[Graeme]

Biomass could provide a fifth of global energy without damaging food production

Energy generated from plant biomass could deliver up to one fifth of global demand without causing a decline in food production, although there are challenges involved, according to a new report launched this week by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC).

Modern energy services, such as heat, power and transport fuels, can be provided from biomass; sources of which include waste timber, agricultural residues, and dedicated energy crops. Increased use of bioenergy has the potential to increase to energy security and stimulate rural development. It may also contribute to reducing carbon emissions; this is because plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as grow, and provided minimal non-renewable energy is used when processing them into useful materials or energy products, the net emissions can be very small.

Yet the use of biomass for energy purposes has attracted criticism and controversy. Criticism has often focused on the potential for biomass to compete for land and water resources that might be needed for food production as the global population grows.

The report, Energy from biomass: The size of the global resource, examines the share that biomass might contribute to the future global energy system and is the first systematic review of the evidence base. Scientists working in Imperial's Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP) carried out the research to understand why there are a large range of estimates and how this affects the wider debate about bioenergy.

imperial

[PrestonSturges]

Imagine a big pear tree in your yard. It fills two 55 barrels with fruit. 75 gallons of juice. Fermented, it might become 10% alcohol. Distill that. Now you have 7 gallon of ethanol, equal to 6 gallons of gasoline. A huge amount of food becomes a pretty small amount of fuel. The output of all the yards in a block would fuel a car pool.

If you converted every median strip and public area to this sort of fuel production, it could make a slight difference.

[ian807]

Sure, it could supply a fifth of global energy, assuming we all use 1/50th of the energy we use now. If you make your assumptions arbitrary enough, you can draw any conclusion you want. Make your assumptions based on current data like energy use per person and what's needed to maintain supply chains that maintain civilization, and the picture looks a lot different.

Numbers are good: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil

The biomass solution also implies minimal food production and the destruction of almost all arable land for energy production. Forget that silly natural ecology thing.

What Graeme and most will never appreciate is that the reason we still have large tracts of natural ecology left is because of oil, coal and natural gas. If these didn't exist, we'd have chewed up the surface of the earth by now, growing palm oil, sugar cane or anything else that smelled of a positive EROEI, including the world's forests. Trees remain, because of oil. Think we would have stopped denuding our planet in time if we didn't have oil? Look at Easter Island. Look at Haiti. Look at the Islands of Greece. We'd have destroyed our planet and ourselves long ago without that power source. When oil is gone, we may yet. 6.10 billion people will not roll over and die peacefully.

Cheers!

[eXpat]

The biomass solution also implies minimal food production and the destruction of almost all arable land for energy production. Forget that silly natural ecology thing.

Unfortunally those facts doesn´t even chink cornies armour

[Pops]

It provided 100% for thousands of years.

Sorry, just being a wiseass...

[PrestonSturges]

My back of the envelope thinking tells me that if my entire calorie consumption was converted to gasoline, it might equal 5 fill-ups of the family beater sedan.

So if 5 other people die, would there be enough fuel for my car?

[Graeme]

Global biomass investments to top $100 billion by 2021

Theoretically inexhaustible and found in abundance around the world, biomass feedstocks currently supply an estimated 14% of global primary energy. Traditional biomass products like firewood, charcoal, manure, and crop residues still provide the main source of household energy use for some two to three billion people worldwide. As global energy demand escalates and efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions intensify, an increasing number of countries are turning to biomass resources as fuel for commercial-scale electricity production.

According to a new report from Pike Research, worldwide biomass power generation capacity will grow to at least 86 gigawatts (GW) by 2021, from 58 GW in 2011. That represents a total investment of $104 billion from 2008 to 2021. Under a more aggressive growth scenario, capacity could reach 115 GW, representing $138 billion in cumulative investment as governments incentivize renewable power sources that can alleviate concerns around energy security, reduce carbon emissions, and stimulate economic development.

“Although facing significant headwinds, the biopower industry is continuing to add capacity worldwide as governments look to develop low-cost, base load renewable energy sources,” says senior analyst Mackinnon Lawrence. “Currently, power generation from biomass is hamstrung by policy uncertainty and the high costs of feedstock relative to fossil fuels, but the combination of a burgeoning international trade in biomass pellets, implementation of emission regulations, and increased utilization of co-firing strategies is expected to accelerate global scale-up efforts over the next decade.”

renewableenergymagazine