Biomass energy Research methods for cost calculations and environmental impacts

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Biomass energyResearch methods for cost
calculations and environmental impacts

• Dr. M. Junginger
• Lecture, 22.2.2006
• With contributions from Andre Faaij, Richard van
  den Broek, Veronika Dornburg, Carlo Hamelinck,
  Rob Raven and Monique Hoogwijk

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Overview presentation

• Biomass conversion routes (digestion, combustion,
  gasification)
• Biomass technology development and costs
• Biomass logistics
• Break
• Environmental impacts of biomass use
• Summary

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Biomass energy, integrated approach
Land-use / primary prod.
Harvest
Processing
End-use
Surface
Land for food/feed crops
Food/feed harvest
Food processing
1.5 Gha
Food consumption
2
4
Animal production
Pasture land
3.5 Gha
5
7
Land for forestry/fibre production
Forest harvest
Material production
Material consumption
4.0 Gha
3
8
6
Secondary residues
Primary residues
Tertiary residues
Land for energy crops
Energy crop harvest
Energy conversion
Energy consumption
1
4.2 Gha
Other land
Losses
Source van den Broek, 2000
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Energy and material uses of crops
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Conversion technology
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Combustion workhorse of bio-energy
Efficiency from 20 40 CHP 60 -
gt80 Capacity 20 250 MWe Economics OK with
residues
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Digestion of manure
Manure supply and storage
Gas cleaning and storage
Biogas utilisation
Anaerobic digestion
Pretreatment
Organic waste (supply storage)
Utilisation of digested manure
Final treatment
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Bioethanol from lignocellulosic biomass

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Future BIG/CC technology
-gt Current status 3500 U/kWe, 30 electrical
efficiency, ACFB, 10 Mwe -gt Future1500,-
U/kWe, 50 efficiency, (ACFB..), gt100 MWe -gt
Ultimate lt1000 U/kWe, gt55 eff., PCFB, HT gas
cleaning gt200 MWe
Cost of electricity 10 Uct/kWh -gt 3-4
Uct/kWh, almost doubling of electrical output
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Typical process schemeBiomass gasification to FT
liquids - with gas turbine
CO2 Removal
Shift Section
Fischer Tropsch Section
F-T liquids (C5)
Reforming Section
Gas Turbine
Steam Turbine
Cleaning Section
Steam
Power
Offgas
Power
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Key biomass options for the longer term

• Advanced (transport) fuels (FT, MeOH, H2, EtOH)
  from lignocellulosic biomass at large scale.
• Advanced power generation.
• Perennial crops, multicropping residues,
  wastes...
• Biomaterials, biochemicals, cascading of biomass
  flows
• Biorefinery concept

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Effect of scaleon production costs FT liquids
40
30
US/GJ FT liquid
20
10
0
100
500
1000
1600
scale (MWth)
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Cost reduction of wood chips from forest residues
in Sweden
Variation PR 84.5 - 85.9 under a high / low
production scenario)
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Experience curve of biomass CHP electricity
generation in Sweden
Based on 18 CHP plants in Sweden 1991-2002.
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1985
Experience curve for biogas production
2001
1992
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Ethanol from sugar cane
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Costs per GJ fuel delivered at the car
1. H2. 2. L-H2, 3. MeOH, 4. FT 5. EtOH-W, 6.
EtOH-S, 7. Pyro, 8. RME
Shorter term
Longer term
September 2005 gasoline 43 Euro/GJ (including
taxes)
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Bio- methanol produced from North Eastern
European and Latin American biomass supplied to
Rotterdam Harbour.
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International bio-energy trade
Source Hamelinck, Faaij, 2003
- Growing fast! - Solid fuels (50 -100 PJ Europe
alone) - Ethanol trade
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Four main PFF supply chains in Sweden

• Steps / costs involved
• Harvesting
• Forwarding
• Chipping
• Bundling
• Transportation
• (Stumpage fee)
• (Overhead)

Source E.Alakangas, VTT, 2003
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Green energy or Organic Food?A life cycle
Assessment comparing two uses of set-aside land

• Land can fulfill many functions e.g. production
  of food, materials, energy, living space, nature
• At large-scale use of biomass, competition for
  land can occur
• Land for energy crops can also be used for other
  purposes
• gt land use should be taken into account

