Biofuels, Solar and Wind as Renewable Energy Systems_Benefits and Risks Episode 2 Part 7 pps

Chapter 16Developing Energy Crops for Thermal Applications: Optimizing Fuel Quality, Energy Security and GHG Mitigation Roger Samson, Claudia Ho Lem, Stephanie Bailey Stamler and Jeroen

Table 15.9 Inputs per 1,000 kg of biodiesel oil from canola

is given for the canola meal produced, then the net loss is less.

The cost per kg of biodiesel is $1.63.

a Data from Table 15.6.

b Data from Singh, 1986.

c An estimated 3 kWh thermal is needed to produce a kWh of electricity.

cap-a significcap-ant contribution to globcap-al wcap-arming, there is the use of 1,000–2,000 liters

of water required for the production of each liter of either ethanol or biodiesel.Furthermore, for every liter of ethanol produced there are 6–12 liters of sewageeffluent produced

Burning food crops, such as corn and soybeans, to produce biofuels, creates jor ethical concerns More than 3.7 billion humans are now malnourished in theworld and the need for food is critical

ma-Energy conservation strategies combined with active development of renewableenergy sources, such as solar cells and solar-based methanol synthesis systems,should be given priority

15 Ethanol Production Using Corn, Switchgrass and Wood 391

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Chapter 16

Developing Energy Crops for Thermal

Applications: Optimizing Fuel Quality,

Energy Security and GHG Mitigation

Roger Samson, Claudia Ho Lem, Stephanie Bailey Stamler

and Jeroen Dooper

Abstract Unprecedented opportunities for biofuel development are occurring as a

result of increasing energy security concerns and the need to reduce greenhousegas (GHG) emissions This chapter analyzes the potential of growing energy cropsfor thermal energy applications, making a case-study comparison of bioheat, biogasand liquid biofuel production from energy crops in Ontario Switchgrass pellets forbioheat and corn silage biogas were the most efficient strategies found for displacingimported fossil fuels, producing 142 and 123 GJ/ha respectively of net energy gain.Corn ethanol, soybean biodiesel and switchgrass cellulosic ethanol produced netenergy gains of 16, 11 and 53 GJ/ha, respectively Bioheat also proved the mostefficient means to reduce GHG emissions Switchgrass pellets were found to offset86–91% of emissions compared with using coal, heating oil, natural gas or liquidnatural gas (LNG) Each hectare of land used for production of switchgrass pelletscould offset 7.6–13.1 tonnes of CO2 annually In contrast, soybean biodiesel, cornethanol and switchgrass cellulosic ethanol could offset 0.9, 1.5 and 5.2 tonnes of

The main historic constraint in the development of herbaceous biomass for mal applications has been clinker formation and corrosion in the boiler duringcombustion This problem is being overcome through plant selection and culturaltechniques in grass cultivation, combined with advances in combustion technology.

ther-In the coming years, growing warm-season grasses for pellet production will emerge

as a major new renewable energy technology, largely because it represents the mostresource-efficient strategy to use farmland in temperate regions to create energysecurity and mitigate greenhouse gases

Keywords Combustion · bioheat · biomass · net energy balance · grass pellets ·switchgrass · energy crop · greenhouse gas · thermal energy · energy security ·biomass quality· perennial

Acronyms & abbreviations

Bioheat: biomass use for thermal applications

In most industrialized countries, thermal energy represents the largest energy need

in the economy Thermal energy is used for space and water heating in the dential, commercial and industrial sectors, low and high temperature process heatfor industry, and power applications Thermal energy can also be used for cool-ing applications Rather than supporting biomass for simple thermal applicationssuch as direct heating applications industrialized countries have currently placedemphasis on researching and providing subsidies for more technologically complexinnovations such as large industrial bio-refineries However, governments in indus-trialized nations who have identified the need to develop biofuels for energy securityand greenhouse gas mitigation should look more closely at thermal applications forbiomass to fulfill these needs This review therefore examines energy security insection one, identifying opportunities to grow energy crops on farmland in easternCanada as a means to collect solar energy and convert it into useful energy products

resi-16 Developing Energy Crops for Thermal Applications 397for consumption The greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation potential of switching fromfossil fuels to various biofuels produced from energy crops is also examined Sectiontwo then overviews recent advances in the emerging agricultural industry growinggrasses for bioheat, identifying opportunities and challenges in advancing this tech-nology for commercial applications in temperate regions of the world.

