Table of contents

1. Background information 1.1 History of Biofuels 1.2 The basics 1.3 Types of biofuels

2. Technologies for bioelectricity production

2.1 Availability of technologies 2.2 Technical barriers 2.3 Non technical barriers 3. 4. Evaluation Conclusion

5. References -sources of information

1.) BACKGROUND INFORMATION

1.1.) History of biofuels The first man who apprehended that biological material could be used as a fuel resource was Rudolf Diesel. In 1900 at the worldwide exhibition in Paris he presented an entirely vehicle which could run with a kind of biodiesel pure vegetable oil- as a fuel. Other car manufacturers like Ford tried to fabric car models running with Ethanol. Scientists were working on these ideas till the 1930s. Of course plans for massive use of biofuels were anticipated because fossil fuels proved to be much more efficient. It was only on the 1970s when EPA (environment protection agency) of the US started to think seriously about massive consumption of biofuels for power generation and transport. Till now much progress has been done in this field nearly all nations use biofuels for the transport of their army and their navy. In the US as well as in Europe countries cars which run with 85% Ethanol/Biodiesel are manufactured. But also many tragically cases have happened such as in south Africa and Philippines were vast areas with palm-trees have been deforested in order that a huge amount of palm oil would be delivered to the US as biofuel.

1.2.) The basics

Chemically there is no substantial difference between conventional fossil fuels and biofuels / biomass. They both are organic material in solid, liquid or gaseous state. Finally, we can dedicate biofuel as a fuel that derived from recently died organisms or living biological material, while fossil fuel derived from long dead biological material [2]

As the sun is the only energy source for the earth, biomass is the result of the sun of today. While fossil fuel is the result of the sun of the past Fossil fuels cannot be considered as a sustainable energy resource because : a.) it is not a renewable source b.) By burning it green house emissions are released especially CO2 which adds up in the atmosphere affecting the carbon cycle. Also they have the major contribution to the global warming (greenhouse effect) and rapid climate change .On the other hand use of biomass production could be the same if not used in a truly sustainable way

Filtered waste vegetable oil

1.3) TYPES OF BIOFUELS Conventional biofuels: They include biofuels which are technologically and commercially available. Most used biofuels are :

BIOMASS The term biomass is borrowed from biology and it means the mass of alive and dead organisms/parts of organisms of the same specie . As a biofuel biomass is everything that gives an energy content when it is burnt, from food waste to wooden pellets, plants such as algae, waste, animal factory waste etc In general biomass is considered as a good resource of energy and it is used widely in most of the industrialized countries of the world for power generation.

.
page 1

II.)

BIODIESEL

Biodiesel (chemical name : Fame fatty acid methyl ester) It is produced mainly from vegetable oil and has similar properties with fossil fuels. The feedstocks for biodiesel are palm oil, jatropha oil, rapeseed oil. Also fate and oil residues (from restaurants) are used. What makes biodiesel so desirable is that it can be made from numerous natural sources, it is environmental friendly and the most important reason : Fossil fuels resources are going dry. [1],[2]

SOYA BEAN POWERED BUS

III.) ALCOHOLS

a.) Ethanol the most common fuel worldwide. It is produced by the fermentation of sugars derived from sugar beets , sugar cane ,wheat, corn. b.) Butanol it is formed by the ABF (Acetone, Butanol, Ethanol) fermentation with high energy density .As a liquid product can be burned directly in gasoline engine.

IV.) GASES

a.) BIO GAS

It is the product of anaerobic digestion of organic material. As a raw material for biogas production can be waste and residues materials or dedicated energy crops. Biogas contains mainly methane (CH4) therefore can be considered as a substitute for natural gas.

b.) SYN GAS

It is a mixture of CO and H2 and it is produced by partial combustion of biomass. Syngas can be burnt directly in internal combustion engines or turbines. Alternatively it can be used to produce methanol(CH3OH) and hydrogen or synthetic diesel via the Fisher Tropsch process. Worldwide there are about 85 installations producing chemicals from syngas. [7] ADVANCED BIOFUELS

As an answer to the dilemma food Vs fuels are the second generation biofuels . They are developed by
using a variety of non food crops (waste biomass, wood, agriculture residues and forest residues, energy crops..). Typical example is cellulosic ethanol which requires complex processes as there is need pretreatment to break the structure of the raw material into liguin, hemicelluloses and cellulose. [1]

ALGAE FUEL : Algae is a plant which produces 30 times more energy per acre than typical land crops

(for example soybeans). The major problem that still remains is space for cultivation. According to the

estimations of the US department of energy if algae was to replace petroleum it would need 1500 square miles only for an annual consumption. [2]

page 2

2. Technologies for electricity productions

2.1 Availability of technologies

Techniques of biofuel elaboration

According to the existing state of the art various technologies have been developed to produce biofuels with suitable properties (energy density, storability, transportability). Concisely these technologies use :

