Be sustainable
The magazine of bioenergy and the bioeconomy May 2016
OUTLOOK ON THE
BIO-BASED ECONOMY
Biomass resource potential | Advanced biofuels | Sustainable export from US Ultra low emission technologies | Modern charcoal
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sustainable
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editorial
Resources for the bio-based economy and the role of research and innovation
B
ioenergy in all its forms already constitutes a large share of renewable energy in the world and the use of sustainable biomass resources is widely recognized as a fundamental tool among a wide variety of solutions that we must adopt in the coming years, to mitigate climate change. This can happen only by mobilizing large volumes of biomass without competing with food production and other traditional uses. Primarily, the debate and the concerns on the use of bioenergy are largely focused on the availability of sufficient biomass resources to meet the increased demand for food, energy and materials and this issue of BE-Sustainable looks at the biomass resources from three different perspectives: the global biomass potential, which is still abundant, strategies to achieve 1 billion ton of ligno-cellulosic biomass in Europe by 2030 and the future potential for sustainable export of wood from the south of U.S., a region which is already delivering large quantities of biomass to Europe. Developing efficient ways to produce and mobilize this biomass can not only help in meeting climate targets, but can also provide synergies with a resource efficient agriculture and food production. This issue also provides an outlook on the technological innovations for the efficient conversion of biomass into energy and into a growing range of products, both at large and small-scales. The fundamental role of continuous research and demonstration efforts applied to industrial development is evident in all the contributions. This is an essential element for the development of the bio-based economy, together with a supportive political and regulatory environment, as it is the case of the Netherlands, where the bio-based economy is already generating an added value of billions of Euro in sectors such as materials, chemicals and energy. I would like to thank all the authors for contributing to this issue. We hope it can offer a perspective on the positive examples and on the available pathways for a sustainable use of biomass resources in the transition to a low carbon economy. Happy reading.
Maurizio Cocchi Editor editorial@besustainablemagazine.com
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Knowledge transfer among research, industry and policy-makers through event organisation, training and capacity building activities, publications.
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summary
Be sustainable
BE sustainable ETA-Florence Renewable Energies via Giacomini, 28 50132 Florence - Italy www.besustainablemagazine.com Issue 7 - May 2016 ISSN - 2283-9486
Editorial notes | M. Cocchi 3
News | Bioenergy and bioeconomy news around the world
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Bio-based economy | A. Faaij | Outlook on the biobased economy
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Bio-based economy | K. Kwant | Bio-based Energy and Materials in the Netherlands
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Resources | Jeffrey Skeer | The untapped potential of sustainable biofuels
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Resources | Calliope Panoutsou et al. | A Vision for 1 billion dry tonnes lignocellulosic biomass by 2030 in Europe
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Resources | I. Dzene | A tooolkit for the European bioeconomy
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Resources | Kevin Fingerman et al. | Opportunities and risks for sustainable biomass export from the southeastern United States
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Technology | D.Baxter et al. | JRC Support for the Development and Implementation of Advanced Bioenergy Technologies
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Technology | A. Uihlein et al. | EU support for bioenergy demonstration projects
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Technology | F. Boshell et al. | Innovation outlook for advanced liquid biofuels
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Technology | I. Obernberger et al. | Demonstration of a new ultra-low emission pellet and wood chip small-scale boiler
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Technology | A. Salimbeni et al. | A Modern technology for a traditional business
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Technology | R. Daschner et al. | Thermo-Catalytic Reforming TCR -Process
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Events | V. Valente | The top priorities for the algae sector soon to be outlined in ground-breaking White Paper
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IMPRINT: BE Sustainable is published by ETA-Florence Renewable Energies, Via Giacomini 28, 50132 Florence, Italy Editor-in-Chief: Maurizio Cocchi | editorial@besustainablemagazine.com | twitter: @maurizio_cocchi "Direttore responsabile: Maurizio Cocchi" "Autorizzazione del Tribunale di Firenze n. 548/2013" Managing editor: Angela Grassi | angela@besustainablemagazine.com Authors: André Faaij; Kees Kwant, Jeffrey Skeer,; Calliope Panoutsou; Dirk Carrez, Ilze Dzene, Rainer Jannsen, Ludger Wenzelides, Kevin Fingerman, Gert-Jan Nabuurs, David Baxter, Luisa Marelli, Andreas Uihlein, Francisco Boshell, Maria Ayuso, Ingwald Obernberger, Christoph Mandl, Juergen Brandt, Andrea Salimbeni, Renato Nistri, David Chiaramonti, Robert Daschner, Nils Jaeger, Andreas Hornung, Vinicius Valente Marketing & Sales: marketing@besustainablemagazine.com Graphic design: Tommaso Guicciardini Corsi Salviati Layout: Laura Pigneri, ETA-Florence Renewable Energies Print: Pixartprinting Website: www.besustainablemagazine.com The views expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. Images on cover by © Thaiview/Shutterstock.com, antishock/Shutterstock.com Image on page 17 by © istockphoto.com/fotoVoyager ISSN - 2283-9486
Bioenergy and bioeconomy news around January 11, 2016 Second-generation biofuels can reduce emissions, study says Second-generation biofuel crops like the perennial grasses Miscanthus and switchgrass can efficiently meet emission reduction goals without significantly displacing cropland used for food production, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of Illinois and collaborators published their findings in the inaugural edition of the journal Nature Energy. The researchers call it the most comprehensive study on the subject to date. http://tinyurl.com/jobm3tp
February 9, 2016
April 29, 2016
Supreme Court Deals Blow to Obama’s Efforts to Regulate Coal Emissions
Bioenergy area 'could create 3,000 Irish jobs'
In a major setback for President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants. The brief order was not the last word on the case, which is most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considers an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.
Incentives to encourage firms to switch to renewable heat include woodchip and wood pellets could help create up to 3,000 jobs, the BioEnergy Association claims. http://tinyurl.com/gw2vcjd
http://tinyurl.com/jq3e9zs
March 11, 2016 March 4, 2016 Bioenergy Center, collaborators report 500th invention
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United Airlines Makes History with Launch of Regularly Scheduled Flights Using Sustainable Biofuel
The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) and two other U.S. Department of Energy-funded Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) recently reported their 500th invention, making significant progress on a shared mission to develop technologies that will bring advanced biofuels to the marketplace.In collaboration with the BioEnergy Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Joint BioEnergy Institute at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, GLBRC seeks to address the most significant challenges standing in the way of affordable, sustainable and scalable advanced liquid transportation fuels.
United Airlines made history today by becoming the first U.S. airline to begin use of commercial-scale volumes of sustainable aviation biofuel for regularly scheduled flights with the departure of United Flight 708 from Los Angeles International Airport. The launch marks a significant milestone in the commercial aviation industry by moving beyond demonstration flights and test programs to the use of advanced biofuels for United's ongoing operations. United has agreed to purchase up to 15 million gallons of sustainable biofuel from AltAir Paramount over a three-year period. The airline has begun using the biofuel in its daily operations at LAX, storing and delivering it in the same way as traditional fuel.
http://tinyurl.com/zc5fnpr
http://tinyurl.com/h4gqy7m
the world
news
February 25, 2016
May 19, 2016
GE Chosen to Build World’s Largest Commercial Biomass-Fired Power Plant
Reverdia and Wageningen UR Launch Development of Durable Bio-PBS Compounds
GE combines technology from the GE Store to provide overall design, engineering and construction of Belgian Eco Energy’s(BEE) new plant in Ghent, Belgium. The supercritical plant will be is powered by wood chips and agro residues and will generate approximately 215 Megawatts of clean energy for industry and nearby households reaching over 60 percent efficiency when operating in cogeneration mode. A district heating system of approximately 110 MW thermal energy will supply heating to industries and households.
A joint development programme on bio-based PBS (polybutylene succinate) compounds for injection moulding has been launched by Reverdia and Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research. The new bio-PBS compounds will be durable and based on Biosuccinium™.The final compounds are expected to have an improved carbon footprint in comparison to polypropylene which is typically used for these applications. http://tinyurl.com/z2gedfl
http://tinyurl.com/zzn8xn3
February 23, 2016 DONG Energy unveils plan for ‘world first’ enzyme-enabled bio plant DONG Energy, a Denmark-headquartered energy firm, has unveiled plans to build a bio plant which turns unsorted household waste into energy in the UK. The plant, which the company will finance, build and operate, will use an enzyme technology it calls REnescience. DONG claims that "it will be the first bio plant in the world to handle unsorted household waste, without prior treatment, using enzymes". The facility will be built in Northwich, Cheshire. http://tinyurl.com/gryu6xd
29 January 2016 Japan’s wood pellet imports surge Japanese wood pellet imports reached 232,000t last year, up by 140pc from 97,000t in 2014, data from Japan's economy, trade and industry ministry showed. The growing biomass market in Japan is driven by an increase in the number of power plants using woody biomass, including wood pellets, wood chips and waste wood, to generate heat and electricity. Around 18 dedicated biomass plants with a combined capacity of 282MW became operational in 2015, burning a range of woody biomass fuels. And large power producers have increasingly looked towards co-firing coal with biomass. http://tinyurl.com/gogjabt
April 18, 2016 Lake District AD Plant - Biogas from cheese making residues In rural Cumbria, British company Clearfleau is commissioning the first on-site Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plant in the dairy industry in Europe to feed bio-methane to the gas grid, generated exclusively by digesting cheese making residues. It will treat 1,650 m3 per day of process effluent and whey and generate around 5MW of thermal energy. The facility will produce over £3m per annum in cost savings and revenue, while supplying up to 25% of the creamery’s energy requirements. http://tinyurl.com/jagh4an
January 19, 2016 Bio-energy research facility in Abu Dhabi The Sustainable Bioenergy Research Consortium (SBRC) announced at Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week that it will begin operating in March the world’s first bio-energy research facility using desert land, irrigated by seawater, to produce both food and aviation fuels. The facility is located on a two-hectare site at Masdar City, a low-carbon, low-waste sustainable urban development in Abu Dhabi. http://tinyurl.com/zdxjvcw
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OUTLOOK ON THE BIOBASED ECONOMY
VITAL AND INTEGRAL PART OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AT LARGE. André Faaij, Conference General Chairman of the 24th EUBCE Academic director of Energy Academy Europe; Distinguished professor of energy system analysis at Groningen University
T
he deployment of biomass for production of power, heat, transportation fuels, renewable feedstock and materials has become one of the most complex, promising, politicized and debated options we have at our disposal to combat climate change and create a sustainable energy system. State-of-the-art analysis strongly confirms the necessity of large scale biomass deployment to meet the maximum GMT change of 2 – 1,5 oC. The Paris Agreement fortunately led to global consensus for deep GHG emission reduction. The IPCC made clear in its last 5th assessment report that all key mitigation options (increased energy efficiency across the board, all renewables, carbon capture and storage) need
"State-of-the-art
analysis strongly confirms the necessity of large scale biomass deployment to meet the maximum GMT change of 2 – 1,5° C. to deliver in the coming 4 decades on a vast scale and that 250-300 EJ (a quarter to a third the worlds energy supply in the second half of this century) may need to come from biomass to make that possible. With those targets, the need for negative emissions (combined deployment of biomass with carbon capture and storage) is deemed necessary on a large scale. Furthermore, biomass is the only tangible alternative for delivering carbon neutral carbon for liquid transport fuels for aviation, shipping, heavy road transport and shares of demand for passenger vehicles. Overall, sustainable biomass may deliver 30-40% of total global GHG mitigation efforts with the combined displacement of fossil fuels, CO2 removal and storage and increased carbon storage via vegetation, reforestation and restoration of marginal and degraded lands. Then, fossil energy imports, mainly oil and gas of the EU amount some 400 billion Euro/yr and oil & gas import dependency has risen to over 90% and will increase even further in the coming decades. Biomass offers the opportunity 8 Be
to cover a quarter of the EU’s energy use by 2050 within its borders, ensuring that a large part of the energy import bill is transformed to further investment and growth in industry, agriculture and forestry, implying sustainable jobs in particular in rural regions. Similar argumentation holds for many other world regions as well. A sustainable biobased economy first and foremost depends on availability and supply of sustainable and affordable biomass resources. Much time and effort was spent since 2008 (when food prices spiked) to discuss the possible risks and drawbacks of large scale biomass use. Today, we clearly understand that it is paramount that unsustainable displacement of food and loss of forest cover can be well avoided by means of higher resource efficiency (land, water, nutrients) in agriculture, livestock management and by restoration of degraded lands. This is possible on the scale required and can provide major synergies between sustainable Biobased economy and sustainable, resource efficient food production. State-of-the-art analysis shows that when agriculture (covering some 1,500 Mha of land surface globally) and especially livestock (including the of use some 3,500 Mha of pasture lands worldwide) are modernized over time, exploiting yield gaps and potential efficiency improvements in management, there is not only enough food production capacity to feed the world in the future with less land and produce bioenergy on the surplus land surface, but also can this lead to considerable improvements in carbon stocks of that same land, reduced water use per unit of output, lower GHG emissions, more efficient use of nutrients and closing of nutrient cycles. Such improvements are necessary anyway to achieve a (more) sustainable situation for the worlds food production systems. Such improvements are also highly desirable from a food security perspective, alleviating poverty, enhancing rural development and making agriculture more robust against the impacts of climate change, because more production factors are controlled.
bio-based economy
Integrated cropping schemes (e.g. agroforestry and intercropping) are particularly promising and can also be well realized with cooperative farming schemes, offering major socio-economic benefits. Furthermore, such management also improves residue availability (because more carbon is sequestered by more productive crops). Similar reasoning holds for forest management; integrated strategies can enhance forest productivity, maintain or improve carbon stocks, protect biodiversity and maintain the vitality of forest.
