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THE Biofuel Thread pt 6

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Fri 11 Jul 2014, 20:31:55

Small-scale biomass projects could have significant impact

As discussed in previous articles the large residual biomass (10 million odt) will require government and industry working together to encourage the eventual phasing out of cull pile burning. In the meantime small local projects will provide some valueable information on the use of the non saw log material as well as employing locals.

For remote communities considering green energy projects there are two sources that should be consulted. The first one is “An information Guide on Pursuing Biomass Opportunities and Technology in BC.” The second one is “Green Heat Initiatives small scale biomass district heating handbook for Alberta and BC. March 2014.” The most encouraging aspect of the second reference is that two examples of the new initiatives are in the Chilcotin. In 2011 pellet furnaces were installed in the Alexis Creek and Tatla Lake schools. Both references provide an excellent guide for communities or small business contemplating some form of green energy heating systems or alternate energy production.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Sat 19 Jul 2014, 18:22:37

Study Finds Biomass Boilers Are a Viable Option for Heating Federal Buildings

After operating the first biomass boiler in the Ketchikan Federal Building, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) has concluded that biomass boilers are a viable alternative for hot-water-heated buildings where natural gas is unavailable.

According to a study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), biomass boilers will be most cost-effective for buildings in cold northern climates within 50 miles of a wood pellet mill. Of the more than 1,500 GSA-owned buildings, researchers identified approximately 150 assets as potential candidates for biomass heating technology.

“This study allowed us to pilot a sustainable technology that supports GSA’s goal of improving the efficiency of federally owned buildings,” said GSA Regional Administrator George Northcroft. “And the results are extremely encouraging and hopefully continue a larger conversation about overall movement toward a more sustainable, abundant and locally-produced energy source in Southeast Alaska.”


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 24 Jul 2014, 18:48:42

Government must urgently rethink its bioenergy strategy

Commenting on the biomass carbon calculator tool, unveiled today (Thursday 24 July 2014) by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), which calculates the carbon impacts of burning trees for energy, Friends of the Earth’s bioenergy campaigner Kenneth Richter said:

“This important new research confirms that burning trees from overseas forests in our power stations can have a bigger impact on our climate than burning fossil fuels.

“The Government must urgently rethink its bioenergy strategy. Rather than writing blank cheques for firms like Drax the Government must introduce full carbon accounting for bioenergy in the UK, and ensure that cutting emissions is at the heart of all our energy policies.”


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 31 Jul 2014, 19:19:42

DOE Offers Up $11 Million For Bio-Acrylonitrile – What Is That Stuff, Anyways?

We haven’t been paying much attention to a acrylonitrile lately, or come to think of it ever at all, but when we heard that the Energy Department has just awarded $11 million in R&D grants to manufacture this colorless liquid petrochemical from biomass we figured it must be pretty important.

Well, it is. If the US is going to kick a carbon-neutral economy into high gear, acrylonitrile is going to play a key role. Aside from some pesky toxicity issues, this petroleum-derived chemical is a feedstock for the kind of high performance, lightweight carbon fiber that goes into wind turbine blades, flywheels, and electric vehicles such as that BMW i3 we were just talking about.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 07 Aug 2014, 21:38:18

The potential consequences of Drax's legal defeat on biomass subsidies

It is hard to keep up with the twists in the tale of Drax's attempts to win fixed-price government subsidies to help convert two of its dirty coal-fired units to run on biomass pellets.

Short version: the company thought it was nailed-on favourite to get two so-called contracts for difference, which are designed to encourage investment in renewables by guaranteeing prices on generated electricity for 15 years. It applied for two units and they were ranked joint first in the provisional ranking of projects last year.

In the event, only one made the cut when the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) named eight qualifying projects in April. Drax appealed and won in the high court. Now it has lost in the court of appeal. Cue an 8% slump in the share price.

Is the outcome really that bad? As Liberum's Peter Atherton says, Drax has bet its corporate strategy on biomass and the economics of conversion depend entirely on government subsidy. So the legal defeat is definitely serious if Decc's enthusiasm for biomass has cooled, for environmental reasons or otherwise.