Biological processes : f.e. anaerobic digestion of microalgae which transforms vegetable oil into biodiesel through a chain of chemical reactions.[1] Chemical processes : f.e . gasification of biomass(house waste, wooden pellets, animal factory waste etc.)to produce syngas which can be mixed with gas for co-firing natural gas combined cycle plants [1], [7] Thermal processes : f.e. Pyrolisis (decomposition of organic material by heating above 300 *C) for production of charcoal, methane and post treatment of synthetic diesel fuel which can be burnt (directly or mixed with fossil products [5] Processes for production of solid biofuels from wood, agriculture waste, dried manure etc , which aim at the densification of raw biomass for its transportability in thermal generation power plants or co firing in pulverized coal plant [1],[2]

TECHNOLOGIES IN USE FOR THE PROCESS OF BIOMASS

BIOMASS : HOW IT IS PROCESSED

Biomass is dried and processed with a variety of techniques and then burnt in order to power the generators of the power plant. According to many factors(moisture, energy content, physical state : gas ,liquid, solid) which concern the nature of the biofuel we choose the proper way of processing it. For example sewer sludge in order to be dried needs to undergo some chemical elaboration ,more specifically microbial conversion.

Another factor that we should take in mind is what sort of biomass we use. For example incineration of raw factory waste is one of the worst techniques of taking energy for power generation. When burning all this trash, various dioxins are released contaminating the atmosphere. Dioxins are the most dangerous chemical substances that are known to the scientists.

TABLE OF VARIOUS BIOMASS FEEDSTOCKS AND ITS TECHNICAL PROCESS

Biomass feedstock Almond shell Pine sawdust

Major conversion technology Steam gasification Steam reforming

Crumb rubber Rice straw/Danish wheat straw algae Tea waste Peanut shell Maple sawdust slurry Starch biomass slurry Composted municipal refuse Kraft lignin MSW Paper and pulp waste
Page 3

Supercritical conversion Pyrolysis Gasification Pyrolysis Pyrolysis Supercritical conversion Supercritical conversion Supercritical conversion Steam gasification Supercritical conversion Microbial conversion

[8]

SELECTING THE MOST APPROPRIATE KIND OF BIOMASS FOR FUEL Moisture and ash content and gross calorific value of different biomass feedstock

Biomass Moisture (%) Bagasse 50 Bagasse pith 40 Spent bagasse 40 Sawdust 35 Rice husk 10 15 Rice straw 6 Deoiled rice bran 16 Coffee husk 1114 Peanut shell 10 Coconut shell 10 Coir pith 8 Cotton stalk 7 Soya straw 78

Ash (%) 12 2 7.5 10 2 1520 16 16 25 23 1 15 3 56

CV (MJ/kg) 9.2 8.4 12.5 11.3 12.613.8 14.4 11.3 1517.5 16.75 18.8 16.75 18.4 15.515.9 [8]

In the table above we can see the percentages of moisture ash and gross calorific value (energy which is released from the mass of the fuel when burnt per kg). such appendixes are vital for the technologies of biofuel. In order to select the most efficient and less pollutant kinds of biofuels this sort of data is vital. It is provided from chemical experiments and calculations done in the labs. A good choice of biomass would be algae, poultry waste, food waste and generally pure organic non toxic material in moderate quantities. BIOMASS AS AFEEDSTOCK FOR BIOFULED POWERED POWER PLANTS

From the table below we can deduce that a variety of biomass resources have enough calorific value (energy content) to be used as fuels for electrical power supply.

ELECTRICAL POWER PROVIDED FROM BIOMASS IN MW

TYPES OF BIOMASS

POWER IN MW

1 ton of poultry waste 1 ton of wooden pellets 1 ton of algae 1 ton of pulp waste 1 ton of sewer sludge 1 ton of peanut shell 1 ton of coffee dregs 1 ton of food waste 1 ton of vegetable oil

1.8 MW 2 MW/h max

1.5 MW 1.6 MW 0.9 MW 1.3 MW 1.7 MW 1.4 MW 1.8 MW

page 4

BIOMASS AN HYDROGEN SOURCE Compared to fossil fuels and other energy resources biomass is the one with the most efficiency. We can use the hydrogen which is contained in the biomass for electricity power generation and the only emissions would be pure water. (from the use of hydrogen as a fuel)

Biomass + Energy Bio-oil + Char + Gas. Bio-oil + H2O CO + H2. CO + H2O CO2 + H2

Terminology : LT= low temperature, HT = high temperature, PSA=pressure swing absorption

Electrical power from vegetable oil As it was stated before we can manufacture biodiesel with vegetable oil residues. The diagram m below shows concisely the chemical process of vegetable oil to biodiesel and power oil which can be used for activation of turbines of electrical power plants.

page 5

2.2.) LIMITING FACTORS

I.) TECHNICAL BARRIERS The main technical problems of that have to be solved for large scale use of biofuels are

Adaption and redesign of existing pipe biofuels and burners of conventional steam power stations. The problems identified concern biofuel atomization, corrosion, low efficiency The transport and distribution infrastructure of biofuels. High emissions of NOx and other gases in reciprocating engines.

