Is biomass a viable alternative to fossil fuels?

 BIOMASS AS A RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE

Biomass has a great potential to be a major source for energy supply and replace some part of the fossil fuel use in the long run. Biomass is already widely used at different levels of technology ranging from small scale combustion units to large plant operations. It is the 4th largest contributor to the world’s primary energy supply (after oil, coal and natural gas) and provides four times more primary energy than hydropower. 

SOURCES OF BIOMASS

Biomass comes in many forms :

• wood and crop residues such as sugar cane, 
• energy crops, 
• sewage waste, 
• animal dung, 
• industrial and municipal waste 

Wood is by far the dominant biomass source but the market for agricultural and industrial waste biomass is on the growth as well.

Biomass for energy can be used:

1.  “Directly” burned in “traditional” applications, as in household fires or wood burning cookers, boilers and stoves. In this case the biomass is burned in the appliance and provides useful heat. or

2.  “Indirectly” after conversion into a secondary form of energy usually in power plants such as

• bio-power achieved by cogeneration ( ex. steam) 
• biodiesel or 
• biogas.

Biomass is the only renewable energy source that can easily be processed into these three forms of secondary energy. However, as a secondary form of energy, biomass has a much smaller share of power generation than hydro power. The greatest use of direct or “traditional” biomass is in the developing countries, while the developed countries lead in biomass conversion.

 > Technologies

BIOMASS TO ENERGY CONVERSION TECHNOLOGIES

Biomass as a renewable energy resource can be successfully converted directly into thermal energy and electricity or indirectly into various forms of biofuels. Biomass power provides a clean, green, renewable source of power. 

Photo: Power station Masnedø in Denmark generating electricity and thermal energy from biomass.

Burning wood to make fire

During thermal conversion of biomass the energy stored in the solid biomass material is released in form of heat. 

Biomass is used as a thermal energy resource since ancient times. If you have ever sat by a camfire or a fireplace you already know the basic technology for converting biomass into heat energy. Burning wood and wood based products is the oldest and most familiar technology used for biomass conversion. In more technical terms burning is called direct firing, direct combustion.

Biomass to electricity 

Modern combustion technologies use thermodinamic processes to transform the biomass generated heat energy into electricity. The direct combustion of biomass is already in widespread use.

Conversion of biomass to biofuel is currently the most complex set of technologies to extract power from biomass. There are 3 main methods : thermal conversion ( torrefaction, pyrolisis, gasification), chemical conversion ( biodiesel, biogas) and biochemical conversion (composting, fermentation)

The use of biomass as an energy product

 There are three major market segments for the biomass as an energy product :

• industrial
• agricultural 
• domestic

Biomass pellets are used for bio-energy production

Each market segment has a different need based on the technologycal system they use for producing heat and electricty. 

The industrial market segment

The industrial market segment is the most mature from all three, Technologies for biomass combustion and cogeneration of heat and power are medium to large in scale. Costs are reduced by mass production, mass transportation, no need for special packiging and good quality biomass.

Industrial heating generation means : CHP ,cogenration of heat and power, ( steam generation) biomass burning power stations.

Economic issues - Biomass suply chain

The economic feasability for industrial size, biomass based power generation is determined by the quantity and quality of the biomass.

Stabalizing the quantity of supply and distribution is a key challenge for biomass power stations. Quantity is affected by seasonality and availability of certain materials in certian geographic regions. Industrial size combustion means large scale distribution where risks and costs can be reduced by fixed secure suppliers and shorter routes. The transportation is possible either in large quantities few times a year stored at the power station or continuously in which case storage is provided by the supplier. The biomass material for industrial use does not need to be packaged in any format just loaded in bulk in ships, container or big bags.

 The biomass quality : The prices for woodchips, pellets and biomass are influenced by the global markets and the quality of the product. Quality of the biomass is largely determined by the water content and ash for the chips, pellets or other biomass material.