16.2 Energy Crop Production for Energy Security

and GHG Mitigation

Since the Arab oil embargo in the 1970s there has been considerable interest inNorth America in growing both conventional field crops and dedicated energy cropsfor bioenergy as a means to enhance energy security The long-term decline in farmcommodity prices has also created significant interest in using the surplus produc-tion capacity of the farm sector as a means to produce energy while creating demandenhancement for the farm sector This decline in farm commodity prices, due to in-novation in plant breeding and production technology, is accelerating the likelihoodthat large quantities of biomass energy from farms could penetrate energy marketscurrently dominated by fossil fuels

One of the strongest drivers for biofuel development is the GHG mitigation tential of energy crops to produce solid, liquid and gaseous biofuels to replace fossilfuels in our economy With the increased use of grain crops for liquid biofuels, thepast two years have seen a rise in both the demand and price for farm commodities.Also increasing however, are concerns over other important social issues such asthe potential for bioenergy to compete with food security, and problems with soilerosion and long-term soil fertility The production and utilization of crops residues

po-as a global biofuel sources hpo-as recently been reviewed (Lal, 2005) The main clusions were that the most appropriate use of crop residues is to enhance, maintainand sustain soil quality by increasing soil organic matter, enhancing activity andspecies of soil fauna, minimizing soil erosion and non-source pollution, mitigatingclimate change by sequestering carbon in the pedosphere, and advancing globalfood security through enhancement of soil quality It was recommended that efforts

con-be undertaken to grow biomass on specifically dedicated land with species of highyield potential, suggesting that 250 million hectares (ha) globally could be put intoproduction of perennial energy crops

The increasing biodiversity loss from agricultural landscapes through crop sification is also a major environmental concern The rapid development of liquidbiofuels in the tropics in the past decade has also caused significant harm to bio-diversity through the conversion of forests into agricultural production Resourceefficient, rather than resource exhausting, bioenergy crop production strategies need

inten-to evolve with a priority placed on de-intensification of farm production throughthe use of perennials and utilization of existing marginal farmlands This approachwould to a much greater extent avoid the biofuel conflicts with food crop productionand biodiversity that are now occurring with using annual food crops as biofuels

To achieve the objective of resource efficient biomass production we must ine some of the basic factors influencing biomass accumulation:

exam-1 There are two main photosynthetic pathways for converting solar energy intoplant material: the C3 and C4 pathways The C4 pathway is approximately40% more efficient than the C3 pathway in accumulating carbon (Beadle andLong, 1985)

2 C4species use approximately half the water of most C3species (Black, 1971)

3 In temperate climates, sunlight interception is often more efficient with perennialplants because annual plants spend much of the spring establishing a canopy andalso exhibit poor growth on marginal soils

4 Some species of warm season grasses are climax community species and haveexcellent stand longevity (which also results in decreased economic costs forestablishing perennial crops through decreased expenditures for seeding,tillage etc.)

5 C4 species of grasses contain less N than C3 species and can be more N-useefficient in temperate zones because the N is cycled internally to the root system

in the fall for use in the following growing season (Clark, 1977)

It is apparent that the optimal plants for resource-efficient biomass productionshould be both perennial and C4in nature