The combination of different (advanced) pre-treatment and further biomass conversion technologies can deliver biorefining complexes and links between agrofood, chemical and energy sectors that provide major synergies and economies of scale, using different fractions of biomass in an optimal way. Industrial heat proves to be another important future market for biomass that is hard to supply with other renewable energy technologies. Overall, an integrated view and development strategy is needed for countries and regions to reap the benefits of such intersectoral biobased economy schemes. Last but not least, such technologies often provide possibilities for cheap capture of CO2 streams (ethanol production delivering pure CO2 as a ‘’waste’’ product being the classic example). This makes the combination of biomass refining and CO2 capture to deliver negative emissions particularly interesting from medium term onwards, providing a pathway to deliver negative emissions on a large scale on longer term.
One of the biggest opportunities may be represented by the revitalization of marginal and degraded lands by (re-)planting them with trees and grasses. Such lands generally show much lower productivity, but permanent vegetation cover can over time restore soil structure, water retention functions and productivity overall. Biomass production can be a by-product of such restoration schemes that can also provide A sustainable biobased economy an important economic driver to do so. Such schemes may be first and foremost depends on State-of-the-art scenario possible on hundreds of milanalysis of mitigation stratelion hectares around the globe, availability and supply of sustainable gies shows that without biomass not delivering competition with and affordable biomass resources. deployment, the mitigation tarfood production but restoring gets cannot be met and that the ecosystem services. achievable mitigation effort will see overall much higher costs, which is true on global scale, on a European scale and Achieving this synergy is one of the most important objecfor many individual countries, such as the Netherlands. tives for the coming decade via large scale demonstrations, It should be kept in mind however, that realizing such learnnew integral policy and sustainability frameworks that not ing curves generally takes 1-2 decades to move from pilot only cover biomass value chains but also the larger land scale to full and competitive deployment in the market. Such and natural resource base and rural economy of the regions trajectories are typically realized in situations where policies where the biomass is sourced. Modernization and improved are stable, visible in persistent RDD&D strategies and good efficiency of conventional agriculture (and livestock) is escollaboration between governments and the private sector. sential in itself. Doing so changes the perspective on bioenergy from hedging problems to achieving synergies with The Netherlands will host the 24th EUBCE. It is a counbetter agriculture. Certification of biomass value chains sets try that counts heavily on biobased options to make the futhe pace for conventional agriculture in that sense, which is a ture energy and material supply sustainable. This will mean very positive development. The required land use strategies large scale sustainable biomass imports, a biobased chemican also provide an answer to adapt to the impacts of climate cal industry, large scale advanced biofuel production for road change by means of prevention of soil erosion, improving transport, aviation and shipping, green gas to replace natuwater retention functions, abating salinity problems, etc. and ral gas and biorefineries and bioenergy plants equipped with more resilient agriculture. In total, this provides a ‘’heavy’ CCS. The ambition is visible in a wide range of R&D efforts, agenda; the combined effort of (cross disciplinary) science, demonstrations and commercial biomass projects in all relenergy and chemical industries, civil society, policy and, key evant sectors. We hope this will be a fruitful environment for for the biobased economy, the agriculture and forestry secthe 24th EUBCE, also to foster to crucially important parttors is needed. Building this sustainable biobased economy nerships and collaboration. The Netherlands can offer a lot. takes decades and steady, gradual development of (biomass) But the Netherlands also has a lot to learn from the successes markets, infrastructure and technologies. Such a long term and achievements seen in other markets and countries. There perspective is essential to steadily push down costs and walk are notable examples, such as the Scandinavian and Austrian down the learning curves that are very much there to exploit. Biobased economy programs, Brazil, the US, in Asis. Let’s learn from successes and progress, reported at the conference, This remains true for the unchanged important advanced let’s push innovation, let’s collaborate between sectors and biofuel technologies (e.g. based on lignocellulosic feedstakeholders, let’s push for the required policy frameworks, stocks) that require commercial scale-up in the near future let’s focus on solving problems and accelerating implementawith large scale production facilities to achieve the lower tion. And do the research to make that possible. production costs and favorable environmental performance The EUBCE 2016 takes place at an important moment in they can deliver. Demand from the aviation sector and (maritime: the Climate Treaty from Paris leaves no room for furtime) shipping has become an additional driver for this cruther delays. We need to deliver. Let’s keep that in mind while cial development. we all enjoy an excellent and inspiring event that brings the best and brightest of the biobased community together.
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BIO-BASED ENERGY AND MATERIALS IN THE NETHERLANDS Kees Kwant, Netherlands Enterprise Agency
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n the Netherlands the new focus is on Green Growth, to safeguard the revenue-earning capacity of future generations, while mitigating harmful impacts on the environment and reducing our dependence on scarce commodities. Green initiatives can drive growth by harnessing the innovation power effectively and address global challenges in global markets. This requires smart market incentives, a facilitating regulatory environment, innovation, greening investments and international collaboration.
The Energy Report of the Ministry of Economic Affairs[1] was published in January 2016 and proposes a low carbon economy by 2050, where steering on CO2 reduction is crucial in all energy markets: heating in industry and housing, transport and power. Biomass as a resource for materials and energy fits well in this approach and its application is growing gradually in the Netherlands. It adds to European developments where in April 2016 the bioeconomy stakeholders assembled in Utrecht adopted the Bioeconomy Manifesto[2]. This Manifesto formulates challenges and actions for biobased R&D and implementation in Europe.
The number of bio-based companies is growing exponentially
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The Ministry of Economic Affairs is investing to promote a bio-based economy in The Netherlands, including in communication activities. In this picture, a snapshot of a video documentary published last April, available at https://goo.gl/XEfHaR. - editor's note
bio-based economy
A biobased Economy Policy
The bio-based economy is an economy in which plastics, transport fuels, electricity, heat, and all kinds of everyday products are made from renewable raw materials (instead of fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal or natural gas). Economic Added Value
Billion €
Materials sector
2 - 2.4
Chemical sector
0.4
Biofuel sector
0.1
Energy sector
0.1
Total
2.6 - 3.0
Table 1: Added value by sector in the Netherlands
The biobased economy exists already and the added value of the biobased economy in the Netherlands has been estimated at €2.6 tot €3.0 billion in 2011 including materials, chemicals and energy sectors[3]. The Dutch government has been closely involved in promoting the bio-based economy for approximately 10 years, with a national agency (RVO) implementing its bioeconomy policies. In January 2016 the Dutch government has presented its Strategic Biomass Vision for the Netherlands towards 2030[4]. In order to satisfy Dutch biomass demand for food, animal feed, energy, transport, chemicals and materials, adequate sustainable biomass could become available, provided that successful efforts are made to increase biomass supply and pursue optimal biomass use. The government will also continue to press for the sustainability of production and application of biomass. The contribution towards the Dutch policy objectives and economic growth can be increased by promoting innovative developments and the use of biochemistry and biomaterials through a comprehensive focus on CO2-reduction.
Biomass production
The Netherlands has two million hectares of agricultural land. Agriculture in the Netherlands is related to crop production (0,5 Mha), dairy and livestock production (1,2 Mha) and horticulture(0,1 Mha). As the Netherlands possess extensive waterways and a large network of dams and dikes, irrigation is easy and has resulted in very fertile soils. The Netherlands is a global leader in the breeding of new plant varieties. The Dutch production per hectare is the highest in Europe. Nevertheless import of renewable resources is required to meet all demand[5]. Biomass for energy is available locally from forests, agricultural residues or wastes from municipalities and industries. Local use and production of heat from biomass is getting more attention and is often part of the local sustainability goals of municipalities and provinces. Bioenergy is increasingly becoming part of the circular economy approach, where valorization of biomass in the biobased economy is key and the production of energy is integrated in the overall concept (biorefinery approach). In order to reach the 2020 targets for renewable energy, the application of biomass has to double over the next years.
Energy from biomass
Biomass is currently already being used on a large scale in the energy sector. This development is being driven by the European objective of 14% renewable energy in 2020 and the raised objective for 2023 of 16% in the Dutch Energy Agreement. In 2013 this Energy Agreement[6] was established by different stakeholders (NGO’s, government, industry) to agree on a pathway to realize the 14% Renewable Energy target in 2020 and 16% in 2023. Important pillars of this agreement are doubling the energy efficiency, increased solar and wind energy (10 times more) and also doubling the share of bioenergy. For co-firing of biomass in coal-fired power plants a cap of 25 PJ of only sustainable biomass has been agreed. As a consequence the Netherlands has developed an advanced sustainability scheme for the use of wood pellets for heat production and co-firing in coal fired power plants[7]. The SDE+ [Incentive Scheme for Sustainable Energy Production] is an operating grant (feed-in-tariff); producers receive a subsidy for the production of renewable energy. The SDE+ compensates for the difference between the cost price of grey energy and that of renewable energy, over a period of 5, 8, 12 or 15 years, depending on the relevant technology. It supports renewable heat and power[8]. The budget is made available in auctions where the lowest bidder is awarded a 8 – 15 year contract first. The SDE+ is financed through a levy on the energy bill of both households, and industry. A budget for contracting of € 8 billion is made available in 2016.
Biofuels
In the transport sector, the use of renewable energy is achieved by requiring fuel suppliers to blend fuels with biofuels. In 2016, the mandatory share of renewable energy in transport amounted to 6%. This share will continue to expand in the next years[9]. The largest part of this mandatory share is delivered from advanced, double counting biofuels. DSM and POET have started the production of second-generation ethanol[10]. Furthermore, a consortium called “BioPort Holland” including KLM, Schiphol, Port of Rotterdam, Neste Oil and SkyNRG is developing a sustainable supply chain for biofuels for aviation[11].
Realisation
All bioenergy options contribute to the realization of the 14% target in 2020, as seen in figure 1. Up till about 130 biogas plants (with 13 with upgrading to biomethane), bioCHP, and bioheating systems have been implemented and contribute to the RE achievement of 5, 5 % Renewable energy in 2014.
Bio-based chemicals and materials from biorefineries
The processing of crops and upgrading of residues within the agricultural sector is increasingly improving. Various consortia are analyzing the protein-rich residues to see if the protein can be harvested as a raw material for human food. They are also trying to find out if enzymes can be extracted that can be used in the chemical industry. Agricultural biorefinery examples are: Grassa, HarvestaGG, Newfoss and Cosun[12] .
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The substitution of fossil resources with biomass is an important development in the chemical sector. The chemical industry has set a target of replacing 15% of fossil resources in chemicals by 2030. Global players such as DSM, Sabic and AkzoNobel are based in the Netherlands and are actively involved in the development and production of bio-based chemicals. For instance, DSM produces bio-based building blocks (Reverdia, a joint venture with Roquette for the production of succinic acid), bio-based polymers and resins and bioethanol (joint venture with POET). Other companies that produce bio-based building blocks for chemicals and polymers are CRODA, Nuplex Resins, and PURAC. An interesting newcomer is Avantium, which has a Figure 1 shows the development of bioenergy production since 2005 to pilot plant in Geleen for the production of bio- 5,5% from various sources in the Netherlands (1990-2014). based FDCA, a chemical building block for the production of terephthalic acid, often used Research and development in the production of PET. For this development, Avantium The Ministry of Economic Affairs has always promoted has entered into partnerships with Coca-Cola, Danone, and the cooperation in the “golden triangle”: the business world, BASF. Producers of bio-based plastics and composites are knowledge institutes, and the government. In doing so, the Synbra (foams), NPSP, Rodenburg Biopolymers, among ministry facilitates two platforms focused on generating other manufacturers. new bio-based business cases: the Biorenewables Business
Dorset Drying Equipment Marketleader in digestate processing
Platform and the Agri-Paper-Chemical Platform. Through so-called ‘green deals’ (agreements between the government and the business world), the government supports the implementation of the bio-based economy by removing bottlenecks. These bottlenecks often reside in the area of laws and regulations, the joint creation of pilots for sustainable procurement or the creation of room for experiments. The Netherlands encourages knowledge development and innovation through the policy on top sectors. Nine top sectors have been specified: agriculture and food, chemical, energy, life sciences and health, horticulture and seed stock, logistics, high-tech systems and materials, creative industry, and headquarters. Bio-based economy has been designated as the common theme with its own programme and a Knowledge & Innovation Top Consortium (TKI-BBE)[15]. The TKI-BBE operates within the Topsector Chemistry and Topsector Energy [14]. Support instruments provided up to €120 million in 2013 for research and development[2]. Bioenergy (biogas/anaerobic digestion, combustion and gasification) is the dominant sector profiting from this support, while bioplastics and other biomaterials are emerging application fields. Total regional investments amount to some €1.5 bilion, two thirds of which is allocated to bioenergy[16].