Generally water content for wood chips is round 30 % and this sells for abut 100 euros. As a rule of thumb for the  general market practice for pricing we can say that every % moist content means 2 Euros. Starting from 100 Euros for 30% every 1 % above means 2 euros less so a woodchips with 40% ( bad quality) moist content will sell for 80 euros. The same way every % below the 30% level means 2 euros more so a good quality wood chips with 20% moist content will sell for around 120 Euros. Attention : these are just representative numbers used for calculations and genral information not real price quotes. 

 The agricultural market segment

An almost untapped market is the greenhouse sector that has the need for the small and medium size heating systems and is ready to use biomass due to the fluctuating oil and gas prices and the availability of biomass residues that ould be used to cover the enrgy needs. 

Labor and energy are usually the two greatest greenhouse expenses. More than 70% of the cost of the greenhouse is heat and energy. The most common method of heating a greenhouse in a commercial setting is with the use of fossil fuels such as natural gas, and fuel oil.  High energy prices act also as a market barrier to new growers for entering the greenhouse food growing industry. High cost of energy, barriers for new competitors result in higher prices for vegetable and fruits for the consumers.

Challenges for using biomass eficiently in the agricultural sector include the costs of changing the currently operating heating systems to new but costly biomass technologies. For many growers, the most difficult task when trying to create an energy-efficient greenhouse environment is determining costs per growing area and then making informed decisions on what heating equipment can help reduce energy costs.   The process is to  audit the availbility of the biomass materials, map the energy needs of the green houses and to develop a feasable heating system.

 If growers can find a way to decrease the costs of the heat and electricity generation their chances of making a profit on a very competitive globalised market will be strengthened. How can they do this in the energy intensive greenhouse industry ? Cheap resources of energy like biomass can be an answer for a more  sustainable food production.

 Residential segment

The European residential heating market is one of the most important markets for thermo technical products in the world. Oil (30%) and solid fuel – the majority of which is wood - (25%) have the largest share in domestic space heating consumption. In 2006, in the 25-member European Union, energy from wood represented about 275 million m3/year, of energy obtained from wood. France is the leading country in Europe in terms of the volume consumed (about 40 million m3/year ) followed by Sweden and Finland .

The biomass in form of briquettes and heat logs are targeted mainly to the small and medium scale heat production, i.e the residencial sector of the European heating market. Private households are the biggest users of wood energy (on average 80% of the total firewood consumption) a number that is expected to rise in the future.  According to ADAME the French environment and energy agency the number of households with  wood-based stoves, heaters and fireplaces is on the rise with 6 million households being equiped with such stoves just in France. But the situation is very similar all over Europe. There is a marked change in the types of fuel used by private households, particularly in EU countries, with “traditional” fuels, such as round and split logs loosing market share to “modern” wood fuels such as wood chips, wood pellets and briquettes. 

Biomass Industry keeps growing 

The biomass sector is still in its infancy but it is a vivid market experiencing rapid growth. On the last few years the biomass market experienced a huge growth, trading numbers nearly doubled every year. By 2020 there is a big potential that 1/3 of the global energy supply will be covered by bioenergy. Inside the Bioenergy category biomass is the largest renewable energy option as it can come from various local sources and can provide energy solution to areas where wind solar or wave power are not feasible.

An integrated, large scale biomass energy industry has yet to emerge despite the major expenditures made to develop new technologies and scale them from research to production level. Developed countries in Europe like Austria (wood chips) and Spain (olive waste) can be showcase examples to overcome the existing barriers and to advance biomass usage for heat and electricity production.

Biomass trading and transportation

Biomass trading is an international, globalised marketplace currently. 1/3 of global word pellets use is traded internationally. Europe is a hotspot recently but it is likely that in the future trading will move to Russia and the far east as Europe will secure its energy needs from local sources.  At the moment Netherland is the biggest importer, Sweden the biggest buyer and Canada, and Brazil are the major suppliers of pellets to Europe.

The issue with international trading of biomass is that transportation of the material raises the price and adds a negative impact to the green footprint of the products. Transportation over long distances – as it is done currently – with ships, trucks and trains has a high emission factor that should be taken into consideration when choosing an eco alternative. Power generating future facilities should be projected nearby the waste production and not far from the energy consumption spots  to minimize the transportation needs.

