We added a new paragraph in the Methods part to explain the methodology of participative workshops (l. 187 to l. 210). This explanation also allows to reinforce the description of the Table 3, more information in the response to the comments n°5.

4. The authors do not demonstrate the “common pool resource” status of the forests in their case. In Table 2 they characterise forest common pool resources as goods of high reality and low excludability, giving examples such as recreational activities and other NWFPs. In my view this is problematic - or at least generates confusion - as the rest of the manuscript almost exclusively tackles fuelwood and timber provisioning. Thus it is unclear how Box 1, specific to common pool resources management, relates to the storyline that follows.

The case of forest ecosystem is a complex case, because of the numerous ecosystem services and goods offer by forests. We tried to highlight this complexity with this conceptual framework. We agree with the reviewer comments, in the Ostrom framework the “common-pool resource” focus on common goods, and forget the other goods and services in governance plan.

In this paper, we confronted two conceptual frameworks, Ostrom and Beggs, to have a better frame of the forest ecosystem perception and governance reality.

To avoid confusion, we deleted the link between “common pool resources” and “common goods”, and we assumed that the “common-pool resources” of forest encompasses all types of goods and services. For that, we introduced the concept of “boundary object” (l. 239) to define forest.

Why would it be an objective to fulfil Ostrom’s criteria whereas it has been shown that the current system does not fit the definition of a common pool resource?

The Ostrom framework could evolve to include more complex social-ecological systems, as forests. Considering forests as boundary object, allows to integrate all ecosystem services, goods and services, and in this manuscript we developed an analysis which combine several conceptual frameworks with the goal that each of these models complement each other and allow this most inclusive approach possible on this complex system of forests. However, the Ostrom framework remains relevant in the study of sectoral organizations even if it remains marginal in the case of multi-services and goods systems as forests.

5. In Table 3, information is needed on how this table has been constructed (based on document analysis, personal judgment, stakeholders’ insights?). Also the “sustainability potential” line needs to be explained (sustainability of what? and how is it assessed?). This is all the more questionable than the sustainability issue is then left aside.

We added a part in the methodology to describe participative workshops’ method, thus we explained that the main purpose of these workshops was to develop scenario, like those presented in the Table 3. We added precisions in the legend of the Table 3 (l.283) “The different scenarios have been proposed and developed with stakeholders during participative workshop, and then specified by our analysis based on interviews and document analysis”.

Moreover, we deleted the line about “sustainability potential” in Table 3, this statement creates confusion in the paper. In our analysis, we attributed the “desirability” from stakeholders to the “sustainability” of the system. But we did not explain this statement in the manuscript, apologize. We preferred to delete this part which does not add anything to the analysis.

In order to simplify, we attributed colors in Table 3 to the “desirable level”, determined during workshops.   

6. The authors seldom quote their interviewees. Since they have made a substantial number of interviews, it would be normal and expected that the point of view of the interviewed actors be given more space and recognition in this paper. This seems important not only to recognize the contribution of those who were interviewed but also to potentially better reflect the fact that these issues are sometimes controversial.

Thanks for this suggestion. Indeed, we have large amount of actors’ speech and we do not used it sufficiently to support our analysis. We added many verbatim along the text (l. 257; l. 270; l. 312; l. 335; l. 366; l. 375; l. 411; l. 434; l. 461; l. 549; l. 564; l. 585; l. 600).  

7. Although this is debatable, I do not agree with several statements made in this paper. In Figure 2, the authors write “A more profitable and structured forestry sector should involve [a] regional wood supply chain with both first and second transformation processes”. I am not aware of published studies demonstrating this statement. As a matter of fact, “profitable” and “structured” are context, scale and objective dependent. Also “first and second transformation” does not have the same meaning in English.

We agree, it is debatable, and this a part of our analysis of the PACA strategy. We presented the local actors’ point of view without specifying that it is their “bias”. We apologize for that. We have corrected in the description of the figure 2: [“As it was stated by PACA forest actors “A more profitable and structured forestry sector should involve a regional wood supply chain with both first and secondary processing sector of transformation””].

Moreover, we changed “first and second transformation” in the legend of the figure 2, and along the text, for “first processing sector” and “secondary processing sector”.

8. The authors seem to consider the PACA region as a closed operating system (for example in Figures 4 and 5). I feel that there is an overlap between the described SES and administrative boundaries. Discussing this point would be interesting to elicit the multi-scalar interplay in which this case study belongs (as raised line 500 and 509).

The delimitation of a SES is a complex question, and it was a real problematic at the beginning of our research.

We decided to restrict our analysis to the administrative PACA boundaries for several reasons:

- many reports, databases, strategic plans, subventions, regulations, etc., are determined at the administrative level. It was easier for us to choose these limits to compare strategies or perceptions of different actors in a same context.