On the other hand, these interim contracts for difference (as opposed to the planned "enduring" ones that will arrive soon) are not the only form of subsidy. Support is also available under the renewables obligation. Drax will now consider its options under that scheme. The disadvantage is lack of certainty on price, but maybe the financial risks are worth taking anyway. Clear it ain't – but that's today's energy market.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 12 Aug 2014, 21:38:15

Biomass researcher works on pipelines for green gold

Alberta is missing out on one of the simplest and most abundant fuel sources that exists on Canada’s fertile prairies, says a University of Alberta researcher. And the only real barrier to development is transportation, he says.

Working under Amit Kumar, the associate industrial research chair in energy and environmental systems engineering, Mahdi Vaezi is studying how best to pump biomass — in this case the waste from the processing of crops such as wheat or corn — directly from farmers to biorefineries through pipelines currently reserved for more traditional energy sources.

“There is no large scale bio-based facility operating in the world,” Vaezi said. “The main reason is because of the transportation and logistical issues.”

Vaezi has been testing the viability and economic feasibility of a biomass pipeline, formulating the dilution mixtures, monitoring fire hazards, assembling and reassembling pipes in search of clogs, and creating a technical picture of why biomass pipeline transportation needs to become common.

He is conducting his research in a custom-built closed-loop pipe 25 metres long and five centimetres in diameter. Vaezi has spent so much time in the lab that he can no longer hear the near-constant, deafening hum of the engines that pump his green gold in a way that might be just feasible enough to adopt.


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Largest biomass project of its kind underway in MO

Construction is underway on an $80 million renewable energy project that is said to be the largest biomass project of its kind by the developer Roeslein Alternative Energy, LLC (RAE).

Crews are currently installing impermeable covers on 88 existing lagoons to harvest biogas, or RNG, from Murphy-Brown of Missouri, LLC (MBM) -- the livestock production subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, Inc. The project utilizes manure from one of the biggest concentrations of finishing hogs in the Midwest to create several hundred million cubic feet of RNG annually for regional distribution.

Impermeable synthetic covers will be placed on existing nutrient treatment lagoons where barn scraper technology will deliver raw nutrients of livestock manure to covered lagoons. The covers turn the lagoons into anaerobic digesters, where naturally occurring microorganisms decompose the manure in an oxygen-free environment. Biogas rises to the top where it will be collected and cleaned of impurities. What remains is more than 98 percent methane with approximately the same chemical composition as natural gas that can be used for vehicle fuel or injected into the natural gas grid system. The indigestible solid residue can be used by local farmers as a natural fertilizer and the water can be safely used for irrigation.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Wed 13 Aug 2014, 21:05:47

Biomass for energy generation is on the increase worldwide, according to AcuComm Waste Futures

Biomass is an increasingly popular option as a feedstock for power generation. According to the July analysis of the Waste Business Finder database, published in Waste Industry Sales Monitor (http://www.acucomm.net/wism), there were 43 such projects, with an identifiable value of US$1.3 billion.

The popularity of biomass is being driven by the array of biomass types - from animal/agricultural waste, through domestic food waste to forestry residues - allowing countries to specialise in the types most available to them. In this way, developing countries such as Burma, Honduras or Nigeria, which all reported developments in the month, can more easily meet their growing electricity generation needs.

But biomass is also being adopted in established markets where technical advances in biogas, anaerobic digestion and gasification are seeing biomass play a more important role in the waste management mix.

Biomass offers efficient, environmentally-positive generation and helps secure provision in a world where traditional fuels are subject to price fluctuation and adverse geopolitical influences.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 19 Aug 2014, 19:14:09

Waste-to-Energy Could Supply 12% of US Electricity

If all of the municipal solid waste (MSW) that is currently put into landfills each year in the US were diverted to waste-to-energy (WTE) power plants, it could generate enough electricity to supply 12 percent of the US total, according to a study conducted by the Earth Engineering Center (EEC) of Columbia University.

According to the study, this shift also could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 123 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalents per year.

2014 Energy and Economic Value of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), including and Non-recycled Plastics (NRP), Currently Landfilled in the Fifty States, found that the recovery of resources from waste, and hence, diverted from landfill, in the US increased between 2008 and 2011. The recycling of materials from MSW improved by 18.5 million tons, and the tonnage of materials processed by WTE facilities grew by 3.8 million tons during this period.

The study’s authors noted that, while some individual states have invested in infrastructure to boost recycling and energy recovery from MSW — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Hampshire topped the list — overall, European countries have set a much higher bar.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Mon 25 Aug 2014, 23:53:58

Europe is burning our forests for “renewable” energy. Wait, what?