16.2.1 Perennial and Annual Energy Crops

In North America, the warm continental climate has produced a diversity of tive warm season (C4) perennial grasses that have a relatively high energy pro-duction potential on marginal farmlands In the more humid zones, these species

na-include switchgrass (panicum virgatum), prairie cordgrass (spartina pectinata), eastern gamagrass (tripsacum dactyloides), big bluestem (andropogon gerardii vit- man) and coastal panic grass (panicum amarum A.S hitchc.) In semi-arid zones and dry-land farming areas, prairie sandreed (calamovilfa longifolia) and sand bluestem (andropogon hallii) are amongst the most productive species All of these species

are relatively thin stemmed, winter hardy, highly productive and are establishedthrough seed

Switchgrass was chosen as the model herbaceous energy crop species to trate development efforts on in the early 1990s by the U.S Department of Energy

concen-It had a number of promising features including its moderate to high productivity,adaptation to marginal farmlands, drought resistance, stand longevity, low nitro-gen requirements and resistance to pests and diseases (Samson and Omielan, 1994;Parrish and Fike, 2005)

Table 16.1 illustrates that in Ontario, Canada, C4species like corn and switchgrassproduce considerably higher quantities of energy from farmland than C3crops Theperennial crops were also identified to have the lowest fossil energy input require-ments Overall, prior to any conversion process, switchgrass produces 40% more

16 Developing Energy Crops for Thermal Applications 399

Table 16.1 Solar energy collection and fossil fuel energy requirements of Ontario Crops per

hectare, adapted from Samson et al (2005)

(ODT/ha)

Energy content (GJ/ODT)

Fossil energy used (GJ/ODT)

Fossil energy used (GJ/ha)

Solar energy collected (GJ/ha)

Net energy (GJ/ha)

In industrialized countries, the seed portion of annual grain and oilseed crops came the first feedstock for energy applications However, whole plant annual cropscapture much larger quantities of energy per hectare In Western Europe, whole plantcrops such as maize and rye are now commonly harvested for biogas applications.High yielding hybrid forage sorghum, sorghum-sudangrass and millet, also holdpromise as new candidates for biogas digestion (Von Felde, 2007; Venuto, 2007).The major advantage of ensiling is that even in relatively unfavourable weather forcrop drying, energy crops can be stored and delivered to the digester year round.This is particularly advantageous for thick stemmed species like maize and sorghumwhich are commonly difficult to dry in areas receiving more than 700 mm of rain-fall annually or have harvests late in the year when solar radiation is declining Incombustion applications, thick stemmed herbaceous species have biomass qualityconstraints which make them difficult to burn (further discussed in Section 16.3)

be-In warm, humid southern production zones in temperate regions, it may also bedifficult to dry the feedstock for combustion applications as the material would bemore vulnerable to decomposition In these situations, crop conversion to usableenergy would be facilitated by using a biogas conversion system and storing thecrop as silage

Overall, both thick and thin stemmed whole-plant biomass crops can be cessfully grown for biogas applications Highest biogas yields are achieved when afine chop and highly digestible silage are used Conversely, thin stemmed, perennialWSG’s have been identified as the most viable means to store dry crops for com-bustion applications and offer the best potential for improved biomass quality for

suc-combustion (discussed further in Section 16.3) For liquid fuel production such ascellulosic ethanol, the process is more flexible in terms of the moisture content andchemical composition of the feedstock in the production of energy.

16.2.2 Options for Growing and Using Energy Crops for Energy

Security in Industrialized Countries

As greater scarcity of fossil fuels occurs in the next 25–50 years, industrializedcountries will undoubtedly seek greater energy security from renewable energy tech-nologies (RET’s) Countries will increasingly aim to develop bioenergy productionand conversion technologies which are efficient at using energy crops grown onboth productive and marginal farmland to displace the use of imported fossil fuels.North America, Europe, and China in particular, urgently need to develop effectivebioenergy production systems as these areas will become increasingly dependent onimporting fossil fuels due to their large economies and declining fossil energy pro-duction While many industrialized countries have imported petroleum fuels fromdistant producers for many years, the international trade in natural gas use will ex-pand substantially For example in North America, domestic natural gas productionpeaked in the United States in 2001 and has declined by 1.7% per year since thattime, while in Canada production has been in decline or reached a plateau since