Biomass trading affected so negatively by transportation is likely to become localized in the future with the development of local biomass supermarkets/ distribution points. The absolutely ecological biomass for energy usage would be if communities/ cities/ countries could operate as “energy islands” that can supply their energy needs by taking advantage of local energy sources (wind, sun, wave, biomass, earth heat).

Economic issues

biomass Supply - Demand not balanced

On the last few years thousands of different size biomass power stations were built and started operating. The biomass demand side is growing at a stable rate as green electricity and heat investments are more and more popular and less risky due to advancements on the technological side. Local government incentives are given to such project as well as European grants.

On the other side the supply of the market, the biomass production, is lagging behind. The incentives for producing biomass are not so favorable so there are less producers than needed. The different biomass products need very expensive testing to assure owners of power plants and heat appliances that their equipment will not be damaged. The producers of agricultural biomass are usually farmers who do not have the necessary funds to do these chemical and technical tests therefore materials that could be used as useful energy are simply land filled. Other source of biomass is from industries ( like the olive oil, sunflower oil, rice, sugar etc production) where the CSR and waste management are usually not part of the core business functions and only get secondary funding for research and development of waste to energy solutions. A cheaper solution is the long term burning of the materials (min 3 month) to see for example the corrosion results but it is very hard to do as heating equipment owners are reluctant to experiment with their expensive machines.

The discrepancies between the supply and the demand side result in an unbalanced/ inefficient price and supply for agricultural biomass. The need for biomass is too high and the product range for good quality available biomass is too little. This resulted in price and quality changes, meaning that lower quality biomass was bought in almost the same price as good quality was a year ago while the price for good quality (wood) biomass went up even more. Power stations ( and smaller users as well) are willing to buy on average or low prices which drives out the good quality biomass from the market. To take a real world example we can look on Austria at the end of 2010 when it was facing several biomass sourcing problems due to the unexpectedly cold and long winter. Biomass power station in some parts of Austria had problems due to lack of good quality material from farmers and lack of alternative distribution channels. So they ended up buying low quality ( very wet) wood chips biomass. The other problem with bad quality material is that power stations cannot work on their efficient power range using all their turbines. Olive waste biomass is a very dry high quality biomass with much higher energy potential than wood and can be integrated with wood burning without any problem. In case of Austria the availability of alternative fuels like olive waste purchased on almost the same price as wood could have solved the problem. So there are huge possibilities for alternative biomass fuel types to enter the market.

Drivers of change:

 The growth is continuing with the various lifestyle management movements towards sustainability worldwide. Growing concerns over global climate change, pollution and fossil fuel depletion are just a few to mention form the consumer behavior and demand side drivers. The major driving force of course is the continuous rise in fossil fuel prices over the last decades which resulted in diminishing profit margins for many industrial and agricultural players ( ex. green house owners). Rising operating and utility costs force people to move away from costly and inefficient fuel sources to biomass based modern energy sources.

On the supply side the major driving force is technological research and development where stove, boiler and power station producers are coming out yearly with new, efficient solutions. There are technological developments done also in the field of material production to reduce the costs of production: ex. modern grinding and drying solutions. There has been significant innovation in the field of biomass technology during the past two decades, and modern systems are fully automatic with ultra-low emissions. The use of biomass for heating ensures energy independence, supports the forests and is environmentally friendly.

Barriers to change

The market is most affected by policy making and fuel prices.

Biomass supply is not given, it is variable. It is a very sensitive market effected a lot on the demand side by policy, market conditions, sustainability regulations, buyer thinking patterns and on the supply side by the weather conditions, availability and cost of the right technologies. The regulation of agricultural residues/ biomass manufacturing has to set guidelines and "solve" the problem between food and fuel production, therefore in the future 35% of bioenergy can come from waste. Incentives will be given to waste recycling and development of biomass commodity flow ( waste supermarkets). The barriers on the business side are the lack of financing of first-time production facilities, problems in assuring adequate continuous supplies due to the lack of distribution channels, absence of market experience and the lack of energy infrastructures ( i.e. biomass power plants).