Drying machines for - Digestate - Manure - Wood - Sludge - Biomass
www.dorset.nu
12 Turn-key solutions for low temperature drying Be using waste heat from the CHP cooler.
In 2015 a new Research Agenda (2015 - 2027) for the Biobased Economy was produced by the TKI-BBE . The programme areas are: i) thermal conversion from biomass; ii) chemical catalytic conversion technologies; iii) biotechnological conversion technologies and iv) solar capturing (and biomass production). This new programme will lay the foundations for the continuation of a sound implementation of the BioBased Economy in the Netherlands. References available at: http://tinyurl.com/jgsw78l
bio-based economy
EIGHT DUTCH EXAMPLES OF BIO-BASED INDUSTRIES Avantium is a leading player in the field of renewable chemistry, the expertise backed by a strong portfolio of patents, patent applications and extensive knowledge on chemical synthesis, catalytic processes and product applications. AVANTIUM YXY is a ground breaking technology for a biobased future. The chemical catalysis biorefinery produces furan based biofuels, monomers for polymers, fine and specialty chemicals, solid fuels from cellulose, hemi-cellulose, starch and sucrose as feedstocks. www.avantium.com
The chemical based company is involved in the conversion of residual plant oils to biobased polymers, coatings, chemicals and personal care products. The process of oleo chemical bio refining is adopted to produce green chemical intermediates for polymers. www.crodaoleochemicals.com
The small scale, mobile bio refineries produce high-value sustainable protein (feed) and fibre based products (board) from grasses and protein-rich agro residues (beet leafs).The pilot plant has the capacity to produce 1-5 tonnes of fresh materials per hour. www.grassa.nl
The company is involved in the valorisation of cultivated grass, grass juice and press cake. Mobile press has been developed to press grass on the harvesting location to obtain the required dry matter content. Also, small-scale green bio refineries have been developed and utilised. www.harvestagg.nl
Under the company’s pilot project COSUN, the whole beet plant is valorised, i.e.: the beet, the leafs and the carrots to produce food, feed, chemicals, materials and energy. Production of about 75,000 ha beet (22-25 tonnes d.m. per ha/ year) into sugars and animal feed is carried out. www.cosun.com
PURAC is involved in the production of lactic acid from the paper industry residues. The company has developed a fermentation process in which the low quality cellulose can be converted into lactic acid. Therefore, paper sludge acts as a source for bio-plastics. www.purac.com
Nuplex is a global chemical company specialising in coating resins with operations located across Europe, Asia, Australia and New Zealand and North America. A team dedicated to resins and supported by a global R&D network and production capability, an experience which brings together a range of skills and experience that see the customers benefit from dedication to resins. www.nuplex.com
NewFoss aims to upgrade the organic waste and to reduce the life cycle. To achieve this the company develops and operates NewFoss machining processes and techniques aiming at the highest possible environmental and economic returns. Small scale green refineries and mild extraction technology have been developed and patented. www.newfoss.com
Reverdia is a joint venture agreement signed between the two companies Royal DSM N.V and Roquette Frères with the aim of production, commercialization and market development of Biosuccinium, sustainable succinic acid. In October 2014, the company announced that it is now also licensing Biosuccinium™. This is a clear advantage for companies who want to integrate bio-succinic acid production into their business offering, enabling competitive bio-based materials. www.reverdia.com
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THE UNTAPPED POTENTIAL OF SUSTAINABLE BIOFUELS Jeffrey Skeer, International Renewable Energy Agency
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ustainable biofuels are integral to a successful strategy for sustainable development. As part of the Sustainable Energy for All (SE4All) initiative, IRENA has modeled ways to double the use of renewable energy by 2030. Roughly half of the most cost-effective renewable potential is from biomass – for cooking and heating, industrial process heat, electrical power, and liquid transport fuels. Ideally, biomass use should nearly double, and modern biomass use more than triple, in the next fifteen years. Yet expansion of bioenergy has faced at least three significant challenges. First, food and fuel supply have often been seen as being in conflict. Second, expanded biofuel production has been seen as leading to land use change that reduces sequestration of carbon. Third, as alternative energy sources have developed, petroleum prices have plummeted, making it harder for liquid biofuels to compete. But there are several ways to boost both food and fuel production without using additional land, as detailed in a new IRENA study on Boosting Biofuels: Sustainable Paths to Greater Energy Security. These include more systematic collection of agricultural residues, more intensive cultivation of croplands, better management of pasturelands, and reduced waste and losses in the food chain. There is also potential to grow more food and fuel crops by reclaiming and replanting degraded forest land. And three quarters of the projected bioenergy needs are for power and heating applications, where oil plays a relatively limited role in energy supply so that low oil prices are not a major impediment.
Boosting bioenergy through sustainable intensification of agriculture
As food production expands to meet the nutritional needs of growing populations, there is also increased production of agricultural residues. If sustainable shares of these residues were fully collected while allowing for residues that are fed to animals for meat and dairy production, substantial amounts would be left over. These could provide fuel for combined heat and power plants, process heat for firstgeneration biofuel production, or lignocellulosic feedstock for second-generation biofuel processes. Using 25 to 50% of harvest residue and 90% of processing residue, enough advanced biofuel could be produced for a third of all current transport, or all of today’s aviation, shipping and trucking needs. Accelerating yield growth through modern agricultural practices, it should also be possible to grow the same amount of food on less land. The freed up land could be planted with a mix of rapidly growing trees (short rotation coppice) for combined heat and power or second-generation biofuel, high-yielding conventional biofuel crops such as sugar cane, and grasses for lignocellulosic conversion.The Food and Agricultural Organization, FAO, projects that global average yield for major food crops will rise from 4.2 t/ha in 2010 to 5.1 t/ha in 2050. But the potential yield is 10.4 t/ha for maize, a leading biofuel feedstock today, actual yield is close to the potential maximum in Europe, but less than 70% even in the rich corn belt of the United States. It is less than 40% in most of Latin America and former Soviet Union, and less than 25% of potential yield in most of Africa and India.
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REmap Projections of Modern Biomass Needs
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If the yield gap were closed, less than half as much land would be needed for food, leaving some 550 M ha for biofuel crops. Beyond the 1.5 billion hectares of land that is used today to grow food, 1.4 billion hectares of prime and good pasture land is available. About 86% of the world’s food and feed is grown on 58% of the crop land, another 11% on the rest of the crop land, and less than 3% on the pasture land. So what if the pasture land were used more intensively? FAO projects that 70 million hectares of pasture may be converted to cropYield Gap: Illustrated by Maize. Ratio of Actual to Potential Yield for Maize (Year 2000 land. Another 380 M ha might be Source: Global Agro-Ecological Zones needed for livestock, assuming the and developing regions each have lowest losses for differ3.8 billion tons of grass now grazed by animals were proent food types. IRENA’s analysis indicates that if regional duced through systematic farming of grasses at typical yields best practice were achieved everywhere, overall food waste of 10 ton per hectare. This would leave 950 million hectares could be reduced by half, and 300 M ha could be freed up for free for production of bioenergy crops. bioenergy crops. Several courses of action could help to raise agricultural yields, which is key to raising supplies of residues and to A variety of policies and measures could help to reduce freeing land for bioenergy crops. Capacity building and exfood losses and waste. In developing countries, improved tension services could be expanded to spread modern farmharvesting techniques, storage, refrigeration, preservation ing techniques in developing countries. Best practices on and packaging can reduce food spoilage, while expanded logistical approaches for cost-effective harvesting of farm transportation infrastructure can bring more food to market and forest residues could be compiled and disseminated. while it remains fresh and saleable. In this context, renewAgroforestry strategies for investing in cultivation of a mix able cooling systems and food drying may be of particular of high-yielding food and fuel crops could be developed interest to rural communities. Extension services and capacfrom successful experiences with stakeholders in different ity building could help improve harvesting techniques, local regions. Secure land tenure and effective land governance, health regulations could require better packaging, and develin countries that do not have them, are essential to providing opment assistance could help build better infrastructure. In the financial incentives for long-term investment in intendeveloped countries, waste can be reduced by differentiating sive, sustainable land management. prices to encourage sale of food items that are not perfect in shape or appearance, modifying labels so that “best-before”
Boosting bioenergy by reducing food waste
The FAO has found that onethird of food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted globally, some 1.3 billion tonnes each year. If less food were wasted, less would need to be grown, so more land would be available for bioenergy crops. In fact, different regions are best in reducing waste at different stages of the food chain. In consuming food, the least is wasted in Sub-Saharan Africa. Production losses are best controlled byindustrialised Asia. Handling and storage losses are lowest in North America. In processing and distribution, industrialised
Pastureland Available Globally for Biofuel Crops
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dates do not encourage consumers to discard food prematurely, and raising awareness of possible uses for safe food that is thrown away. Regulations to allow the sale of lower quality food items that meet health guidelines, engagement by food distributors and retailers to make food labels more informative, and advertising to change consumers’ attitudes can all play helpful roles.
The Promise of afforestation
Further potential biomass could become available through afforestation or reforestation efforts. The Bonn Challenge calls for 150 M ha of degraded and deforested land to be restored by 2020, and the New York Declaration calls for another 200 M ha by 2030. Efforts might focus on the 394 M ha of land around the globe that has been degraded by soil erosion or other factors and is not in use as farmland, pastureland, or forest. If such land were planted with rapidly growing tree species like poplar or willow in temperate climates and acacia or eucalyptus in tropical climates, the land could be converted to a productive managed forest. Afforestation would sequester substantial carbon during rapid wood growth prior to harvest, and it would permanently sequester substantial amounts of carbon in the soil.
The sustainable bioenergy potential
In all, a theoretical potential exists for over two billion hectares of land to become available for growing solid biomass. Assuming a yield 10 t/ha and 15 GJ/t (so 150 GJ of energy per ha), this would equate to over 300 EJ of biomass, which could be converted at 40 to 80% efficiency to 120 to 240 EJ of energy end-use. That is up to double the amount of energy which is currently used for transport fuel. In recognition of such potential, the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group has called for countries to promote the cost-effective uptake of sustainable bioenergy feedstocks by conducting cost assessments, expanding use of sustainability indicators, and developing innovative biomass applications. In view of the great uncertainties about current and future land use, crop yields, and evolving costs of biofuel conversion, it is hard to know what portion of the potential might be harnessed. But we can take steps to see that sustainable bioenergy production expands as much as possible. We can spread best practices for boosting food and fuel production through higher yields. We can foster sustainable use of forests and plant degraded forests with a mix of rapidly growing trees and grasses that produce fuel while sequestering carbon. We can develop advanced technologies to produce biofuels at lower cost. We can act so that biofuels and carbon sequestration, food production and development, advance hand in hand. 16 Be
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A VISION FOR 1 BILLION DRY TONNES1 LIGNOCELLULOSIC BIOMASS BY 2030 IN EUROPE Calliope Panoutsou, Imperial College London and Dirk Carrez, Clever Consult
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ioeconomy in Europe is not new, it already accounts for more than 2 trillion € annual turnover and almost 20 million jobs. These numbers include food production and agriculture.The current market share for bio-based products in EU28 is already significant and it is growing fast. Consumer awareness and product availability is increasing in European markets, and innovations will be brought faster to market via initiatives such as the “Bio-based Industries Initiative Joint Undertaking2 ”, a new public-private partnership between the EU and the industry. The bio-based products market demand in the EU is expected to double by 20303. One of the challenges to attract future investments in biobased economy in Europe is mobilising indigenous biomass feedstocks in a sustainable and resource efficient manner4 and preparing for the transition to advanced technologies using lignocellulosic feedstocks. S2Biom is a European funded project aiming to improve evidence on the availability, cost supply, technologies and framework conditions (sustainability, policy, financing) for lignocellulosic non-food biomass in Europe5 by 2030.Within the project framework, a Vision statement for an expanded role of sustainable non-food biomass supply and delivery in the European bio-based economy, will be prepared. The information presented in the consultation is based on a meta-analysis of an inventory of 350 studies covering a period of the last ten years (2005- 2015) and internal consultations with the project partners. The presented “Vision aggregate numbers” have been narrowed down (for consistency and harmonised approach reasons) to Biomass Energy Europe (BEE)6, Biomass Futures7, Biomass Policies8, Wasted9, EUBIONET10 I, II, III, Bioboost11, BIOTIC12 and recent work in the Energy Community13.
The Vision will be further informed by the consultation process, interviews with research, market, industrial and policy stakeholders and the S2Biom data. The final version will be released in August 2016.
Why a Vision for lignocellulosic biomass in 2030?
Biomass is important for energy, fuels, bio-based products and materials. Investors seek stability and consistency in policy formation but this implies also a clear picture for a resource efficient and sustainable biomass supply. The future market uptake relies strongly on developing common understanding for the whole system and applying common metrics across sectors.
Current lignocellulosic biomass use across biobased sectors in Europe The current consumption14 of wood from European forests is estimated to be 530 million tonnes (out of which 485 million tonnes in EU28 and the rest in Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine) per year. An estimated 261 million tonnes (245 million tonnes in EU28) of wood used as a "classical" bio-based material primarily used in the woodworking and pulp and paper industry. 269 million tonnes (with 240 million tonnes in EU28) of wood are used for production of energy (mainly heat and power). The annual consumption of agriculture based lignocellulosic biomass is estimated at 5-10 million tonnes (dry) but information relies on individual studies without recent harmonisation across EU. Estimates of annual wastes (municipal waste, mix of lignocellulosic and non lignocellulosic material) use for energy reach up to 73 million tonnes15.
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Sustainable lignocellulosic non-food biomass potential to 2030
Analysis of recently published studies of biomass assessments in the period 2020-2030 shows that there is significant potential in Europe. These studies identify four sources that could provide additional biomass and support growth of bio-based industries. A range of estimates for EU and Energy Community (Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova) is available for four major sources of biomass that could support further growth of the bio-based industries as compared to the current status i.e. field agricultural residues, forest biomass, wastes and land available for non-food crops. A first source of biomass relates to different types of agricultural residues that are currently underutilized. Estimates range from 186 Million tonnes to 252 Million tonnes in the 2030 timeframe. The lower estimates put strong restrictions on collection of agricultural residues, e.g. for reasons related to protection of soil fertility, etc. A second source of biomass relates to additional biomass from sustainable forestry. Estimates range from 615 Million tonnes to 728 Million tonnes in the 2030 timeframe. Compared to an estimated current use of 530 Mio tonnes, it is estimated that EU forests could sustainably supply between 85 and 198 Mio tonnes of additional woody biomass by 2030. A third source of biomass relates to wastes (the lignocellulosic fraction after recovery and recycling; including paper waste, wood fraction of Municipal Solid Waste, cellulosic material in the form of unused food and garden waste, etc.), mainly deriving from households and businesses with previous estimates in the range of 110-150 million tonnes peryear in EU for 2030.