2001 To compensate for declining North American gas production and rising prices,energy intensive natural gas industries have moved offshore and liquid natural gas(LNG) imports have started to come into the United States (Hughes, 2006) LNGimports currently supply approximately 3% of the United States supply and are ex-pected to increase to 15–20% by 2025 Much of this natural gas demand is presentlyused in thermal applications For example, the United States relies on natural gasfor 20% of its power requirements and for 60% of its home heating requirements(Darley, 2004)

Identifying sustainable bioenergy technologies with a high net energy gain perhectare is essential to reduce imports of natural gas and other fossil fuels intoindustrialized countries In particular, there may be opportunities to cost-effectivelyproduce solid and gaseous biofuels in temperate regions to replace high quality fos-sil fuels in thermal applications In the past 5 years, petroleum and natural gas priceshave increased substantially while thermal coal prices in the world have remainedrelatively stable This likely is a function of the changing awareness around supplyand demand of fossil fuels On a global basis, the lifespan of natural gas and oilreserves are less than half that of coal, however many energy analysts foresee atransition from the current global energy economy dominated by petroleum to onewhere natural gas plays an equally important role This widening gap between theprices of high-quality fossil fuels like natural gas and petroleum versus coal willmake fuels of higher quality ideal candidates for displacement by renewables Solidand gaseous biofuels could substitute in thermal applications through both heat gen-eration and combined heat and power operations This is a fitting association as bothbiomass production and heat demand are relatively disperse, thus biomass could be

16 Developing Energy Crops for Thermal Applications 401produced locally to meet local thermal energy needs sustainably A key tenet of the

concept of the soft energy path introduced by Lovins (1977) is that both the scale

and quality of energy should be matched appropriately with its end use to create amore sustainable energy supply system

The growing price difference between coal, natural gas and heating oil suggeststhat high-quality fossil fuels will be increasingly utilized for high-quality end usessuch as transportation fuels and industrial products while lower-quality fuels likecoal will be increasingly used for low-end thermal applications Due to the pol-luting nature of coal and the increasing emphasis on reducing carbon emissionsthrough taxes and cap and trade systems, there also will be substantial opportuni-ties for biomass to substitute for coal in thermal applications (discussed further inSection 16.2.3) The following section explores the thermodynamics around con-verting biomass into solid and gaseous products versus their present utilization op-portunities as liquid fuels in temperate regions of the world

16.2.2.1 Opportunities to use Ontario Farmland for Improving

Energy Security

This analysis examines present or currently proposed strategies to use biomassderived from farmland in the province of Ontario for generating solid, gaseousand liquid biofuel products Ontario has a continental climate and cropping pat-terns that are somewhat similar to other regions in the temperate world includingthe Great Lake states of Michigan and Wisconsin in the United States, countries

in central Europe such as Hungary, and the Northeastern provinces of China Assuch, it represents a useful case study for the bioenergy opportunities for conti-nental climates in the temperate world Ontario produces very limited quantities offossil fuels Coal and coal products in Ontario are primarily used for power gen-eration and for large industrial applications, such as the steel and cement industry.Petroleum products are mainly used in the transport sector in Ontario, with someadditional use as heating oil Ontario imports natural gas from western Canada,petroleum from the world market, and coal mainly from the Northeastern UnitedStates Within the next 2–5 years, two LNG terminals on Canada’s east coast willbegin supplying eastern Canadian energy user’s imported liquefied natural gas fromeither Russia or producers in the Middle East Declining western Canadian sup-plies will likely not be sufficient to enable export production to reach Ontario inthe coming years Thus the Ontario economy, which is heavily dependent on nat-ural gas for residential and commercial heating applications and process heat forindustry and power generation, will begin to rely on distant foreign natural gasresources

16.2.2.2 Harvesting Energy from Ontario Farmland for Biofuel Applications:

A Case Study

To optimize energy security and GHG mitigation potential from bioenergy, a casestudy has been developed to compare alternative bioenergy crops and conversion