In March 2007, the E.U. adopted climate and energy goals for 2010 to 2020. The 27 member countries set a goal of reducing carbon emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increasing renewables to 20 percent of their energy portfolio. Unfortunately, they underestimated the carbon intensity of burning wood (a.k.a. “biomass”) for electricity, and they categorized wood as a renewable fuel.

The result: E.U. countries with smaller renewable sectors turned to wood to replace coal. Governments provided incentives for energy utilities to make that switch. Now, with a bunch of new European wood-burning power plants having come online, Europeans need wood to feed the beast. But most European countries don’t have a lot of available forest left to cut down. So they’re importing our forests, especially from the South.

Of course, wood is in some sense renewable: Trees can be regrown. But in other ways it’s more like fossil fuels than it is like solar and wind. After all, the whole obsession with renewables isn’t just because we fear running out of fossil fuels. It’s because burning fossil fuels produces CO2 that causes global warming. The same is true of burning wood, unlike wind or solar.


The E.U.’s initial rationale was not totally crazy — it just turned out to be totally wrong. Citing research that suggested that young trees consume more CO2 than older trees, policymakers figured that burning a tree for energy could be carbon neutral if you planted a replacement tree.

More recent studies, however, have shown that to be much too optimistic. Not all young trees consume more CO2 than older trees — it depends on the species and various other conditions. The process of chopping trees into wood pellets and shipping it across the Atlantic, and the energy involved in burning it all, add to the total carbon intensity.


Dogwood has launched a campaign to pressure American and British energy utilities to stop burning whole trees for electricity. (It says that burning sawdust left over at sawmills is relatively harmless.)


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 09 Sep 2014, 18:48:10

Are Carbon Capture and Storage and Biomass Indispensable in the Fight Against Climate Change?

Meeting aggressive climate change mitigation objectives and limiting the rise of atmospheric CO2 to 450 parts per million may depend on the ability to capture carbon from power plants and industry, derive energy from biomass, and even pair the two to go “carbon negative” and draw down CO2 from the atmosphere.

According to an international effort to compare and assess 18 models of the global energy-climate-economic system organized by Stanford University’s Energy Modeling Forum, worldwide efforts to mitigate dangerous climate change and halt the rise of carbon dioxide (CO2) to 450 parts per million (ppm) in the atmosphere may depend on two technologies: the ability to capture carbon from power plants and industrial facilities and store it in geological formations and to derive energy from biomass.

The researchers agreed that global greenhouse gas emissions will need to be cut in half by 2050 and fall to zero or even below that by 2100 in order to keep atmospheric concentrations of these climate-warming gases below the equivalent of 450 ppm of CO2. That would give the world a roughly even chance of halting global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius, an internationally-agreed target intended to prevent the most dangerous effects of climate change.

Meeting the 450 ppm goal means the power sector must be completely carbon-free by 2050. Using carbon capture and storage (or CCS) technology at power plants can help. But capturing carbon may be irreplaceable in the industrial and heat sectors, where there are few other options to reduce CO2. Unfortunately, CCS is currently expensive and still at a demonstration stage. If it does not become widely available soon, aggressive climate goals may become virtually impossible—only four of the 18 models could even generate a feasible solution to meet the 450 ppm goal without CCS.

Biomass is also important because of its versatility. Energy from crops, wood, and waste can be used to produce low-carbon fuels for power generation, heat, industry, and transportation. In addition, since biomass captures carbon from the air as it grows, pairing biomass energy with CCS can even draw down atmospheric CO2 levels. Going “carbon negative” may be necessary, the modelers find, as it allows the world to compensate later in the century for the likely possibility we will overshoot the 450 ppm goal in the nearer-term.

Publication: “The role of technology for achieving climate policy objectives: overview of the EMF 27 study on global technology and climate policy strategies,” Climatic Change 123 (3-4), April 2014: 353-367.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Fri 12 Sep 2014, 20:59:07

Biomass as an alternative to traditional energy sources

Dependence on traditional power sources such as coal or oil-fired plants is still a reality in several Latin American countries. While nations rich in natural resources place their bets on wind, solar and hydropower by stimulating investment in such projects, other must import fossil fuels to be able to generate electricity.

Fuel purchases mean a high price, and this is the case twice over: the expense is hard to pay for the importing country, and their emissions can damage the environment.

In countries like Costa Rica, the government is strongly committed to making big changes to the energy mix. In 2009 Costa Rica decided to reduce oil imports and seek alternative energy sources, including biomass.