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• Aim of the system comparison
• To make an estimation of the environmental
  effects of the growth of energy crops given
  special attention to the aspect of land scarcity

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System comparison conventional
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System comparison using set-aside land
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System comparison context
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System comparison
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Comparison on

• Food
• conventional wheat plantations and EKO wheat
  plantations
• Electricity
• using coal vs. willow
• coal fired power plant and co-firing willow

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Example of results
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Sensitivity analysis

• Yield of EKO winter wheat
• Yield of willow
• Use of natural gas instead of coal
• Acidification fossil electr. 75 less
• Climate change 25 less
• energy depletion 17 less
• Base case now somewhat better for acidification

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Results

• Green Energy wins on
• acidification
• Climate change
• Depletion of energy carriers
• Changes are quite significant
• EKO food best on
• terrestrial eco-toxicity
• marginally better on seawater toxicity
• Set-aside best on
• Eutrophication

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Relevance for policy makers

• The preference for a system depends largely on
  the priorities of environmental policies and the
  seriousness of local environmental problems

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Economic and greenhouse gas emission analysis of
bio-energy production using multi-product crops
Case studies for the Netherlands and Poland
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Introduction

• In Western Europe biomass production costs are
  quite high (high costs of labour and land)
• Bio-energy prices are often higher than the costs
  of competing fossil fuels
• Within the whole of Europe agricultural practices
  and biomass production costs differ strongly

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Objective

• To investigate to what extent multi-product
  crops can reduce bio-energy costs and increase
  CO2 emissions reduction per unit of land used
• gt A case study of different crops comparing the
  situation in a Western and Eastern European
  country

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Multi-product crops

• ? Multi-product crops are defined as crops that
  are split into different parts

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Method (1) Costs in the multi-product system
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Method (2) CO2 emission reduction
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Case study

• Crops
• Wheat (annual crop, material use food)
• Hemp (annual crop, material use fibres in
  plastics) Poplar (perennial SRC, material use
  OSB board)
• Countries
• The Netherlands
• (intensive agriculture, high costs of land and
  labour, EU-member)
• Poland
• (extensive agriculture, lower costs of land and
  labour, EU candidate)

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Biomass production
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Material prices for different crop components
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Fuel costs versus material prices
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CO2 emission reduction per haversus energy use
of crop
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Conclusions (1)

• Economic attractiveness of multi-product depends
  strongly on material prices
• Fuel costs very sensitive to
• material prices
• crop yields
• biomass production costs
• of crop used for energy.
• Using parts of wheat and hemp for materials
  lowers bio-energy fuel costs (at current material
  prices)

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Conclusions (2)

• Fuel costs of multi-product crops are
  significantly lower in PL than in NL (in the case
  of equal subsidies)
• CO2 reduction attractiveness of multi-product
  crops depends strongly on
• specific carbon reduction of material
  substitution
• the reference energy system
• of the crop used for energy.
• Utilising parts of hemp for materials, increases
  CO2 emission reduction per ha (with the reference
  systems regarded)

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Conclusions (3)

• Multi-product use of crops can significantly
  decrease bio-energy costs and CO2 reduction
  effectiveness of land use.
• However, this does not apply in general, but
  depends on crops and material uses.

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Perspectives for bioenergy (I)

• Upper limits of bio-energy potentials reach far
  major contribution to global energy supply
  possible..
• Strong interactions between food/energy/materials
  economic drivers however poorly understood.
  Efficiency of food production key element
  biotechnology (/-)
• Technology can dramatically improve
  competitiveness and efficiency advanced options
  (power, fuels) with large scale utilization.
• Optimal utilization? Transportation fuels, power
  and biomaterials compete.

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Perspectives for bioenergy (II)

• Bio-energy has to compete with other key options
  and amongst each other economics and efficiency
  are essential for successful implementation.
• Perennial crops and advanced large scale use
  backbone, but, characteristics of each situation
  and region should be considered.
• Biotechnology could play an important role in
  crop development and improvement (e.g. ethanol
  production from ligno-cellulosic biomass)
• Biotechnology application in bio-refinery,
  digestion, specialties, algae utilization etc.