Figure 1: One billion tonne supply by 2030
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A fourth major source of biomass relates to dedicated production of industrial crops on released agricultural land. Europe has unused land: some of this land is in this condition because of its inherent characteristics (difficult access, location, soil composition, climate), while other parts have once been profitable as farm land and are now abandoned as a result of overexploitation, pollution, climate change and/or exodus from rural areas. Working towards defining the potential of cropped biomass in such types of land is a key issue for short to medium term research. Estimates for the EU in 2030 are in the range of 84 to 180 million tonnes of biomass while the respective figures for Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine add another 54- 62 Million tonnes. So, in total the estimates for the production of industrial crops in EU28 & Energy Community are totalling a range of 138- 242 million tonnes. The overall figures for all four categories are in the range of 1,049 – 1,372 million tonnes of biomass which can be technically available within Europe by 2030 under sustainable practices. A consolidated picture then emerges, indicating that in addition to current uses of biomass there are two potential ranges: •
•
Low range: some 176 Million tonnes of agricultural residues + 85 Million tonnes of forest material + 37 Million tonnes of wastes+ 144 Million tonnes of biomass from industrial crops could serve as sustainable feedstock for new bio-based industries. This represents a total "additional biomass potential" of 436 Million tonnes. High range: some 242 Million tonnes of agricultural residues + 198 Million tonnes of forest material + 77 Million tonnes of wastes+ 242 Million tonnes of biomass from industrial crops could serve as sustainable feedstock for new bio-based industries. This represents a total "additional biomass potential" of 759 Million tonnes.
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Expected projections for market growth of biobased products
The current market share for bio-based products in EU28 is already significant and it is growing fast. Consumer awareness and product availability is increasing, and brand owners show growing interest. Industry has expressed expectations for substantially higher market share from 2020 and beyond.
"In 2013 in EU28, almost 10% of the
raw materials base for the European chemical industries was based on renewables,
Figure 2: Current state and expected market shares by 2020 and 2030 for bio-based markets in Europe
The respective market in the Energy Community Contracting Parties is highly focused on bioenergy (mainly heat and a few CHP/ DH plants) while the development of bio-based markets is still quite slow. In 2013 in EU28, almost 10% (8 out of 79 million tonnes) of the raw materials base for the European chemical industries was based on renewables, with sugar and starch having the higher share (1.56 million tonnes), followed by plant oils (1.26 million tonnes), bioethanol ETBE (1 million tonnes), natural rubber (1.06 million tonnes), pure bioethanol (0.46 million tonnes), animal fats (0.43 million tonnes), glycerine (0.41 million tonnes) and several other smaller categories. According to the FAO statistics17, the value of agricultural production in the region of Western Balkans reached 11.8 billion USD in 2012, and production of roundwood - the most important forestry product in the region - increased to 21 million mÂł. Overall volume of the bio-based economy markets in the region of Western Balkans is not easy to estimate, mostly due to the absence of national bioeconomy strategies, comprehensive studies or sufficient statistical data.
Activities related to advanced bio-plastics, bio-lubricants, biocomposites, and bio-chemicals are rare, occurring mainly in the area of EU financed research and scientific programmes. Traditional biobased materials (wood products) play an important role in the use of biomass resources. The annual consumption of biomass for wood products was 0.99 million m3 in 2013. Bioenergy is important in the region which covered 7.7% in Croatia, 12.2% in Serbia and 24.1% in Montenegro of total final energy consumption in 2013, using biomass18. Expressed in figures, total consumption of woody biomass on the Western Balkans was 32.1 million m3 in 2013, out of which 23.2 million m3 or 72.4% was used for energy purposes and 8.8 million m3 was used for industrial purposes. The main characteristic of woody biomass consumption in the form of firewood in all the countries in the region is the high inefficiency of firewood utilization which is manifested in large amounts of wood consumed for heating purposes compared to the size of the heated area.
References available at: http://tinyurl.com/jgsw78l
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A TOOOLKIT FOR THE EUROPEAN BIOECONOMY S2Biom has developed a toolset to support the delivery of sustainable supply of non-food biomass for a “resource-efficient� Bio-economy in Europe Ilze Dzene and Rainer Janssen, WIP-Renewable Energies; Berien Elbersen, DLO-ALTERRA; Ludger Wenzelides, FNR; Calliope Panoutsou, Imperial College London
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ransition towards the bio-economy and increasing resource efficiency are an important part of the European policy agenda. Research work in the last years has been focused on evaluation of biomass availability and supply, driven by the demand in the bioenergy and biofuels sectors. However, the evolving bio-based economy covers a wider range of markets and end products. Therefore it is important to examine synergies, conflicts and interdependencies among the different feedstocks. Moreover, there is a need for coherent indicators to evaluate quantity, quality and cost associated with the production of feedstock. This gap has been addressed by the EU FP7 funded project S2Biom. The project aims to support sustainable delivery of non-food ligno-cellulosic biomass feedstock at local, regional and pan-European level (EU28, Western Balkans, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine) through developing strategies and roadmaps, supported by a computerized and easy to use toolset. The S2Biom toolset provides an easy access to a systematic, visually attractive and spatially related data. The toolset consists of 3 tools: The Biomass & technology matching tool guides the user to the optimal match between biomass resources and conversion technologies. Each conversion technology has specific biomass input requirements, while the composition and characteristics of biomass varies widely. Some biomass types can be used in many different technology options, while others are hard to process or need extensive pre-treatment.
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The matching tool uses extensive information from the S2Biom databases to show the user which types of biomass can be processed by which technologies to certain end-products, and thereby helps the user to find an optimal supply chain. BeWhere tool supports the development of EU-wide and national strategies to develop an optimal network of biomass delivery chains. As output a network of existing and suggestions for new biomass conversion chains is provided. The suggestions are based on optimal selection of technologies, their location and capacity, the costs of each segment of the supply chain, the total bio-energy and biomaterial demand, and avoided emissions at different geographical levels (regional, national and European level). LocaGIStics (Local Assessment tool for design and loGistics of biomass delivery chains) supports the user to design optimal biomass delivery chains, particularly taking into account different logistical organisations of the chain at regional level and analysing the spatial implications and the environmental and economic performance. It considers biomass cost-supply, the conversion and pre-treatment technology options and novel logistical concepts of biomass hubs and yards. In relation to environmental impacts it takes into account the indicators and guidelines for assessing the overall sustainability performance for bioeconomy value chains. LocaGistics provides support for refining the BeWhere solution while reaching optimal economic and environmental performance per installation and full biomass delivery chain.
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The tools developed in S2Biom are made available through a general user interface which can be accessed at http://s2biom.alterra.wur.nl/. Tools are being validated on several case studies all over the Europe. The toolset will be demonstrated during the S2Biom workshop “Delivery of sustainable supply of non-food biomass to support a “resource-efficient” Bioeconomy in Europe” organised in the frame of the 24th European Biomass Conference and Exhibition in Amsterdam, 9 June 2016 (9:0015:30).
For more information visit S2Biom project web-site
www.S2Biom.eu
Other S2Biom presentations at EUBCE 2016 4CP.1.2
C. Panoutsou
Vision for 1 Billion Tonnes Lignocellulosic Biomass in Europe by 2030
4CO.14.1
L. Wenzelides
S2Biom Project: Evidence based Information for the Sustainable Non-food Biomass Supply for the Biobased Economy by 2030 in Europe
4CO.14.4
T. Lammens
A Tool for Optimizing the Match between Lignocellulosic Biomass and Conversion Technologies
4BO.13.2
U. R. Fritsche
Approach to Evaluating Sustainability of Lignocellulosic Biomass Delivery Pathways within the S2BIOM Project
1BO.9.3
B. Annevelink
S2Biom Survey of Logistical Concepts
5AO.9.5
H. Mozaffarian
Lignocellulosic Biomass as Feedstock for Energy, Fuels, Biobased Chemicals and Materials In Europe; An Integrated Assessment on Using Biomass Resources Among Different Demand Sectors
1BV.4.36
M. Dees
A Data Base on Current and Future Sustainable Cost-Supply of Lignocellulosic Biomass in EU, Western-Balkan Neighbour Countries, Turkey and Ukraine - Challenges, Methods, Uncertainties, Results
S2Biom is co-funded by the European Commission in the 7thFramework Programme (Project No. FP7-608622). It is coordinated by FNR (FachagenturNachwachsendeRohstoffee.V.), and the consortium includes 31 partners from EU28, western Balkans, Ukraine and Turkey. The sole responsibility of this publication lies with the authors. The European Union is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein
Dutch Pavilion
12 Dutch Small and Medium sized Enterprises present themselves together with the booth n°31 - 32 Agency (RVO.nl) at the Netherlands Enterprise Holland Pavilion.
biomass research
The companies show their activities in the biomass industry which vary from research, design, construction, production to advisory. The pavilion is a platform for networking and other activities. During lunchtime we organise debates on several topics. Monday: Biomass and the society: Rebuilding trust Tuesday: Biomass applications: Battle of the Resources Thursday: Biomass solutions: The promise of technological progress Visit us at the Pavilion or join our lunch debates!
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OPPORTUNITIES AND RISKS FOR SUSTAINABLE BIOMASS EXPORT FROM THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES Kevin Fingerman, International Institute for Sustainability Analysis and Strategy, Humboldt State University Gert-Jan Nabuurs, Alterra, Wageningen University
The chip yard of the Enviva pellet mill in Southampton Virginia. Photo credit: Gert-Jan Nabuurs.
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ombustion of woody biomass for energy in the EU comprises almost half of total EU Renewable energy use and has grown by almost 50% since 2004, driven in large part by mandates under the Renewable Energy Directive. While significant energy diversity and climate benefits can be realized through displacing fossil energy use with biomass, without careful control over biomass sourcing, this shift also presents the potential for detrimental environmental outcomes. This risk is especially acute for biomass imported from outside the EU, where the establishment and enforcement of sustainable forest management practices is largely beyond the regulatory reach of EU member states. Of the burgeoning biomass imports to the EU, the majority originates in the Southeastern United States, which increased its exports of solid biomass to the EU 28 by 800% between 2009 and 20141. Recognizing the opportunities and risks presented by this growing trade flow, our recent report2 seeks to project the amount of material that could be available from this region through 2030 if sustainability criteria wereimposed upon its sourcing. This report is part of the larger BioTrade2020+ initiative, a multisectoral effort funded by the European Commission, and providing evidence-based insights for the development of a sustainable European bioenergy trade strategy. 22 Be
Our analysis begins with county-level projections of what we have called technical potential – the total biomass resource base expected to be available without consideration for sustainability or infrastructure development.We consider material types including pulplogs, mill residues, and logging and thinning residues, but exclude biomass derived from deforestation and illegal cutting on protected lands. Forestry residue harvesting is limited to a maximum of 67% to avoid damage to soil fertility, biodiversity and water resources. These projections are derived from a combination of US Forest Service timber product output data and results from the Subregional Timber Supply Model3. Domestic demand is modeled from US Forest Service projections to estimate the exportable resource base.
Figure 1: Historical and projected future total biomass availability in the US Southeast under Business as Usual (BAU) and High Trade (HT) scenarios
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In order to ensure sustainable biomass sourcing, these technical potentials must be constrained based on key environmental criteria. Among environmental impacts associated with bioenergy systems, the European Commission has indicated particular concern for life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity conservation. From a greenhouse gas perspective, most life cycle assessment studies show gains from displacing EU grid electricity with bioelectricity from US pellets4. It should be noted that most of these studies consider combustion of biomass fuels to be carbon neutral – an approach that has been controversial in some circles. We have made the same assumption for our analysis, as it seeks to inform policy at the European Commission, which favours this analytical approach. This leaves biodiversity conservation as the primary practical barrier to sustainable biomass supply from the study region. To evaluate the sustainable potential available for export, we apply three layers of spatial constraints to the technical potentials to protect areas and habitat types of high biodiversity value. These are: 1. Protected areas, areas identified as having special conservation significance, private lands covered by conservation easements, or areas classified as wetlands or other water bodies5.
"We project a maximum sustainable
biomass potential for export from the US Southeast ofabout 65million green Tonnes per year in 2030.
2. Other set-aside areas of special biodiversity concerns as per the rarity-weighted species richness index6. 3. A partial set aside based on forest types of the US Southeast. In particular, the exclusion of gum-cypress, and a 10% exclusion of oak-pine forest types. The three spatial constraints mentioned above overlap to a significant extent, but each also covers areas that are not otherwise excluded. By applying these three sustainability masks, we determined the fraction of each county’s forested area to be excluded from production to ensure sustainability. We project a maximum sustainable biomass potential for export from the US Southeast of about 65 million green Tonnes per year in 2030. This is the overall scale of the resource, unconstrained by pelletization or supply chain capacity, and would be subject to competition with other import markets. The biomass conservation scheme considered here is ambitious, and if applied across all forestry activities would leave very little remaining scope for export in some scenarios. However, these estimates are drawn from actual harvest projections, which in most cases are significantly lower than the total net annual increment of biomass growth in the forest. This means that there is often some additional biomass that could be harvested if demand were sufficient. Critically, these sustainable potentials assume that all biomass harvesting in the US southeast region is confined to those areas deemed to meet the biodiversity conservation criteria considered here and should therefore be viewed asconservative estimates of availability. Any sustainability criteria the EC (or EU member countries) could impose on the use of biomass would only apply to material actually used in member states. While the approach discussed here presents our best estimate as to the amount of material that could be exported from the US Southeast while ensuring sustainable forest practices, it does not reflect this limitation of global environmental governance. A much more likely framework would constrain sourcing in the region only for the bioenergy feedstock material destined for use in the EU. This approach creates the risk of leakage, wherein the products of unsustainable activities are simply shifted from the export biomass market into other sectors rather than being prevented altogether. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank their collaborators on the research effort that is the focus of this article: Leire Iriarte, Uwe R. Fritsche, Berien Elbersen, Igor Staritsky, Lotte Visser, Thuy Mai-Moulin and Martin Junginger.