Sugar cane-producing countries – and there are others such as Cuba, Peru, Ecuador and Venezuela – should seriously consider the use of sugar cane bagasse for energy purposes.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Sat 13 Sep 2014, 19:52:02

North America's Largest 100% Biomass-Fueled Power Plant Opens in Ontario

North America's largest power plant fueled completely by biomass, the Atikokan Generating Station conversion, is complete and the station is now generating electricity and helping meet local power needs in northwestern Ontario.

Atikokan Generating Station, which employs 70 full-time workers, burned its last coal two years ago, on Sept. 11, 2012. Conversion of the station began in mid-2012 and included construction of two silos and boiler modifications to accommodate the biomass. The project employed over 200 highly skilled trades people and technical workers.

A coal-free energy mix will lead to a significant reduction in harmful emissions, cleaner air and a healthier environment, they believe.

The biomass used to fuel Atikokan Generating Station is being harvested and processed in Ontario. It will provide renewable peaking power, and can be turned on when electricity demands are highest. OPG has contracts in place with two companies in northwestern Ontario to supply the wood pellets. Rentech Inc. and Resolute Forest Products Canada will each supply 45,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Tue 16 Sep 2014, 19:09:33

Left Out of the Energiewende?

On May 6, 2014 I posted a blog entitled “Biomass is Base Load".The blog was essentially an airing of my own frustration at how biomass is often an overlooked form of renewable energy in the mainstream media. I’m sure you can all relate. Again and again, wind and solar carry the broader public persona of renewable energy at large. The problem is, by looking over biomass and letting biomass derived energy recede in the public’s consciousness, myths and half-truths find fertile ground in the mind of Joe and Jane Citizen and take root.

Look no further than this Sunday’s New York Times. A lengthy, well written piece by Justin Gillis, who writes frequently about energy and climate change appeared in the A section, just below the fold. The piece’s title? Sun and Wind Transforming Global Landscape. The article is well-written and certainly worth your time. In it, Gillis catches up with the ongoing transformation of Germany’s energy infrastructure and the global implications of that shift. He even introduces the reader to the word Germans use to describe this transformation, energiewende. To be fair to Gillis, he does mention biofuels and biogas in the article, but he’s also guilty of propagating one of the more frustrating inaccuracies for those of us working in biomass. In his piece, while talking about the challenges of folding renewables into Germany’s power mix he writes, “The Achilles’ heel of renewable power is that it is intermittent, so German utilities have had to dial their conventional power plants up and down rapidly to compensate.”

There it is again. Renewables are intermittent. Some renewables are intermittent. Biomass is not. Most frustrating for me is that while Gillis does talk about biogas, he doesn’t mention that biogas is not only base load power, but in the right situations also able to be quickly dispatched to cover the intermittency of our wind and solar cousins.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Wed 17 Sep 2014, 18:51:27

Scientific Endorsement of Biomass’s Carbon Benefits

Last month, the Journal of Forestry published a scientific, peer-reviewed study by nine respected scientists and forestry experts confirming the virtues of biomass—not just as an energy source, but also as an important element for forestry health and atmospheric carbon management.


The scientists, from USDA Forest Service as well as prominent universities and think tanks, in no uncertain terms, argued for policies that recognize the long-term benefits of biomass power, warning that not doing so could result in the loss of a valuable carbon mitigation tool, stating, “The current debate about biomass energy often narrows the discussion to short-term and direct effects of increased use of forest biomass, understating the benefits of using sustainably produced forest-based fuels and materials.…Carbon accounting frameworks often misrepresent the CO2 impacts of using biomass fuels and put at risk many of the mitigation benefits and opportunities provided by sustainably managed forests and the products that flow from them.”


The findings included in the Journal of Forestry report echo this opinion. The authors of the study presented four key findings they recommended be reflected in any biomass policy framework:

• Substantial long-term carbon mitigation benefits are derived from sustainably managed working forests that provide an ongoing output of biomass to produce materials and fuels to displace more greenhouse gas-intensive alternatives. While the timing of benefits is debated, the fact that these benefits exist is not.

• The threats to maintaining long-term forest carbon stocks come primarily from pressures to convert land to nonforest uses and from natural disturbances. Research clearly shows that demand for wood results in investments in forestry that help to prevent deforestation and incentivize afforestation.