- many structures, as the interprofessional forestry institute or the Private Forest Regional Center, have missions and authority determined at this scale. It was more coherent for us to apply this scale for our analysis, if these structures think at this scale.

- one of the biggest political argument is to develop the forestry and energy sector at this scale (administrative level). We chose to develop our analysis at this scale, among other, to highlight that relying on these limits could be a trap.

To justify our choice, we added a footnotes (p3) “The authors choose to circumscribe the study case to the administrative limits. We are aware that it is questionable, but this decision was made because available data are inventoried at the administrative scale of the PACA region, and many reports are edited at this scale too”.

9. Some seemingly key concepts are never defined (social capital, transition) despite the existence of an extensive literature.

We added two footnotes for social capital and natural capital with references (p. 8):

[1] The natural capital is defined as a stock that yields a flow of services over time (Costanza 2020) and as the biological components and intrinsic functioning capacities of the ecosystem (Cardinale et al. 2011; Schultz et al. 2015).

[1] The social capital is defined as the social networks, cognitive elements, values and perceptions, and culture of the human system (Olsson et al. 2004; Ravera et al. 2011; Magnan 2014).

We added footnote for transition with references (p. 1):

[1] We defined the energy transition as a political strategy, described by Griffiths (2019), as the aim to change our energy and economic system throughout the remainder of this century by a shift from reliance almost entirely on fossil to a much greater reliance on renewable energy (Sovacool 2016; Wiseman 2018).

10. The authors must be very careful when laying charges on explicitly mentioned stakeholders. Line 330, the authors write that the Préfet blackmailed several local stakeholders. Such personal accusations are inappropriate in research papers if they do not rely on well-established and public facts (otherwise the author must assume legal responsibility). Regardless of the facts, I advise the author to change the wording.

We are aware of the strong wording used. We only quote words that are publicly displayed and published. But, we forgot to cite the reference. We added it in the text (l. 403), and we specified that the word “blackmail” is a quote.

11. Another question remains unclear: why do the forest owners give preference to supply contracts if this contradicts their own interests? Unlike for publicly owned forests, private owners do not have to comply with such sales mode. Also, recent publications pointed out potential trade-offs in implementing contracts for timber sales in France. Is it possible to analyse the phenomenon in the PACA region in view of these contributions?

We specify that, private forest owners do not give preference to supply contracts, they do not have supply contracts. The supply contracts are between the industrial actor and the forest operator/entrepreneur. Then, the forest operator has to find wood plots to honor these supply contracts, so the forest operator search for private forest owner who accept to sell his standing wood.

12. Where do the policy measures presented in Table 4 come from? It looks like the authors made them up without tangible link with the case studied (e.g. “design an environmental tax”). These recommendations appear to exceed by far the scope of the case. The consequences of such measures seem to be pure expectations (e.g. “Owners […] would receive the expression of informal moral rewards from other members”, line 573). Policy implication would benefit from being discussed in the light of recent relevant strategic documents (e.g. UE and FR bioeconomy strategies).

Policy measures proposed in the Table 4 are a mix from stakeholders’ propositions during workshop, literature and our own proposition considering our analysis and our expertise.

In order to reinforce our arguments, we specified for each proposition if it is from literature, statement/proposition of stakeholders during workshop/interviews, or our own analysis/propositions.

13. I would suggest an alternative title as the paper is more about regional sectoral organization than transition per se. Also referring to a biomass power plant in France seems more accurate that “European woody biomass policy” (as policy appears to be a contextual element).

Thanks for this suggestion. The reviewer is right; the manuscript is mainly about the study case of E-ON/Uniper than European policy. We integrated this suggestion in the title. And we integrated “sectoral organization” in keywords.

However, we chose to let “energy transition” in the title, because, even if it is not the main question of the analysis, it is the main dynamic which create conditions for these type of study cases emergence. For us, the discussion about the current energy transition strategy is the core of the problematic.

We chose the following new title “Winners and losers in energy transition:  study case of wood biomass power-plants implementation in France ».

Responses to minor issues:

• Line 49. Check consistency between “wood” and “woody” through the text.*

We corrected the mistake along the manuscript. We changed “woody” for “wood”, more appropriate and widespread in literature.

• Line 55. An increase in stock does not imply an increased availability.

Yes, we totally agree. Sadly, many political actors make the mistake, and we can read this type of statement in lot of reports. We wanted to expose this statement as a starting point of national strategy, but we did not specify that it was the national politic statement.

Thus, we specified in the text “Even if an increase of the wood standing volume does not imply the availability of it, in 2016, the French Forest Ministry edits a national report to promote forestry sectors with, among other sectors, a strategy to develop at large scale the wood biomass energy (Ministère de l’Agriculture l’Agro-alimentaire et de la Forêt 2016) without precise assessment of the accessibility rate”.

• Line 59. “Dutch” spelling.

We corrected for « German » (l. 81).