Figure 2: The fraction of each county's forest area that remains available for wood production after biodiversity conservation constraints are applied spatially. Note: theseresults are derived from a regional-scalestudy, and should not be considered applicable for county-level analysis or planning, where a higher degree of local nuance is warranted.
www.biotrade2020plus.eu References available at: http://tinyurl.com/jgsw78l
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JRC SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF ADVANCED BIOENERGY TECHNOLOGIES David BAXTER, Luisa MARELLI, European Commission, DG JRC, Institute for Energy and Transport
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ioenergy dominated energy supply until the start of the industrial revolution and even after fossil fuels took over the leading roles underpinning growing industrial economies, biomass has remained the leading contributor to the renewable energy mix in the EU. Approximately two-thirds of Europe's renewable energy is derived from biomass and the contribution to total energy consumption is expected to grow over the coming decades. However, it makes no sense to use biomass unless environmental sustainability and economical viability are achieved. The role of the European Commission Joint Research Centre is to provide scientific and technical support to all stages of political policy development, implementation and monitoring and has been engaged in the processes for biomass utilisation for almost a decade. Most of the expected growth of biomass utilisation will depend on the application of new technologies for both bio-
energy and biofuels production. In terms of bioenergy, this includes both small and large-scale systems for high efficiency biomass conversion. In order to limit the impacts of fuel production on land availability for food, biofuels from food-based feedstocks is now limited to 7% of the total energy consumption for all forms of transport [ref (EU) 2015/1513]. This means that any substantial increase in renewable fuels use in transport must come from non-food biomass as defined in the indirect land-use directive (Annex IX of (EU) 2015/1513). In essence, the feedstocks for these advanced fuels include wastes, agricultural residues, cultivated algae, food waste, animal fats and renewable fuels of non-biological origin. Most fuels will be indeed represented by advanced biofuels, whereas there are numerous options for other renewable fuels, for example gaseous and liquid fuels produced using renewable electricity to give hydrogen (H2) by electrolysis of water, and reacting the hydrogen with carbon dioxide (CO2) to form a hydrocarbon or alcohol ("power to gas" or "power to liquid"). Power to gas production of methane has already been tested at small scale in Europe using electricity from surplus wind power generation and CO2 from biogas upgrading. The JRC has carried out a number of studies on production and of the various environmental, economic and policy impacts of biofuels in the EU. A detailed overview requested by the European Parliament covered all aspects of biofuels production and consumption policies worldwide and included a discussion on the key aspects affecting the overall sustainability of biofuels [European Parliament, 2015]. This report complements in many ways the long-running Well-to-Wheels (WTW) study in which the JRC works in close collaboration with the EUCAR (European Council for Automotive R&D) and CONCAWE (Conservation of Clean Air and Water in Europe) to provide assessments of the well-to-wheels energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of existing and potential future fuel and powertrain options. The latest WTW report [Edwards et al., 2014] contains representative fuel production and utilisation pathways in order to bring out the key messages concerning future fuel production pathways and vehicle drivetrain technology options. During the discussion phase for the so-called indirect land use change (ILUC) directive, (EU) 2015/1513, the
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technology
JRC carried out scientific studies on ILUC and subsequently published papers that estimated indirect land use change based on historical data [Overmars et al., 2015] and asked the question whether biofuels emissions reduction come at the expense of food production [Searchinger et al., 2015]. In 2009, when the 10% renewable fuels target was set for the EU in 2020, almost all renewable energy in transport at the time was derived from first generation biofuels made from food crops. Not surprisingly, the amount of energy necessary to cultivate, process, pack and bring the food to European citizens’ tables is very significant and accounts for 17 % of the EU's gross energy consumption, equivalent to about 26 % of the EU's final energy consumption in 2013. Challenges and solutions for decreasing energy consumption and increasing the use of renewable energy in the European food sector have been presented and discussed [Monforti et al., 2015A]. Given the large amount of food produced, there are of course residues, the amount of which have been estimated, taking into account the need to preserve soil type, farming practices, cultivation history and local climate [Monforti et al., 2015B]. Biomass supply is a critical issue for all bioenergy production and so an analysis of the biomass demand for reaching the 2020 targets was carried out, with account being taken of the expected domestic EU supply and eventual biomass potential [Scarlat et al., 2015]. The JEC (JRC + EUCAR + CONCAWE) carried its first study on potentials for fuels from renewable sources in 2011 and followed this up with an assessment of scenarios applicable to the EU transport sector in 2014 (Hamje et al., 2014). As the focus shifted from food feedstocks for biofuel production, studies on a range of non-food feedstocks were undertaken. One particular study addressed the potential of algae for bioenergy [Rocca et al., 2015]. The algae study describes the current-status of technology options for the potential exploitation of algae in the biofuels and bioenergy sectors, through a comprehensive review of recent advances in research and industrial demonstration. The main assumptions for algae production and modelling of life cycle impacts are considered and include interpretations of the energy and GHG emissions balances. Aviation fuels are a key challenge, given the tight technical specifications. Nevertheless, biofuels are already being used in aviation on regular routes by some carriers. The potential for future growth of aviation in Europe, estimating fuel demand, sustainability and the deployment of biofuels in the aviation sector in Europe have been assessed [Kousoulidou and Lonza, 2016]. Investigations on the distribution of air transport traffic and CO2 emissions within the European Union have also been addressed [Alonso et al., 2014]. The JRC has also carried out an exploratory study on alternative fuels for marine and inland waterways transport [Moirangthem and Baxter, 2016].
sion to define a number of solid and gaseous bioenergy pathways and to determine typical and default values for GHG savings in line with the methodology in the RED [Giuntoli et al., 2015A]. Detailed studies on specific pathways have also been undertaken. These include one on wood pellets made from forest logging residues for domestic heating [Giuntoli et al., 2015B] and the economics and GHG emissions of biogas to electricity using dairy farm manure and sorghum [Agostini et al., 2016]. The methodology of life cycle assessment has also be evaluated in a paper that uses Attributional Life Cycle Assessment (A-LCA) to look at how climate change mitigation potential could be achieved using an example of three bioenergy power plants fuelled by residual biomass (forest residues, cereal straws and cattle slurry) [Giuntoli et al., 2016]. Finally, biomass is the vital primary feedstock of a bioeconomy. A report has been published which projects a reference scenario and compares it with two distinct policy narratives (‘Outward-looking’ and ‘Inward-looking’) to understand the drivers of a developing EU bioeconomy up to 2030, and to assess its resilience to fulfil diverse policy goals and to identify potential trade-offs [Philippides et al., 2016]. Planning for developing an ever lower carbon economy in the EU for 2030 and beyond is well under way. The key objectives for 2030 have been defined, and within the European Commission the Strategic Energy Technologies Plan (SET Plan) has been tasked with paving the way for an Integrated Roadmap: Research and Innovation Challenges and Needs of the EU Energy System. References available at: http://tinyurl.com/jgsw78l
anaero technology
State of the art digestion & fermentation equipment and research www.anaero.co.uk
@anaerotech
Auto-fed digesters and biomethane potential (BMP) equipment to meet the new research challenges of AD •
•
Auto-fed research digesters in standard or bespoke sets (from individual digesters to banks of 24). Biomethane potential sets with PLC controller for up to 8 sets (8x15 reactors). Soon, Raspberry Pi-based monitoring.
As well as supplying equipment our R&D lab in Cambridge is available for collaborative research.
A scheme for the sustainability of biomass utilisation for bioenergy other than biofuels was one of the first tasks following adoption of the renewables directive (the RED) in 2009. A wide-ranging study was carried out for the CommisUnit 5 Ronald Rolph Court. Cambridge CB5 8PX. United Kingdom rashmi.patil@anaero.co.uk , edgar.blanco@anaero.co.uk
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EU SUPPORT FOR BIOENERGY DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS UNDER THE NER 300 AND BESTF ERANET PROGRAMME Andreas Uihlein, European Commission, Joint Research Centre
The NER 300 programme
The NER 300 programme, managed by the European Commission, is one of the largest funding programmes for innovative low-carbon energy demonstration projects. One of the main novelties of the programme is the origin of the funds, steering money from polluters to investment on innovative low carbon energy technologies development. 300 million emission allowances set aside for the third phase of the EU emission trading system (ETS) were sold in two rounds of 200 and 100 million to cover the first and second call for proposals, respectively. The programme aims to successfully demonstrate environmentally safe carbon capture and storage (CCS) and innovative renewable energy (RES) technologies on a commercial scale with a view to scaling up production of low-carbon technologies in the EU. Consequently, it supports a wide range of CCS and RES technologies (bioenergy, concentrated solar power, photovoltaics, geothermal, wind, ocean, and smart grids). The funding structure of the NER 300 programme focuses on the innovative nature of the projects. In total, about EUR 2.1 billion have been awarded to 38 projects (see Figure 1) through the programme's 2 calls for proposals (the first awarded in December 2012, the second in July 2014). The projects will be developed across 19 EU countries. NER 300 will also leverage a considerable amount of private investment (approximately 2.7 billion euros of private investments) and/or national co-funding across the EU. Creation of jobs in those technologies within the EU will be stimulated.
Figure 1 Projects per Member State and energy technology category.
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Role of bioenergy projects for the programme Bioenergy is the most important technology category of the programme with 13 projects from 11 countries being funded. They have been awarded about 0.9 bn EUR as indicated in Table 1. The project subcategory defines the innovativeness of the technological area.Two bioenergy projects have already entered into operation (the Italian BEST and the German Verbiostraw project). Knowledge sharing Knowledge sharing requirements are built into the legal basis of the programme as a critical tool to lower risks in bridging the transition to large-scale production of lowcarbon energy. Projects have to submit annually to the European Commission relevant knowledge gained during that year in the implementation of their project. The relevant knowledge is aggregated and disseminated by the European Commission, to provide a better understanding of the practical challenges that arise in the important step of scaling up technologies and operating them at commercial scale. The knowledge sharing of the NER 300 programme will lead to better planning and faster introduction of low carbon technologies in the future. Currently two Bioenergy projects have entered into operation: •
BEST project –demonstration plant in Crescentino (Italy) for second generation bioethanol production The Crescentino plant is the first in the world that has been designed and built to produce bioethanol from agricultural by-products or biomass not suitable for food consumption. The BEST project focuses on second generation bioethanol process and to build at demonstration scale innovative and sustainable biotechnologic conversion of lignocellulosic biomass into ethanol on a 51 million litres per year plant. The plant has entered into operation in 2013 • Verbiostraw - demonstration facility at Schwedt/Oder (Germany) for the production of biomethane from 100% straw The project is a key step in the commercial-scale demonstration of advanced biogas technology. The plant has a capacity of 16.5 megawatt and, once fully operational, will deliver 136 gigawatt hours per year of biogas and use some 40,000 tonnes of straw annually. It uses agricultural residues only and, as a result, does not require farmland to be used to grow energy crops. The biogas is conditioned to the same quality as natural gas and is feeded into the natural gas network.The plant has entered into operation in 2014.
technology
Subcategory
Country
Project acronym
Max. funding in mEUR, rounded
LV
CHP Biomass pyrolysis
3.9
EE
Fast pyrolysis
6.9
BIOa
Lignocellulose to intermediate solid, liquid or slurry bioenergy carriers via pyrolysis with capacity 40 kt/y of the final product.
BIOb
Lignocellulose to intermediate solid, liquid or slurry bioenergy carriers via torrefaction with capacity 40 kt/y of the final product.
EE
TORR
25
BIOc
Lignocellulose to Synthetic Natural Gas or synthesis gas and/ or to power via gasification with capacity 40 million normal cubic metres per year (MNm 3 /y) of the final product or 100 GWh/y of electricity.
SE
Gobigas phase 2
58.8
NL
Woodspirit
199
BIOd
Lignocellulose to biofuels or bioliquids and/or to power including via directly heated gasification with capacity 15 million litres per year (Ml/y) of the final product or 100 GWh/y of electricity. Production of Synthetic Natural Gas is excluded under this subcategory.
SE
BIO2G
203.7
FR
UPM Stracel BTL
170
FI
Ajos
88.5
IT
BEST
28.4
PL
CEG Plant Goswinowice
30.9
DK
MET
39.3
DE
Verbiostraw
22.2
ES
W2B
29.2
BIOe
BIOg
BIOh
Lignocellulosic raw material, such as black liquor and/or products from pyrolysis or torrefaction, via entrained flow gasification to any biofuels with capacity 40 Ml/y of the final product.
Lignocellulose to ethanol and higher alcohols via chemical and biological processes with capacity 40 Ml/y of the final product.
Lignocellulose and/or household waste to biogas, biofuels or bioliquids via chemical and biological processes with capacity 6 MNm 3 /y of Methane or 10 Ml/y of the final product.
Table 1 Overview of bioenergy projects that have been awarded funding by subcategory
The BESTF ERANET programme
In July 2012, an ERA-NET+ activity was launched entitled Bioenergy Sustaining the Future (BESTF).Afirst BESTF call was launched in January 2013. This activity aims to provide funding and support to collaborative bioenergy projects that demonstrate one or more innovative steps resulting in demonstration at a pre-commercial stage. In March 2014, it was announced that 3 projects will be funded by ERA-NET+ BESTF to demonstrate innovative technology for EIBI values chains. All 3 projects have commencedin 2014. BESTF2 selected six projects for funding, five of which were issued with grants and four of which are on-going to 2018. In addition, BESTF3 is now closed for applications with results expected later in 2016. BioProGReSS – Sweden, Germany This project will demonstrate a novel technology to simplify gas clean-up following biomass gasification. Chemical looping reforming will be used to reform the tars and the olefins directly after the gasifier.Partners: GöteborgEnergi AB, Chalmers University of Technology, TU Berlin, Renewable Energy Technology International AB (Renewtec).