• The most effective mitigation measures are those that provide the lowest long-term net cumulative emissions. The benefits of forest-based mitigation activities are sometimes delayed, but any increased emissions are reversible and temporary and are incurred in the interest of limiting cumulative emissions.

• Proper characterization of the global warming impacts of the mix of forest biomass sources likely to be used for energy shows net emissions of biogenic carbon to be low when including the effects of market-induced investments.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Thu 25 Sep 2014, 19:34:49

Biomass could reach 60% of total global renewable energy use by 2030

Biomass has a highly promising future in the world’s supply of renewable energy, according to a new report.

REmap 2030, the global roadmap developed by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), foresees a major role for modern, sustainable biomass technologies in efforts to double the share of renewables in the global energy mix.

A new report, “Global Bioenergy Supply and Demand Projections for the Year 2030,” examines the biomass potential in world regions and with different technologies for rapid and sustainable scale-up of this vital renewable energy resource.

If all the technology options envisaged in the REmap analysis are deployed, total biomass demand could reach 108 exajoules worldwide by 2030, representing 60% of total global renewable energy use. That would be equal to 20% of the total primary energy supply.

“Sustainable bioenergy has the potential to be a game-changer in the global energy mix,” said IRENA Director of Innovation and Technology Dolf Gielen. “Sustainably sourced biomass, such as residues, and the use of more efficient technology and processes can shift biomass energy production from traditional to modern and sustainable forms, simultaneously reducing air pollution and saving lives.”

The new IRENA report shows that approximately 40% of the total global biomass supply potential would originate from agricultural residues and waste, with another 30% originating from sustainable forestry products.

These biomass sources do not compete with the resources that are required for food production such as land and water, and can make a significant contribution to reducing the global CO2 emission on 450ppm path, the widely accepted threshold to limit global temperature increase to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by 2100.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Fri 03 Oct 2014, 18:51:39

ARPA-E to award $60M to 2 programs: enhancing biomass yield and dry-cooling for thermoelectric power

The US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will award up to $60 million to two new programs ($30 million each). The Transportation Energy Resources from Renewable Agriculture (TERRA) program (DE-FOA-0001211) seeks to accelerate biomass yield gains (especially energy sorghum) through automated, predictive and systems-level approaches to biofuel crop breeding. The Advanced Research In Dry cooling (ARID) program (DE-FOA-0001197) aims to develop low-cost, highly efficient and scalable dry-cooling technologies for thermoelectric power plants.

TERRA. ARPA-E posited that there is an urgent need to accelerate energy crop development for the production of renewable transportation fuels from biomass. While recent advances in technology has enabled the extraction of massive volumes of genetic, physiological, and environmental data from certain crops, the data still cannot be processed into the knowledge needed to predict crop performance in the field. This knowledge is required to improve the breeding development pipeline for energy crops.


The majority of the electricity generated in the US today is produced by steam-driven turbine generators that rely on cooling systems, which use water to dissipate waste heat. Dry-cooling systems—which use air to cool and transfer waste heat—are an appealing and potentially transformational alternative. To date, significant technical and market challenges have hindered the widespread use of dry-cooling technologies. Some of these challenges are lower heat-transfer performance and operational control, as well as prohibitively high costs due to system size and maintenance. ARID project teams will work to overcome these key barriers to adoption.


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Re: Biomass Thread

Unread postby Graeme » Mon 20 Oct 2014, 20:01:37

Biomass proving a cost-effective energy solution

Woody biomass is quietly expanding as a viable, cost-effective energy alternative to fossil fuels in America.

Though this natural, renewable and locally produced resource will never supply all of our nation’s energy needs, when operated in concert with sustainable forest management, it can be an effective energy option in both rural and urban areas.

Energy-efficient commercial and industrial woody biomass boiler systems of various types and sizes are gradually building an excellent track record in schools, hospitals and municipal complexes across the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and Midwest states —including at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Chillicothe.

This past August, we took a look back at three recently installed biomass energy demonstration projects at facilities in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts to see whether the longer-term results lived up to their expectations.

What we found out was that, regardless of the location or facility type, woody biomass energy systems achieved excellent results over the long term. Representatives from all three facilities also said they would recommend their biomass plant solutions to other facilities with similar needs and resources.


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Re: What happened to the 'Mother of all Biofuels Debate' thr

Unread postby Subjectivist » Sun 26 Oct 2014, 14:40:18

II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
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