Defining the Interplay Between Energy Transition Challenges and Biomass Contributions: A Resource, Technology, and Environment Perspective

This integrative critical review examines how biomass and bioenergy can contribute to energy diversification while accounting for constraints related to climate mitigation, energy security, resource availability, and technology readiness. The review combines a targeted literature synthesis with expert-informed insights from the international seminar Energy Transition and Biofuels held at the Federal University of Itajubá in October 2025. The seminar and COP30-related discussions were used as contextual and conceptual inputs, while peer-reviewed literature, policy documents, and technical reports provided the evidentiary basis for the analysis. The manuscript evaluates biomass and biofuels utilization, refinery integration, sustainable aviation fuels, biochar, BECCS, hydrogen synergies, life-cycle assessment, artificial intelligence, and logistics. The synthesis indicates that biomass is not a universal substitute for fossil fuels. Still, it has distinctive value in applications requiring renewable carbon, dispatchable energy, process heat, liquid fuels, carbon removal, and compatibility with existing infrastructure. The analysis also shows that these contributions are contingent on feedstock governance, land and water safeguards, logistics, fertilizer inputs, technology maturity, and verified life-cycle performance. The food–fuel discussion is therefore reframed as a context-specific problem of land-use, access, productivity, and governance rather than a simple competition between energy and food production. The study concludes that bioenergy can most credibly support the energy transition when deployed through differentiated pathways tailored to regional resources, sustainability constraints, and sector-specific decarbonization requirements.