BioSNG – Germany, UK The project will demonstrate the production of grid quality BioSNG via gasification in a once-through process, without recycle, a minimum number of reactor vessels, at modest pressure and temperature, and with a high rate of heat recuperation. Partners are Advanced Plasma Power Limited, National Grid PLC, Progressive Energy Ltd, SchmackCarbotech GmbH. Parallel event on EU support for bioenergy demonstration projects: current state and developments During EUBCE 2016, the NER 300 projects will be presented during a parallel event: “EU support for bioenergy demonstration projects: current state and developments. The event will also showcase experiences from other bioenergy demonstration projects such as the BioProGReSS and BioSNG projects funded through the BESTF ERANET programme under the frame of the European Industrial Bioenergy Initiative (EIBI).
KANE – Denmark, Finland This project aimed to demonstrate microbial oil production from lignocellulosic sugars from straw for production of high quality dropin biofuels, renewable diesel and jet fuel.Partners: DONG Energy Thermal Power A/S, Neste Oil Oyj. Unfortunately, the process of converting lignocellulosic sugars to microbial oil proved to be less cost effective than anticipated, and the project was put on hold in the autumn of 2014. 27 Be
INNOVATION OUTLOOK FOR ADVANCED LIQUID BIOFUELS Francisco Boshell, Maria Ayuso and Jeffrey Skeer, International Renewable Energy Agency
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iofuels have a vital role to play in completing the global transition to sustainable, renewable energy. Together with electric vehicles and an increasingly renewable power mix, they can help us move away from petroleum use in passenger transport. They also provide the only practical alternative to fossil fuel for airplanes, ships and heavy freight trucks. Advanced biofuels, using lignocellulosic feedstocks, waste and algae, can vastly expand the range of resources for fuelling light and heavy transport alike. Such advanced biofuels can be refined from agricultural residues (associated with food crops), forest residues (as sawdust from lumber production), rapidly growing grasses (like switchgrass and miscanthus), and short rotation tree species (as poplar and eucalyptus). Residues do not compete with food or lumber production but grow along with it. High-yielding grasses and trees can grow more energy per unit of land area than conventional biofuel crops, avoiding land use change and leaving more land for food crops. IRENA’s forthcoming report Renewable Energy Innovation Outlook: Advanced Liquid Biofuels provides a comprehensive view of advanced biofuel potential and innovation opportunities that could contribute to materialise it. The potential is large, but so are the challenges. A competitive advanced biofuels industry will rely upon innovative technology and supply chains, market development and policy support.
Practical and economic potential
Figure 1. Current and projected fossil fuel and biofuel production costs (IRENA, 2016).
A wide range of feedstocks can be used to produce advanced liquid biofuels, implying a large production potential with different feedstocks presenting different opportunities. In cities, solid municipal waste may be most attractive since it is cheap and readily available and has few competing nonenergy uses. In rural areas, agricultural residues have a large potential but also face competing uses such as for animal feed. In countries with substantial pulp and paper industries, forest residues are easy to access and low in cost but also sell into an established and growing market for heat and electricity generation. Dedicated lignocellulosic energy crops have a large future potential if more land is made available for a mix of food and fuel, for example through higher food crop yields and more efficient use of pastureland for livestock. For most advanced biofuel production pathways, feedstock costs are the greatest contributor to production costs. The feedstock cost share is currently 40 to 70 % and should grow over time as capital costs decline with technology development making conversion cheaper and more efficient. It is therefore extremely important to establish the practicality and efficiency of feedstock supply chains at scale.
Production costs breakdown in %
IRENA’s innovation outlook indicates that by 2045, advanced biofuels would likely cost between US$0.60 and $1.10 per litre to produce. At oil prices below $80 per barrel, it would then be difficult for advanced biofuels production to compete with fossil based gasoline and diesel. But 100 at oil prices above $100, most advanced biofuels 90 should be able to compete effectively. To ensure 80 70 that advanced biofuel plants continue to be built 60 50 and their costs continue to decline, bridging poli40 cies and business models will be needed along with 30 20 technology innovation. Since different advanced 10 0 biofuel pathways typically reduce greenhouse gas 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 2015 2030 2045 emissions by 60% to 95% compared to the fossil FT synthesis Pyrolysis oil Methanol to Algae FAME Aqueous phase Mixed alcohol Syngas Lignocellulosic upgrading gasoline reforming synthesis fermentation fermentation fuel reference value in the EC Renewable Energy Diesel / Gasoline substitutes Alcohols Directive, pricing carbon in fuel markets would Capital costs Feed-stock costs O&M costs promote the deployment of an advanced biofuel Figure 2. Declining capital cost shares in advanced biofuels production industry. 28 Be
(IRENA, 2016).
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Technology Pathways, Innovation Opportunities
Many technologies can convert lignocellulosic feedstocks into liquid transport fuels: •
•
•
Lignocellulosic ethanol plants using agricultural residues or energy crops have reached an early commercial phase. In October 2015, DuPont opened the largest such plant in the world with a capacity of 114 million litres per year. Plants using woody biomass are still at an early stage of demonstration. Fermentation of ethanol from municipal solid waste is still under development. Gasification can use a variety feedstocks, with later conversion to a variety of fuels. For gasification with catalytic synthesis, many demonstration projects have used forestry residues, but a first commercial plant is using municipal solid waste. Enerkem Alberta began producing methanol in 2015 and plans to mix this with ethanol from 2017 using municipal solid waste from the city of Edmonton, with a capacity of 38 million litres per year. Gasification followed by syngas fermentation to ethanol is being demonstrated at nearcommercial scale using garden waste. Fast Pyrolysis and upgrading can use a mix of feedstocks which may vary over time. Agricultural residues, wood residues and wastes are being used in pilot and demonstration plants. Ensyn has converted its plant in Renfrew, Ontario to produce around 12 million litres of biofuel per year through fast pyrolysis, and is developing further fast pyrolysis plants in Brazil and Malaysia.
TRL
1-3
4
Advanced biofuel conversion pathways are at different stages of technological maturity. Opportunities for innovation exist across the entire spectrum. For all advanced biofuel pathways, significant improvements will come from process integration. For gasification and pyrolysis pathways, energy integration is vital. • Hydrolysis and fermentation could be greatly reduced in cost by integrating the two steps to reduce enzyme loading, modifying fermentation organisms, and applying membrane separation. At the ButaNext project, Green Biologics is scaling up its fermentation process and integrating the in-situ removal of butanol with a membrane separation process developed by VITO. • Pyrolysis has high efficiency and potentially low processing costs with decentralised production, but more effective catalytic upgrading processes are needed. Petrobras and Ensyn have demonstrated the co-cracking of refinery-ready pyrolysis oil in a fluid catalytic cracking process. • Gasification needs to prove reliable long-term operation in view of feedstock contaminants. Alter-NRG is working on enhanced pre-treatment and ash removal using plasma gasification or plasma torches. Process optimisation is also needed to achieve target syngas composition. • Fischer-Tropsch processes need to be proven at commercial scale. Modular units, such as Velocys is developing, may enable reactors to operate at smaller scales to match local feedstock supplies. • Alcohol (ethanol and methanol) fermentation fromsyngas could benefit from modification of fermentation organisms to improve tolerance to contaminants, raise yields and boost selectivity.
5
Research
Prototype
6
7
Demonstration
8
9
Ready for Commercialization
Lignocellulosic butanol Aerobic fermentation
Lignocellulosic ethanol
Aqueous phase reforming Pyrolysis oil + upgrading Hydrothermal upgrading Sugar to diesel
Syngas fermentation Gasif + Fischer-Tropsch Gasif + mixed alcohols
Alcohol to hydrocarbons
Gasif + methanol
Figure 3. Commercialisation status of various advanced biofuel conversion technologies
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Growing Needs, Slowing Deployment
Transport accounts for about a third of the world’s energy use, half of its oil consumption and a fifth of its greenhouse gas emissions. There will be around 2 billion vehicles on the road by 2020. Aviation alone causes nearly 3% of global carbon emissions, and the share is likely to grow. Against this background, further development of sustainable, renewable biofuel options iscrucial. IRENA’s REmap analysis of cost-effective ways to double the global share of renewables by 2030 shows that advanced biofuel consumption should grow over a hundred-fold in a 15-year period. However, investments have stagnated over the last years due to lower oil price expectations and a perceived weakening of policy support.
Supporting Commercialisation
Speeding up deployment of advanced liquid biofuels will require a range of policy support related to energy markets, technology development, and enterprise formation.
Technology Development: For technology pathways deemed promising, some kind of investment support for early plants is essential to get to the cost-competitive nth plant. First of a kind commercial-scale pilot plants are crucial to progress in advanced biofuels technologies, as many issues arise with scale-up from laboratory conditions, such as feedstock impurities and logistical requirements and the need for offtake arrangements. But commercial-scale pilot plants have a high risk profile and will typically not get built if support is not in place. Grants to build prototypes and pilot plants are needed to promote testing and evaluation of technical concepts and claims. Loan guarantees and other risk-management tools, through which governments may reduce the credit risk to financial institutions of making loans for advanced biofuel projects, can be an efficient way to stimulate private debt funding for such projects. Market Formation: Policy incentives, targets or mandates are likely needed to address barriers such as volatility of oil prices, insufficient operational experience, immature supply chains and uncertain market size. Internalisation of carbon cost in the market would encourage production and conversion of lignocellulosic feedstocks. Public procurement initiatives can create biofuel demand for aviation, Figure 4. Declining Global Investment in Advanced marine shipping and trucking. Co-production of fuel and Conventional Biofuels (IRENA, 2016) additives, chemicals, plastics and cosmetics can make Demonstration and commercial plants at present add1 bilbiofuel production profitable. Ethanol may become a key lion litres per year of advanced biofuel production capacity, product as octane-booster, with auto manufacturers looking which would meet just 0.04% of the current liquid transport into 30% ethanol blends to provide the high octane required fuel demand, and plants planned or under construction would by super-efficient car engines. add another 2 billion litresper year of capacity. These include Enterprise Formation: Advanced biofuel projects can be plants producing ethanol, methanol, mixed alcohols, diesel stimulated by facilitating start-up of companies to make eqand jet fuel. Most are in Europe and North America. Clearuity investments. Strategic partnerships and joint ventures ly, the pace will have to pick up exponentially, and projects could allow companies to share expertise and financial risk. developed in a wider range of locations, if advanced liquid Effective business models can be documented and shared to biofuels are to realize their practical and economic potential help advanced biofuel markets expand. Potential for sociofor displacing fossil fuels. economic benefits can be highlighted to attract local support. The DuPont Nevada ethanol plant, for example, would benefit 500 local farmers with additional income as biomass suppliers and create close to 85 full-time 150 seasonal local jobs. There is clear political commitment to decarbonise the global economy. But this has yet to be transformed into action to promote clean and competitive energy alternatives for transport. Industry will remain cautious about making the large-scale investments required to scale up the advanced biofuels production until cost-effective technologies are available and an attractive market exists within which to operate. And without advanced biofuels, it will be hard to finish the battle to limit global climate change. Figure 5. Commercial and Demonstration Plants for Advanced Biofuels by Region. 30 Be
technology
DEMONSTRATION OF A NEW ULTRA-LOW EMISSION PELLET AND WOOD CHIP SMALL-SCALE BOILER Ingwald Obernberger, Christoph Mandl, BIOS BIOENERGIESYSTEME GmbH Jürgen Brandt, Windhager Zentralheizung Technik GmbH
S
mall-scale residential biomass combustion for space heating and warm water production holds a considerable share on the total energy production from biomass (about 40% in 2010 within the EU 27). Based on the objective to reach 27% renewable energy in the EU gross final energy consumption in 2030, it is expected that the market potential for small-scale biomass boilers and stoves will further increase within the next years. It is important that this substantial contribution to greenhouse gas emission mitigation is not accompanied by an increase of other relevant harmful pollutants, especially of particulate matter (PM). Even if there has been a steep further development of residential biomass combustion systems towards low emissions and high efficiencies during the last decades, still some disadvantages compared with emissions of fossil fuel fired systems exist. According to type tests performed with wood chip boilers at BLT, HBLFA Francisco Josephinum (Wieselburg, AT) for instance, carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were decreased from more than 10,000 mg/MJ in the 1980ies to less than 50 mg/MJ and at the same time the boiler efficiency could be increased from about 76% to about 92%. However, PM emissions still amount to levels of about 10 mg/MJ but the potentials for emission reduction in modern systems have already been almost fully exhausted. To utilise the potential of residential biomass heating systems for CO2 reduction and at the same time to improve ambient air quality, old appliances must be substituted by new ones and new ultra-low emission technologies shall be introduced. Thus, new and sustainable technologies for residential heating with high efficiencies and low emissions (with a special focus on dust) are required to meet this goal. A highlight regarding such new ultra-low emission systems was set with the recently released PuroWIN technology, which has been developed during the last 9 years by the Austrian companies BIOS BIOENERGIESYSTEME GmbH, a technology development and consulting company, and Windhager Zentralheizung Technik GmbH, an internationally well-known residential biomass boiler manufacturer. The outstanding performance of this new technology has been successfully demonstrated within the project EU-UltraLowDust,which has received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration.
