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| SOLAR | WIND | GEOTHERMAL | HYDROPOWER | BIOMASS | HYDROGEN |
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Check out the Green Directory Bioenergy is energy extracted from biomass, which means any plant derived organic matter available on a renewable basis, including dedicated energy crops and trees, agricultural food and feed crops, agricultural crop wastes and residues, wood wastes and residues, aquatic plants, animal wastes, municipal wastes, and other waste materials. Traditonally, conventional biomass is considered to come from three distinct sources: wood, waste, and alcohol fuels as summarized in the Figure below.
Source: Energy Information Administration Wood, the largest source of bioenergy, has been used to provide heat for thousands of years, and is derived both from direct use of harvested wood as a fuel and from wood waste streams. The largest source of energy from wood is pulping liquor or “black liquor,” a waste product from processes of the pulp, paper and paperboard industry. Waste energy is the second-largest source of biomass energy. The main contributors of waste energy are municipal solid waste (MSW), manufacturing waste, and landfill gas. Biomass alcohol fuel, or ethanol, is derived almost exclusively from corn. Its principal use is as an oxygenate in gasoline. Biomass is potentially the world's largest and most sustainable energy source – an annual renewable resource comprising about 2900 EJ, of which less than 10% could be considered available on a sustainable basis and at competitive prices. However even the economically potential 270 EJ/year is far more than the current 50EJ/year. The problem is not availability but the sustainable management and delivery of energy to those who need it. Although, as explained above, residues are currently the main sources of bio-energy, dedicated energy forestry/crops will play an increasing role in the longer term. Already, today, many bioenergy resources are replenished through the cultivation of energy crops, such as fast-growing trees and grasses, called bioenergy feedstocks. The expected increase of biomass energy, particularly in its modern forms, could have a significant impact not only in the energy sector, but also in the drive to modernise agriculture, and on rural development. Biomass (organic matter) can be used to provide heat, generate electricity and provide chemical feedstock. . Also, unlike other renewable energy sources, biomass can be converted directly into liquid or gaseous fuels for our transportation needs. The two most common biofuels are ethanol and biodiese although hydrogen and methane are also possible biofuels.
McNeil
Power Plant, Vt (Woodchip) Historical Growth Electricity generation from solid biomass grew from 59.5 TWh to 79.6 TWh between 1990 and 2001, yielding a 2.7% average annual growth. As the second largest renewable electricity source after hydropower, solid biomass accounted for 5.6% of renewable electricity generation in 2001. This share is up from 4.6% in 1990. 52.3% of electricity from solid biomass is generated in the United States (41.6 TWh), where it makes up 14.6% of the country’s renewable electricity production. The second largest producer of electricity from solid biomass is Finland (8.2 TWh), where it represents 37.8% of renewable electricity supply. Other big producers are Japan and Canada. Solid biomass electricity is produced in most OECD Member countries. However, as shown below, the actual primary energy production from solid biomass did not change markedly over the period since much of it is used in the less developed world for heating and cooking.
Renewable municipal solid waste represented 2.3% of renewable electricity generation in 2001. IEA analysis suggests that a major part of the production reported under renewable municipal solid waste in fact belongs in non-renewable municipal solid waste. In 2001, 33 379 GWh of electricity were produced from renewable solid waste in the OECD. By far the largest producer of electricity from renewable municipal solid waste is the United States, generating 16 818 GWh, or 50.4% of OECD production. The second largest producer is Japan, with a production of 5 338 GWh. With 2 044 GWh, Germany represents the third largest producer. The remaining electricity production from renewable municipal solid waste is spread among smaller producers in OECD Europe. Denmark and Italy experienced the highest growth rates, increasing their production from 47 GWh to 1 068 GWh (at 32.8% per annum) and from 71 GWh to 1 258 GWh (at 29.9% per annum) respectively between 1990 and 2001.
Source: International Energy Agency 2002 The contribution fro renewable municipal waste is barely visible above since it is so much smaller than solid biomass, and Biomass gas and liquid biofuels are even smaller! They are therefore shown separately below. In terms of primary energy production, the renewable municipal wastes contribution doubled over the period.
Source: International Energy Agency 2002 Biogas primary energy production grew from virtually zero in 1992 to surpass renewable municipal wastes in 2002. Electricity production from biogas grew from an estimated 5 000 GWh in 1990 to 13 617 GWh in 2001. While in the early 1990’s, nearly the entire amount of biogas electricity was produced in the United States, the largest proportion of this production has moved to OECD Europe, which contributes 58.1% of biogas electricity today. Most production takes place in the member countries of the European Union. The largest producer in the European Union is the United Kingdom, which provided 2 870 GWh of biogas electricity in 2001. While the United States, with 4 860 GWh, remains the largest individual producer, its growth of 5.4% per annum since 1992 has been much slower than that of many European Union countries. Germany has an average annual growth rate of 22.7% (reaching 1 986 GWh in 2001), Italy of 55.3% (684 GWh) and France of 19.8% (601 GWh) since 1992. Most of the growth in the biogas segment has taken place in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and continued strong growth is expected for the near future. 2. Due to unavailability of data, all growth rates in this paragraph were calculated taking 1992 as the base year instead of 1990. Over the same period, liquid biofuels grew from 7TJ in 1990 to almost 7400TJ in 2002! As already mentioned, the USA figures significantly in biomass usage and the two figures below illustrate how its use has changed recently. Only alcohol fuels have grown significantly, having risen from about 100 trillion Btu in 1998 to over 150 trillion Btu in 2002.