• Line 117. “The PACA forests are underexploited”. According to what reference? This posture is very controversial. What would be a “sufficiently exploited” forest ecosystem in this context? If not explained this constitutes a value judgment.

Right. It is a political judgement, and we forgot to precise it. We changed the phrase for “From the forestry sector and political stakeholders point of view, the PACA forest are considered as underexploited, because the "harvest forest biomass production" ratio is approximately 20% in PACA, whereas the national average is estimated to be between 56–65% (IGN 2017)” (l. 140)

• Line 363. “Hard mechanisation”. The meaning of this is unclear to me.

We added a footnote to specify our statement (p. 13) “We define “hard mechanization” as large and heavy equipment such as felling machines, chippers or skidders. All of these machines are very expensive and bulky. This equipment is recent, until now most of foresters use light harvesters or chainsaws, and trailers”.

• Line 448. Why is it likely to generate low services? Is it based on Table 3 (and then on what is based Table 3, see comment above) or is it a justification for Table 3?

Yes, it is a statement from stakeholders during participative workshop, and it is a description of the scenario in Table 3. We specified in the text:

“Such a biomass policy at large scale is likely to generate low supporting, regulating and cultural services, as it is described in the scenario in Table 3 developed by local stakeholders during participative workshops. All stakeholders, except E-ON/Uniper, have attested that this scenario is dangerous for the PACA forest, if harvest operations continued as it is managed currently.” (l. 541).

• Line 471. “Forest Cooperative” is a generic term, “Provence Forêt” would be more accurate.

We changed along the text for “Provence Forêt”.

• Line 472. The ONF does notown any forest: it only manages most of the publicly owned forests.

We corrected in the text (l. 562) “The ONF has a huge advantage over other forest companies; it manages most of the public forests, which are the property of the State or cities”

• Line 489. Forest cooperatives do not prospect private forest owners using an address book: they manage the forest of their clients (shareholders) and may prospect for new clients.

We changed “address book” in the text for « They use their members’ network” (l. 583).

• Line 492. “They are numerous”. This needs to be specified or removed.

It was removed from the text

Reviewer 2 Report

As for the characteristics of biomass, the literature review was limited, the authors should take into account similar studies that have been carried out in the discussion. The authors described the subject of biomass in a limited way. I recommend that you refer to biomass in more chemical aspects, I recommend reading the article: https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9020364 .For example in above article the GC-MS or calorific value  was shown.

It would be also good to describe the economic impact of the technology used and compare how much the commonly used technology (an example estimate by the used fertilizers) would cost to that proposed by the authors technology. This is important because the cost of implementing the technology is the basis for its application. 

Author Response

Comments of the Reviewer 2

As for the characteristics of biomass, the literature review was limited, the authors should take into account similar studies that have been carried out in the discussion. The authors described the subject of biomass in a limited way. I recommend that you refer to biomass in more chemical aspects, I recommend reading the article: https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9020364 .For example in above article the GC-MS or calorific value  was shown.

It would be also good to describe the economic impact of the technology used and compare how much the commonly used technology (an example estimate by the used fertilizers) would cost to that proposed by the authors technology. This is important because the cost of implementing the technology is the basis for its application. 

Response to Reviewer 2 :

We thank Reviewer 2 for his comments, but we do not understand the link between his suggestions and the topic of our manuscript.

In his first paragraph, the reviewer 2 speaks about calorific value or chemical aspects for wood biomass sector, especially by citing a paper “Production of Electricity and Heat from Biomass Wastes Using a Converted Aircraft Turbine AI-20”, very technic. We recognize that these technical aspects are crucial to analyze for this new energy sector, but it was not our goal in this manuscript. We chose to focus on qualitative approach by analyzing social perception and sectoral organization (with Ostrom and Beggs frameworks) in the face of the implementation of this sector.

As the report edited by Winkel et al. (2017) highlights, most of the new bioeconomic sectors, as renewable energy sector, are dominated by technological and engineering sciences, while the social and political sciences are less visible. In this manuscript, we would like to grasp this problematic trough these sciences. This does not remove the need to carry out these types of analysis, but we do not believe that we are the most competent for this given our respective disciplinary fields (we are social-ecological, economy and journalistic scholars).

Moreover in the second paragraph, the reviewer 2 cited “used technology (an example estimate by the used fertilizers)”. However, in the PACA region there is no practice or technology like that. As it is explained along the manuscript, the PACA region do not have a developed forestry culture. Hence, it is very different from other French regions where some practices, as fertilizing or plantations, are common. The economic aspects are mainly represented with buying and selling practices, that we described qualitatively, especially through competition and contractualizations games. We specify that, we tried to develop some quantitative models of the buying/selling dynamics, but the forestry sector is still very closed, no official data, few interviewees accepted to communicate financial numbers, and the industrial secret prevents access to a lot of data concerning E-ON/Uniper and INOVA.