Figure 1:Basic concept of the new ultra-low emission combustion technology
Figure 2: Design of the two-stage gas burner – optimisation of flue gas burnout at low NOx emissions and at low excess oxygen values
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The basic approach for ultra-low emission combustion
The beginning, the objective of BIOS and Windhager was focused on the development of the next generation of wood chip and pellet boilers which operate at almost zero CO, OGC (organic gaseous carbon) and PM emissions, significantly reduced NOx(nitrogen oxides) emissions and enhanced efficiencies. It was also a declared target to achieve this goal only by the application of primary measures, i.e. without the need for any filter. After intensive initial fundamental research on emission formation, especially on PM emission formation, it quickly became clear that this ambitious targets could not be achieved with a conventional combustion technology. Therefore, a completely new concept with regard to the residential biomass heating sector had to be developed. Several technological constraints to achieve the desired ultra-low emission operation have been defined. Fine PM emissions from residential biomass combustion consist of inorganic particles (mainly potassium-salts), organic particles and soot. To reduce the emissions of inorganic fine PM, the release of potassium (K) from the fuel to the gas phase must be decreased. Therefore, the temperatures in the fuel bed should be kept on a moderate level.This effect cannot be achieved with conventional wood chip and pellet combustion technologies and therefore, the reduction of the K-release was one central issue for the technology development. Organic PM and soot particles are products of an insufficient burnout and therefore the second main challenge for the technology to be developed was to gain an almost complete gas phase burnout. This automatically implies the target of almost zero CO and OGC emissions. Finally, also the gas velocities at fuel bed outlet should remain on a low level to keep the entrainment of unburned fuel, charcoal and ash particles at a minimum and thereby minimise coarse PM emissions. Moreover, the new combustion technology should show a good partial load operation capability and high efficiencies (low excess oxygen ratios) throughout full load, partial load and transient operation phases. BIOS carefully evaluated a number of feasible concepts and finally a concept based on an extremely staged fixed-bed combustion turned out to be the most promising approach. Extremely staged combustion in this case means, that the fuel bed is operated at very low air to fuel ratios and the gases released from the fuel are burned in a directly connected downstream multi-stage gas burner (see Figure 1).
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Technology development
In a next step,basic concepts for the fuel bed section and the gas burner were developed by BIOS. An in-house developed simulation code for fixed-bed biomass conversion to design the fuel bed section with respect to appropriate temperatureand gas flow distributions has been applied. Moreover, special emphasis was put on implementing theoretical considerations and lab-scale reactor test results regarding ash formation and K-behaviour in the dimensioning and design of the fuel bed section. The main aim was to realise a concept that leads to an almost complete embedding of K in the grate ash and thereby minimises inorganic fine PM emissions. Regarding the gas burner design and optimisation, BIOS applied CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) simulations. Here the aim was to find a burner configuration (geometry, number and orientation of combustion air injection points) which enables an almost complete burnout and therefore almost zero CO, OGC and organic PM emissions at very low excess air ratios (high efficiencies) (see Figure 2). To achieve an optimised mixing of the combustion air with the gases released from the fuel bed and appropriate temperature and residence time profiles are thereby the main challenges. Moreover, an in-house developed CFD model regarding NOx formation has been applied in order to optimise the burner geometry and air staging strategies regarding Low-NOx operation. Based on the concepts developed, Windhager designed and manufactured a prototype of the new wood chip and pellet boiler technology. Within extensive test stand tests the prototype has been further developed and optimised stepwisely. The experimental work was thereby strongly supported and accelerated by simulations(simulations of fuel bed conversion as well as gas phase CFD simulations) performed by BIOS.
Figure 3:Cross section of the new ultra-low emission technology (so-called PuroWIN technology)
technology
Performance of the new ultra-low emission combustion technology In 2013 the main development phase could successfully be completed. Within test stand tests it was proven that the new technology can work at almost zero dust, CO and OGC emissions and also achieves remarkable reductions in NOx emissions compared with the state-of-the-art. Next, technology demonstration within the mentioned FP7-project EU-UltraLowDust was initiated. Within this project, field tests over two heating seasons at three different testing sites have been performed. The promising results from test stand measurements could be reproduced in real-life operation and robust long-term operation could be achieved. After successful completion of the demonstration phase, a revision of the technology design took place to make it ready for the market (see Figure 3). In 2015 the first model with a nominal boiler capacity of 30 kW successfully passed type testing. For both, operation with wood chips and operation with pellets it could be confirmed, that the new ultra-low
emission combustion technology (namedPuroWIN) reachestotal dust emissions of about 1 mg/MJ, CO emissions of about 4 mg/MJ, OGC emissions below the detection limits of the analyser applied and NOx emissions in the range of 55 mg/ MJ. Moreover, a boiler efficiency of 93 to 94% was achieved. Consequently, for the first time in residential biomass combustion, an almost zero CO, OGC and dust emission technology is now available. The comparison of the type testing results with the presently best available technologies and with a base case scenario considering the current stock of residential wood chip and pellet boilers in Europe (see Figure 4) confirms that with the PuroWIN technology a new milestone in ultra-low emission residential biomass combustion could be achieved, which reduces dust emissions by more than a factor of 10 and NOx emissions by about 50%.The history of the PuroWIN technology development also underlines that a smart combination of fundamental research and advanced process modelling with experimental R&D form relevant cornerstones for a target oriented successful development of new and revolutionary concepts for biomass conversion processes.
• Biomass heating plants (from 300 kW up to 30.000 kW)
• Cogeneration - Electricity out of biomass (from 200 kWel up to 20.000 kWel)
Figure 4: Efficiencies and emissions of the PuroWIN technology in comparison to state-of-the-art systemsExplanations: NOx calculated as NO2; efficiencies and emissions related to net caloric value (NCV); values according to type testing (DIN EN 303-5) of TÜV SÜD Germany
• District heating plants Polytechnik Luft-und Feuerungstechnik GmbH, 2564 Weissenbach (Austria), Hainfelderstr. 69 - 71 Tel: 0043/2672/890-0, Fax 0043/2672/890-13 E-Mail: office@polytechnik.at, www.polytechnik.com
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A MODERN TECHNOLOGY FOR A TRADITIONAL BUSINESS The global charcoal market is growing but traditional production systems are inefficient. RE-Cord Consortium has developed an innovative and efficient small scale plant with low emissions. Bioentech startup was founded to market this technology. Andrea Salimbeni, European Biomass Industry Association Renato Nistri, Bioentech David Chiaramonti, Renewable Energy Consortium for Research and Demonstration
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ecently, the European and the International governments have been dedicating large efforts to find a common pathway to reduce GHG emissions and to foster a sustainable valorisation of the present alternative renewable resources. Among the wide range of renewable energy sources, biomass represents the only carbon based material that can replace fossil fuels in all industry sectors, from energy to chemicals and liquid fuels .
Fig. 1 The 50 Kg/h carbonizer
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One of the relevant sectors responsible for the exploitation of the global woody biomass resources is the market of charcoal. Wood carbonisation is a common practice, adopted everywhere at different scales. Its main role is to upgrade biomass into a high quality carbonaceous product, comparable with anthracite for its composition, heating value and density. This makes it applicable for different industrial uses which are currently dominated by mineral coal.
technology
The global charcoal market
The continuous growth of charcoal demand made this a very rich and attractive market. FAO statistics estimate that the global production of charcoal in 2014 was more than 50 million tonnes.
Fig. 2 – Global production of charcoal. Source FAOSTAT
Africa is the continent with the world’s largest production, accounting for over 56% of the total production. On the other side, the European charcoal consumption amounts to about 1.3 Million tons/year, whereas the internal production doesn't exceed 520,000 tons. During the last decades, the charcoal industry of western countries has seen the development of a wide range of technologies, aimed at improving biomass conversion efficiency, creating better working conditions and competing with low quality production rates of old kilns used worldwide. However, these technologies are not yet completely adopted, and low cost carbonisation technologies like earth kilns, brick kilns are mostly used by world charcoal production country leaders. For this reason, there is an actual risk of deforestation and a substantial economic unsustainable framework, which characterise wood charcoal trading worldwide. Unfortunately, unlike the wood pellets market which are strictly regulated and hardly debated, policy makers pay little attention to the ways in which charcoal is produced and sold. It is also ensured that the wood used for charcoal burning is harvested in a sustainable way. Without any coherent policies, almost all charcoal production, transportation, and distribution remain informal and unregulated. This leads to inefficient and risky production methods. A strong effort is required to avoid deforestation and to save the economy of less developed countries. A first step towards this target is represented by the introduction of efficient charcoal production processes. Just to give an idea of the environmental benefit related to a high efficiency process, Europe’s annual charcoal import is about 1 million tons. Considering that most of this charcoal is produced abroad with old earth and brick kilns, about 6.5 million tons of woody biomass would still be needed to cover the demand, at about 15% efficiency (w.b.). By introducing a technology with better efficiency and 22% charcoal yield, only 4,5 million tons of fresh biomass woud be necessary to produce the same amount of charcoal, thus saving 2 million tons of forestry biomass.
A new modern attractive carbonisation unit
In 2014, Re-Cord consortium developed and built a new advanced carbonisation plant able to efficiently produce a high quality charcoal, which has been demonstrated to be competitive at small-scale level. The current 50 kg/h pilot plant is already operating in a a facility located in Scarperia, Tuscany. The carbonisation plant works in slow oxidative pyrolysis conditions. It possesses an open top reactor and is able to process woodchips in continuous mode. The solid retention time is about 2 hours and the total process duration (including hopper and screw conveyor, up to the unloading of charcoal) is around 5 hours. Unlike most of the retort reactors currently in operation, the open top oxidative pyrolysis has demonstrated to offer a more effective heat exchange and an easy monitoring. A high process temperature (up to 690° C) is achievable due to the partial combustion of the biomass inside the reactor.This allows to obtain a high quality charcoal. In addition, the continuous process reduces the needed manpower and increases the charcoal production rate of the plant. One of the most innovative aspects of this plant is represented by recycling of the pyrolysis gases. The ejector placed at the end of the gas line creates a depression which facilitates the outlet of the gases. The produced gases present a lower calorific value. Therefore, they are re-usable as an energy source and represent a very attractive added value both for the environmental sustainability and economic feasibility of the plant. Considering both the energy content of the pyrolysis gases and the chemical energy of the produced charcoal, the global energy conversion efficiency of the plant can reach up to 90%,, with a total loss of only 10%. Another important aspect to be considered is the 24% charcoal yield (dry basis) measured during the tests on the pilot unit, which is a very 4,3%
9,2%
Thermal power for carbonization process ratio Chemical power ratio in cold charcoal output Thermal power loss ratio due to sensible heat in charcoal
43,8% 42,0%
Chemical power ratio in cold gas Thermal power ratio of sensible heat in gas
0,7%
Fig. 3– Energy balance of the RE-Cord charcoal plant
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Batch of charcoal produced by the carbonizer plant.
promising value, in line with the most advanced charcoal production technologies. Regarding the charcoal produced, a large amount of tests have been conducted on the pilot plant in order to evaluate the quality and assess the potential market application of the product. The laboratory tests showed a very high charcoal quality, comparable with anthracite, which makes it suitable for a wide range of market applications, including barbecue, metallurgy and soil conditioning.
Benefits and market prospects
In 2014, Bioentech s.r.l., a startup company, was founded to market this technology. Lamp charcoal used for barbecue is the targeted market and the productive capacity of the plant is in line with the demand volume. This technology has several benefits compared to the tradional systems: • •
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the plant is self-sufficient; the reactor is open-top, thus intrinsically safe towards
risks of explosion, and simplified compared to a full air-tight unit; • pyrolysis liquids/tars are never condensed in the system ,they are instead burnt together with the permanent gases, to generate process heat to be made available to the user (such as wood-log drying, which increases the market value of wood logs); • Adequate combustion temperatures of the vapour/gas stream ensure low emission and environmental compatibility; • the charcoal plant can be downscaled easily to adapt to the needs and the typical size of small forestry companies. Experimental tests and market analysis have been carried out with scope to determine the economic competitiveness of a carbonisation unit, scaled up to 250kg/h. An economic assessment study has been provided considering a 250kg/h for the combined production of top quality charcoal and renewable thermal energy. There is an extra economic benefit by selling the heat extracted from the pyrolysis gases. Therefore, the payback time (of about 3 years) is sustainable even without the incentives. Infact, it becomes shorter with the contribution of white certificates. The process of open top oxidative pyrolysis offers benefits such as effective heat exchange, easy monitoring, reduction in manpower and increase in the charcoal production rate of the plant. Also, the results obtained clearly indicate that the process can be competitive at small scales. Therefore, it is far superior when compared to most of the retort reactors currently in operation. One of the most important innovations provided by this technology is the possibility for biomass valorisation strategies at the local level. In fact, the creation of a local biomass supply chain aimed to feed a small size carbonisation plant could increase the biomass resources exploitation efficiency and introduce additional benefits to the local circular economy of rural areas. The applications of this carbonization plant can be both in the agricultural as well as in the forestry sector: charcoal making is an opportunity for companies working in these sectors, to diversify the sources of income and create new stable business opportunities other than the typical decentralized power generation. From a technical-economic point of view, the investment cost appropriate to the typical investment-capacity of EU small-medium scale forest farms, while competing bioenergy systems (such as biomass gasification for Combined Heat and Power generation at the similar scale) are not affordable for the potential customers requiring 2-2.5 times more capital expenditure (and thus equity contribution) than this innovative carbonization technology. In summary, it can be stated that, the combination of all these promising results offers a clear overview of the market penetration potentials of A BIOMASS BASED FUTURE this technology.
BioenTech
Quality Param.
Moisture %
Volatiles%
Ashes 710°C %
Fix. C %
LHV MJ/kg
H % (db)
Surface Area m2/g
Value
1,6
8,9
3,8
87,3
32,0
1,9
125,0
Tab. 1 – Quality parameters of the charcoal produced by the Re-Cord pilot plant.
Sewerin BioControl 2 Automated process optimisation for biogas installations. BioControl is the ideal system for the continuous automatic measurement and monitoring of the composition of biogas: simple, safe and efficient.
EURO-INDEX exhibits at EUBCE RAI Amsterdam 6 - 9 June 2016.