Source: Energy Information Administration, Renewable Energy Annual 2002
Source: Energy Information Administration, Renewable Energy Annual 2002 Jobs There are important job creation benefits to be gained from increased use of renewable energy technologies. Employment is created at different levels, from research and manufacturing to services, such as installers and distributors. There are many jobs available in the service industries, from sales to consulting, research, engineering, and installation through to maintenance. One study funded by the European Union indicates 515,000 new European jobs from biomass fuel production by 2020. The study found that renewable energy technologies are more labor intensive than conventional technologies for the same energy output. In Brazil, over 700,000 rural jobs have been created in the sugar-alcohol industry. Biomass technologies can have a major impact on creating new jobs and improving local economies in rural America. The National Energy Policy supports an increased role for biomass technologies, citing its benefits including new sources of income for farmers, land-owners, and others who harness biomass resources. To date, over 66,000 rural jobs have been created in the production of 75GW of biopower and over 40,000 jobs in biofuels. Overall, rural economies benefit through,
The Future Biomass
Growth Renewable energy will play a growing role in the world ’s primary energy mix. Non-hydro renewables, will grow faster than any other primary energy source, at an average rate of 3.3%per year over the period to 2030. Wind power and biomass will grow most rapidly, especially in OECD countries. However non-hydro renewables will still make only a small dent in global energy demand in 2030,because they start from a very low base. . Poor people in developing countries rely heavily on traditional biomass – wood, agricultural residues and dung – for their basic energy needs. According to information specifically collected for this WEC study (World Energy Outlook 2002), 2.4 billion people in developing countries use only such fuels for cooking and heating. Many of them suffer from ill-health effects associated with the inefficient use of traditional biomass fuels. Over half of all people relying heavily on biomass live in India and China, but the proportion of the population depending on biomass is heaviest in sub-Saharan Africa. The share of the world ’s population relying on biomass for cooking and heating is projected to decline in most developing regions, but the total number of people will rise. Most of the increase will occur in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. Over 2.6 billion people in developing countries will continue to rely on biomass for cooking and heating in 2030. That is an increase of more than 240 million, or 9%. In developing countries, biomass use will still represent over half of residential energy consumption in 2030. The data from World Energy Outlook 2002 is not yet freely available so the figures below are based on an earlier report. The data shows biomass growth will be greatest in the OECD, particularly Europe and North America. There will also however be high growth in Latin America and South Asia. The pattern is similar for biopower generation.
Source: IEA World Enrgy Outlook 2000 The 2020 capacity projections for the non-OECD countries, shown separately below, clearly shows the relative importance of Latin America and the emergence of China and Africa.
Source: IEA World Energy Outlook 2000 Bringing power to those without it, especially in China, India and Africa, will require not only time and money, but also new technological approaches: One which has been proposed is micro power, or distributed generation, on-site generation, small-scale generation, self-generation, which offers the potential for a much cleaner environment. For the two billion people who remain without electricity, micro-power may represent one of their best hopes since the trend towards more open, decentralised, competitive electricity systems, may present many opportunities for the introduction of small-scale power. Proponents of micro-turbines believe that this technology will revolutionise the power industry. Micro-power technologies can use renewable sources, e.g. small gasifier applications, as is the case in China and India. Ranging from 15 to 500 kW, these turbines have the advantage of being low-cost, easy to manufacture, long-lived, and simple to operate and maintain. The current biomass-based technology mostly used for distributed power is a fixed downdraft gasifier coupled with an internal combustion engine. Recent market projections indicate that the market for generators below 10 MW could represent a significant proportion of the 200 GW of new capacity added by 2003 worldwide, compared to the 17-35 GW estimated potential in 1999. Tri-generation is also a new concept, which could potentially bring major benefits to many rural areas. Village-scale tri-generation, based on gasification of crop residues and use of microturbines for CHP, is said to offer a major promise in achieving multiple economic and environmental goals for rural development simultaneously. For example, the potential tri-generation based on surplus residues in China alone has been estimated at 22 GWe. Other wood-based technologies which are developing rapidly include woodchip boilers, two-stage combustion log boilers, catalytic stoves, wood pellet boilers and two-stage combustion stoves. The long term outlook for bioenergy development is for ‘biorefineries’ that produce solid, gaseous and liquid fuels and chemicals using biological and/or thermal conversion processes. Although the main feedstocks in the developed world are currently residues from forest, agricultural and municipal activities, biomass feedstocks could also come from energy crops that are genetically modified and grown on marginal, or surplus farmlands. Biomass-fired power plants will evolve to combined heat and power plants. They will become modular, distributed power systems. The stated goal in the US is to triple the use of bioenergy and bio-based products by 2010, while the long-term goal of the EU is to reach a potential 20% of current primary energy supply. Japan is also looking for significant increase of biomass use for energy. < p align="justify">Iin the USA, projections indicate that bioenergy from municipal solid waste will increase by 50% by 2010 and remain relatively constant thereafter. Bioenergy from solid biomass however will continue to increase, virtually doubling by 2025.
Source: Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Outlook 2004
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that for every megawatt of biomass power produced, 4.9 jobs are created while the Department of Agriculture predicts that 17,000 jobs will be created per every million gallons of ethanol produced. Given the rapid growth demonstrated in biofuels this can only be good news for the employment prospects. The U.S. Department of Energy predicts that advanced technologies currently under development will help the biomass power industry install over 13,000 megawatts of biomass power by the year 2010, with over 40% of the fuel supplied from four million acres of energy crops and the remainder from biomass residues, and create an additional 100,000 jobs. This would significantly help rural economies. In
Europe, predictions estimate that the increase in energy provided from
biomass fuel production could result in the creation of over 515,000 new
jobs by 2020. This prediction took account of the direct, indirect and
subsidy effects on employment, and jobs displaced in conventional energy
technologies. References
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