What is biomass/bioenergy?
Bioenergy is loosely defined
as a “renewable energy made
available from materials derived from biological sources”. Biomass is any
organic material that has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy.
Global Usage
Currently, biomass is the most commonly used renewable
energy source globally (10.2%) or 50.3 EJ/yr as seen in figure 1.
However, roughly 67% of that is used in developing countries for heating and
cooking purposes (figure 2), this is low efficiency and is usually combusted
having serious consequences for health, living conditions and localised air
quality.
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| Global Energy Sources (IPCC, 2010) |
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| Uses of Biomass for Energy (IPCC, 2010) |
Modern biomass and bioenergy, which is high
efficiency, uses more convenient solids, liquids and gases as
secondary energy carriers to generate heat, electricity, combined heat and
power (CHP), and transport fuels for various sectors (IPCC, 2010).
Liquid biofuels include ethanol and biodiesel for
global road transport and some industrial uses. Biomass derived gases, primarily
methane, from anaerobic digestion of agricultural residues and municipal solid
waste (MSW) treatment are used to generate electricity, heat or both (UKERC,
2010).
The most important contribution to energy services is based on solids, such as chips, pellets, recovered wood previously used and others. Heating includes space and hot water heating such as in district heating systems. The estimated total primary biomass supply for modern bioenergy is 11.3 EJ/yr.
The most important contribution to energy services is based on solids, such as chips, pellets, recovered wood previously used and others. Heating includes space and hot water heating such as in district heating systems. The estimated total primary biomass supply for modern bioenergy is 11.3 EJ/yr.
Future Potential
Much has been made of the inherent complexity of
biomass resources, which makes the assessment of their combined technical
potential, controversial and difficult to characterize (IPCC, 2010). Estimates
in the literature range from zero technical potential (no biomass available for
energy production) to a maximum theoretical potential of about 1,500 EJ from
global modelling efforts (EEA, 2013).
Analysis of the literature available in 2007 and
additional modelling studies arrived at the conclusion that the upper bound of
the technical potential in 2050 could amount to about 500 EJ (Berringer et
al., 2011), ten times the current production of bioenergy worldwide and 50% of
the world’s future energy demand.
CO2 Savings
There are massive CO2 savings to be made from the
maximum efficiency potentials of bioenergy as realised in figure 3. With most
of the savings being seen in electricity production with a sixth of the CO2 emissions from coal firing.
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| CO2 Emissions from fuel sources (IPCC, 2010) |
Again, this technique is met with many issues and problems which I'll discuss in a later post.
Thanks again!
Hello Sam,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the interesting post on bioenergy. Before reading your post, I hadn't read much on the topic, so I definitely learnt a lot. It's particularly interesting that bioenergy has the potential to yield as much as 50% of the world's future energy demand. I'm looking forward to reading your post on some of the drawbacks of this alternative energy source.
Cheers,
Katherine
I was surprised by those figures actually if I'm honest! Although if you look at my post after this, there is bound to be land-use conflict associated with using bio-energy and also the efficiency of such schemes has been put into serious doubt.
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