II.) NON TECHNICAL BARRIERS The difficulties of inexpensive feedstock which leads to small size biofuel-power plants , thus working in suboptimal conditions. Economical liability : It is estimated that biofuels are not to be cheaper from fossil fuels in 20 years time[7]. This is clarified with help of the diagram below.

As it is shown from the gradient of the curve the average cost is continuously rising with respect to the amount of biofuels measured in lkilotones

Environmental issues : The treatment of raw biomass for the production of (condensed) biofuels release an amount of pollutants (such as dioxins, chlorophenols ) [2]

All technical problems have been solved at least at prototype level and most of them at massive industrial production level.[7]

page 6

3.) EVALUATION

The question which can be the maximum share of electricity produced from biomass has not been answered yet. There are scenarios that this share will be range from 6,8 % (by using existing technologies and local material) to 28,7% (by using state of the art technology and large scale international commercialization of global biomass resources) in european conditions [1] There is a successful example for large scale productions of biofuels this is the case of Bioethanol in USA and Brazil. [7] There is a conflict between bio energy production and other economic factors (consider the dilemma biofuel VS food) concerning energy crops. The answer could be to use only waste material for power generation but this has its implication in the efficiency of the power plants. There is the trend to use biofuels (with high energy density) in the transportations than in power generation. The land use of energy crops shows in several cases that bio energy is not the optimal solution. Fe assuming A power plant of installed power of 10 MW, producing 87600 MW, a typical efficiency of 35%, a typical energy content of biomass (18 GJ / tone) it will require 50000 tones of biomass which implies a land surface of 5000 hectares. This has to be compared with 1 hectare of land required for two wind turbines with efficiency 5 MW [3] This is clearly shown on the diagram below COST & EFFICIENCY OF DEDICATED ENERGY CROPS

As it is shown from the diagram if we want to have high efficiency energy crops we have to sacrifice a lot of space as a plantation area

The problem of feeding plants is not to be solved with biomass. According to the Swedish researcher Dr Magnus Blinge, -Chalmer technical university- If we replace all oil in Europe by cellulose biofuels we need 1000 production plants for biofuel and each plant will need 450 truckload of wood every day [2] Clearly there is the question if large scale bio energy is truly sustainable. The risks related with the large scale bio-energy can be seen clearly from the case of palm oil. Palm oil is the second most traded vegetable oil crop worldwide after soy and 90% of these exports are produced in Malaysia and Indonesia. Take into consideration that it is estimated the deforestation and infrastructure development contributes more than 10% of greenhouse global emissions [4] page 7

4.) CONCLUSIONS
The use of biomass for power generation is valuable component for the establishment of liable, sustainable energy system in the UK and Europe. Existing technically mature and commercially available technologies can be used to substitute a large percentage of fossil fuels in with other green solutions as wind generators, photovoltaics, hydros.. The application of biomass solution is clearly sustainable if waste and residues used are raw biomass According to the existing state of the art growing crops to feed a much larger scale for electrical production is not truly sustainable. State of the art considerations : Above analysis is valid according to the existing state of the art. Intense research, especially in the area of the processes of biofuels, may change the situation radically in the near future.

5.) SOURCES [1] Analysis of the economic impact of large scale deployment of biomass resources for energy and materials in Netherland-Appendix 1 Authors : Ric Hoefuengels, Veronica Dornburg, Andro Faaij www.centernowern.nl/mmfiles/appendix I

[2] Biofuel , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel [3] Electricity generation from biofuel and as biomass foe energy www.mpoweruk.com/biofuels [4] The use of palm oil for biodiesel and as biomass for energy Friends of Earth www.foe.co.uk [5] Biomass : Biodiesel electricity www.electricity.generation.co.ul/biodieselectricity [6] EIA Energy information Administration Impacts of 25% renewable electricity standard as proposed in the America clean Energy and security act www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/service pt/ [7] The future for biomass Pyrolisis and gasification : status opportunities and policies for Europe AV BRIDGWATER, Bio energy Research Group, Aston university, Birmingham B4 7ET UK Nov 2002 [8] Renewable energy : Book current science VOL. 85, NO. 3, 10 AUGUST 2003 267
Page 8