VISIT US AT
EUBCE 2016 6 - 9 JUNE | BOOTH 27
BIOMASS ENERGY SOLUTIONS 1 - 100 MW
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THERMO-CATALYTIC REFORMING TCR ®-PROCESS SCALE UP FROM LAB TO PILOT TO INDUSTRIAL SCALE
Dr. Robert Daschner, Nils Jäger,, Fraunhofer UMSICHT, Germany Prof. Dr. Andreas Hornung, Fraunhofer UMSICHT, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany; University of Birmingham, UK; Università di Bologna, Italy
S
everal biomass conversion technologies have been developed including biochemical and thermochemical processes. Pyrolysis is a very promising thermochemical technology to convert solid biomass into liquid, gaseous, and solid products which can be used as fuel substitute, despite various limitations in a wide range of technological approaches.1 Pyrolysis of woody biomass for fuel applications has been studied extensively in the past 25 years, and is still a current topic for research. In this respect, the emphasis in the last years has shifted considerably from studies which focused on the feasibility of the pyrolytic conversion of woody biomass2 towards a focus on the maximized oil yield,3,4 and more recently to processes for product upgrading5,6. This article describes a new technology for a sustainable utilisation pathway of biomass residues generating high quality storable energy carriers, like synthesis gas, bio-oil, and high calorific carbonisate. Fraunhofer UMSICHT has developed the Thermo-Catalytic Reforming (TCR®) process which is based on an intermediate pyrolysis1 process with an integrated reforming step.
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TCR® Technology
The technology is based on the intermediate pyrolysis and subsequent downstream post reforming of pyrolysis products into a hydrogen rich synthesis gas, a carbonisate with similar properties to anthracite coal, and a bio-oil with significantly improved liquid fuel fraction, physical properties, and chemical properties. The TCR® is able to process biomass with a high ash and moisture content and a low ash melting point. It can be applied for all kinds of residues with a higher heating value greater than 8 MJ/kg due to the economy of the process. The reforming step, which is achieved at elevated pyrolysis temperatures above 500 °C (Figure 1), optimizes the production of hydrogen in the synthesis gas and improves the bio-oil quality in the process.7 The Thermo-Catalytic Reforming TCR® process of bioresidues and wastes offers a spectrum of significantly higher quality products (Figure 2) compared to the other state of the art technologies. With the TCR® technology, hydrogen rich gas and storable high grade liquid fuels are produced from solid residue biomass, which can be directly used as a fuel substitute.
Figure 1.Schematic principle of Thermo-Catalytic Reforming process
technology
Product gas The dust-free product gas consists of up to 50 % by volume hydrogen when additional reforming is applied as well as carbon monoxide (10-15 %), carbon dioxide (20-25 %), methane (2-10 %), and a low proportion of higher hydrocarbons. The product gas can be used directly onsite in highlyefficient combined heat and power plants. The high hydrogen content opens up attractive routes for further processing. For example, Fraunhofer UMSICHT is working on projects in the field of fuel synthesis and the local production of green chemical preliminary products, such as methanol. Product oil The generated oil is a high-grade oil with a high heating value and a low total acid number (TAN) down to 1 mg KOH per g oil. Due to these properties, it can also be directly converted on-site by a combined heat and power plant. Additionally, with respect to the storage properties of the oil, the electricity production can be economically adapted to demand. Moreover, the high quality of the oil also opens up options for direct use as a sustainable fuel from biomass residues – without a synthesis step for the first time. A program to investigate the engine suitability of the oil is currently being carried out together with the University of Applied Sciences Amberg-Weiden. Furthermore, TCR®-oil can be successfully converted to high grade biofuel by means of HDO (hydrodeoxygenation) treatment as demonstrated in a previous study7. Carbonisate The produced carbonisate has very attractive properties. A nutrient-rich carbonisate is produced, which could be used as fertilizer. Depending on the mineral content of the feedstock, heating values up to 30 MJ/kg can be reached due to its high level of carbon content. Therefore, the carbonisates can also be used for energy generation, e.g. by gasification. The carbonisate is as stable as anthracitic coal and, therefore, stable against micro-organisms.
are storable and, therefore, can be used for balancing energy supply. The aim is to design and construct a commercial-scale TCR® plant based on the results from a lab-scale and demoscale TCR® plant. The main purpose was the up-scale of the process to industrial scale in continuous operation mode. Therefore, it was of great interest to transfer and demonstrate the high quality of the products (oil and gas) from a 2 kg/h batch unit to a 30 kg/h continuous-operating unit. The demonstration-plant was designed for a throughput of 30 kg/h and an electrical output of approx. 25 kW electrical power. The qualities of the TCR® products were the same for the TCR®-30 as for the TCR®-2 lab scale plant. Comparison of gas, oil and carbonisates analytics from TCR®-2 and TCR®-30 for the feedstock digestate The transfer of the results in terms of yield and quality of the products from laboratory (TCR®-2) to pilot (TCR®-30) scale was of extraordinary importance to demonstrate the general up-scale feasibility of the TCR® process. Investigations have demonstrated that the product composition of the gases produced from laboratory scale experiments and pilot scale experiments show almost no differences numerically. For the exemplary feedstock digestate the average composition of the gas phase from laboratory scale was determined as 33.5 % H2, 15.2 % CO, 23.0 % CO2, 8.3 % CH4, and 2 % CxHy. Compared to the results from pilot scale experiments (see Tab.1), the difference is negligible. Both gases have a HHV of around 15.8 MJ/m3 with densities of 0.97 kg/m3 (TCR®-2) and 0.98 kg/m3 (TCR®-30). TCR®-2
TCR®-30
[vol%]
33.5
35.7
CO
[vol%]
15.2
10.8
CO
[vol%]
23.0
26.4
CH4
[vol%]
8.3
7.3
C xH y
[vol%]
2.0
1.8
Density
[kg/m3]
0.97
0.98
HHV
[MJ/m3]
16.0
15.6
H2 2
Scale Up
The development of the TCR® technology started from a lab-scale (TCR®-2, 2 kg/h input) unit and was scaled up to demo-scale (TCR®-30, 30 kg/h input). As a next step, the technology was scaled-up to an 80 kg/h plant and, meanwhile, an industrial scale plant up to a 300 kg/h is in the design process. The plant can be used for power and heat production by combined heat and power application of the TCR® products oil and gas, e.g. on a dual-fuel engine. Additionally, the produced carbonisate can be used energetically or materially. Furthermore, the produced oil and carbonisate
Table 1.Properties of gas from digestate (*: calculated by difference)
Figure 2.TCR® feedstock and products (f.l.t.r.): pelletized digestate, bio-oil, synthesis gas and carbonisate
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The TCR®-oils generated were, in both cases, of high grade and low viscosity. The water content was found to be 3.9 % (TCR®-2) and 4.0 % for (TCR®-30); total acid numbers were in the range of 4.9 and 5.0 mg KOH per g oil. The higher heating values for the TCR®-2 oil was 35.6 MJ/kg which was similar to the HHV of the TCR®-30 oil which had a value of 35.7 MJ/kg. Results from ultimate analysis have shown almost identical numbers for both plants (see Tab. 2). TCR®-2
TCR®-30
C
[wt%]
75.8
76.6
H
[wt%]
7.4
7.7
N
[wt%]
6.0
5.4
S
[wt%]
1.9
1.2
Ash
[wt%]
<0.05
<0.05
O*
[wt%]
8.9
9.1
HHV
[MJ/kg]
35.6
35.7
HO
[wt%]
3.9
4.0
TAN
[mg KOH/g]
4.9
5.0
2
Table 2.Properties of oil from digestate (*: calculated by difference)
The carbonisates from laboratory and pilot scale experiments had a HHV of 17.5 MJ/kg (TCR®-2) and 17.8 MJ/kg (TCR®-30). The results from ultimate analysis have shown similar numbers (see Tab. 3). The difference in the oxygen is due to the fact, that the oxygen content is calculated by difference. As the carbonisates have a high ash content of almost 45 %, small variations in the determination of the ash content are directly influencing the calculated oxygen content. TCR®-2
TCR®-30
C
[wt%]
48.3
49.7
H
[wt%]
2.0
0.9
N
[wt%]
1.5
1.5
S
[wt%]
0.3
1.2
Ash
[wt%]
47.8
43.9
O*
[wt%]
0.1
2.8
HHV
[MJ/kg]
17.5
17.8
•
• • • •
About 75 % of chemical energy of the feedstock is transferred to the products. If the heat provided for biomass drying is considered, this figure rises up to 90 %. Dust-free product gas consisting of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane, together with a low proportion of higher hydrocarbons. High quality oil with a high heating value and a low acid number. Carbonisates with a high level of carbon and a high potential as a fertilizer substitute. Through the robust, containerized system design, local plant sizes of about 200 to 300 kWel can be economically installed.
Conclusion
The TCR® process was successfully scaled up from laboratory to pilot scale. Product quality, heating value, as well as results of ultimate analysis could be transferred from lab to pilot scale. Currently, a TCR®-300 (300 kg/h throughput) is in the design process. Referring to the positive results for the upscale from TCR®-2 to TCR®-30, as well as promising hands-on experience during 15 months of TCR®-30 operation, a further up-scale to the TCR®-300 plant shows reasonable promise of equal product qualities for gas, oil, and carbonisate products.
FRAUNHOFER INSTITUTE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL, SAFETY, AND ENERGY TECHNOLOGY UMSICHT INSTITUTE BRANCH SULZBACH-ROSENBERG
FRAUNHOFER UMSICHT INSTITUTE BRANCH
Table 3.Properties of carbonisate from digestate (*: calculated by difference)
Results
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The process stands out considerably in terms of technology from other thermochemical procedures: • High operational stability by avoiding the formation of dust and tar. • Products with moisture content of up to 30 % can be processed without any further drying. In addition, in case of a feedstock with moisture content higher than 50 %, the process generates sufficient heat to dry the feedstock to the required level for processing. • High feedstock and product flexibility.
Since institute develops concepts Since 1990 1990thethe research institute in and Sulzprocesses which directly relate to the economy bach-Rosenberg develops concepts and in order to allocate and application. make an efficient of processes for direct Theuse target energy, raw materials and materials. Within the focus is the efficient use for energy, raw Center of Energy Storage the focus lies on inteand functional materials. Within and the storage Center grated and decentralized conversion of energy. EnergyWe Storage the main inteof accompanie clients research from the development of processes up to of theintegrated pilot plant, and rests are the development and from the development of a product up to its pilot decentralized energy conversion and storage production. solutions.
technology
THE TOP PRIORITIES FOR THE ALGAE SECTOR SOON TO BE OUTLINED IN GROUND-BREAKING WHITE PAPER Vinicius Valente, EUREC – The Association of European Renewable Energy Research Centres
Over 100 leading European algae stakeholders from academia and industry met in April 2016 in Portugal in order to present the latest achievements of the on-going projects in the field and also to identify the main priorities for developing a successful algae-based industry in the EU. The Conference “European Roadmap for an Algae-Based Industry” was held on 6-8 April in the town of Olhão, in the Algarve region of southern Portugal, under a partnership between the European Algae Biomass Association (EABA) and the EU projects Miracles, FUEL4ME, Splash and the Algae Cluster (InteSusAl, BIOFAT and All-gas). One of the main outcomes of the event will be a White Paper, which will include the essential needs of the algae sector in Europe, pointing-out the direction of the European algae strategic research agenda for the upcoming years. The document is expected to be released in mid-2016 and will cover the following key points: • Recent developments in the algal field have been significant. Operational pilot and demonstration scale production facilities of up to 1 ha have been realised. The knowledge on fundamental biology develops rapidly, the technology for production matures and biorefineries that process algal biomass into multiple high quality products have been implemented. • Further developments should be product driven. The development of marketable algae-based products is important for industrialisation of the area.
•
Algal strains should be further industrialised as sustainable green cell factories via strain improvement programs, allowing both GMO and non-GMO strategies. • Advances in regulatory and standardisation issues have been developed but still barriers remain for final applications of microalgae based products. • More demonstration projects for specific markets at a production size of approximately 5 ha should be developed to push the field. • Technological bottlenecks such as fouling and culture contamination need to be solved. • Harmonisation is needed in terms of measurements and unit expression. • Collaboration between algal and other industries should be enabled. • Industrial and academic collaboration, education, communication to a wider audience about sustainability of the technology, consumers’ acceptance and legislation about products with algae inside need to be stimulated. “From the talks in the Conference, it is clear that a considerable number of breakthroughs have been achieved in the last few years. However, further research is still needed in order to scale-up the technologies and develop a strong algae-based industry in Europe”, said Andrew Kenny, coordinator of the Integrated Sustainable Algae (InteSusAl) EU co-funded project. 41 Be
Further information is available on: www.intesusal-algae.eu www.eualgaeroadmapconference.eu
Once finalised, the White Paper will provide European policy makers with perceptions of current research needs, key questions and crucial issues to be tackled if Europe is to become a global reference in the sector. Besides covering topics such as strain development, biorefineries, residual streams, up scaling, life cycle assessment and techno-economic analysis, the conference programme had also two site visits: one to SPAROS, a local technology-driven SME dedicated to the development of new products and tailored nutritional solutions for the aquaculture market; and another to the InteSusAl project one-hectare plant.
Benchtop GC/MS solution for Biomass and Catalysts Research
The demonstration unit is located in the facility of the company Necton. The technology set is composed of 4 m3 heterotrophic fermentation units, 60 m3 tubular Photobioreactors and 200 m3 raceways. Demonstration trials started in July 2015. 2. Heating/
InteSusAl is a European collaborative project co-funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration under grant agreement No 268164. Active since 1st May 2011 and running until 31st July 2016, the project has the objective to demonstrate an integrated approach to produce microalgae in a sustainable manner on an industrial scale. InteSusAl’s approach optimises the production of microalgae by both heterotrophic and phototrophic routes and demonstrates the integration of these production technologies (Raceway, PhotoBioReactor and Fermentation) to achieve the algae cultivation targets of 90-120 dry tonnes per hectare by annum. The project selects algae species and cultivation technologies to attain algal oil with a suitable lipid profile for biodiesel production and will validate this selection through conversion of the extracted oil into biodiesel to meet standard specifications. Microalgae are able to produce high-value nutritional elements, bio-based plastics as well as biofuels. As an energy feedstock, they can achieve yields greater than traditional biofuel crops and exempt the use of fertile land for their cultivation, thus contributing to a safer and healthier society and mitigating climate change. 42 Be
Pyrolysis
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