Long term availability of Biomass

Growing demand for energy and the lack of sustainability for crude oil has led to
increased interest globally in liquid fuel made from biomass, driven by concerns
about energy security, environmental considerations that focuses on greenhouse
gas emission and maintaining and improving economic development is rural
areas. (1) In 2050, global bioenergy production potential is estimated to be 1300
EJ, while global energy consumption is estimated to be 1041 EJ in a high
consumption scenario and a comparison between the two shows that bioenergy
potential is large enough the meet the global energy demand in 2050. (1)
However, the future potential and availability of energy from biomass relies
heavily on land availability and only 0.19% of the worlds total land area (25
million hectares) or 0.5% of global agricultural land were currently being used to
grow biofuels, so there is a lot of potential in increasing the supply for biomass to
meet growing demand. (1) The European Union Emission Trading Scheme
launched in 2005 also aided in creating increased attention towards using
biomass as a feedstock in the power sector because the scheme imposes a price
to pay on CO2 emissions. As a result, biomass becomes an attractive choice of
feedstock because it functions as a zero carbon fuel. (2)
Long term availability of natural gas
Current proven worldwide reserves of conventional gas alone was found to be a
total of 187.49 trillion m3 with a reserve estimated to last for more than 60 years
following current consumption rate, which can be extended by a century or more
if unconventional gas potential such as shale gas and coal bed methane were
factored in. (3) Although shale gas and CBM is mainly found in United States, the
technology is matured enough to harvest the shale and CBM resources in other
parts of the world, thus bringing longevity to the availability of natural gas. (3)
United States is estimated to
have 68.8 trillion m3 overall
reserve of natural gas. (4) The
development of new natural
gas supplies coupled with
lower growth in consumption in
the natural gas market will
cause price to decline through
2016. (5) After that, the cost of
developing the remaining
natural gas resource base is
predicted to increase due to
increasing competition so price
of natural gas rises. Figure 1
Figure 1: U.S. Average Natural Gas Price forecast (5)
also shows price forecast for
high price case, which assumes that natural gas reserves available are 15%
below estimates used in the base case. (5)
Following the exploitation of shale gas, supply of natural gas became abundant
so price fell sharply, making it a very attractive choice of feedstock to make

liquid fuel from an economic standpoint because economic viability of gas to

liquid fuel conversion depends on the price differential between gas and oil and
the certainty that the differential will remain economic over lifetime of capital
investments. (4) In the future, the maturation of the hydraulic fracturing
technology will lead to more productive wells and lower drilling costs so price of
natural gas in the U.S. is expected to remain low in the medium to long term. (6)
However, hydraulic fracturing can potentially lead to severe environmental and
recreational damage such as damage to underground water tablets, so laws and
policies targeting hydraulic fracturing can pose as a problem in the future
towards the supply of natural gas. (4)

http://www.rff.org/RFF/Documents/RFF-Rpt-NaturalGasRevolution.pdf