Energy potential, biomass agricultural crops

The Renewables-Intensive Global Energy Scenario (RIGES) predicts a primary energy potential from biomass resources for Western Europe to be 14160 PJ/year by 2025 and 14 170 PJ/year by 2050 (Johansson et al., 1993). Thereby the biomass potential comprises resources from wood, energy crops, agricultural residues and industrial biomass residues. The estimates are based on the biomass production at that time in combination with assumptions of future growth rates. 

Hoogwijk et al. (2005) assume the biomass energy potential in Western Europe from energy crops, agricultural residues, forest residues and industrial biogenic residues to be of the order of 10000 PJ/year and 16000 PJ/year by 2050. The analysis is based on the IMAGE 2.2 model using the four scenarios from the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES), (Nakicenovic, 2000) as main assumptions for the included food demand and supply. 

The list of plants, by-products and waste materials that can potentially be used as feedstock is almost endless. Major resources in biomass include agricultural crops and their waste by-products, lignocellulosic products such as wood and wood waste, waste from food processing and aquatic plants and algae and effluents produced in the human habitat. Moderately dried wastes such as wood residue, wood scrap and urban garbage can be directly burned as fuel. Energy from water-containing biomass... 

The principal sources of biomass used for energy purposes are wood, gathered from forests, orchards and farms, agricultural crop residues and animal wastes. Human wastes can also be potentially... 

Biomass potentials are mainly determined by agricultural productivity and the amount of land accessible for energy crop production. The total area under energy crops in the EU was around 1.6 million hectares in 2004 (estimate for 2005 2.5 million hectares), which represents nearly 3% of the total arable land. AEBIOM (2007) estimated a total biomass supply of 220 MtOE for the year 2020, while 23 MtOE are covered by wood-based bioenergy (direct from forests) and 88 MtOE by agriculture-based energy crops (by-products not considered). The Commission has estimated that about 15% of the EU s arable land (17.5 million hectares) would be used to reach the targets for 2020. 

In this context, Fig. 5.16 indicates the dynamic evolution of the identified biomass primary potentials at the EU25 level, whilst Table 5.5 shows a detailed breakdown of corresponding fuel costs for the considered biomass options, including agricultural products or energy crops (e.g., rapeseed and sunflower, miscanthus), agricultural residues (straw), forestry products (e.g., wood chips), forestry residues and biowaste. 

Biomass is available and obtainable in the world through the rational collection of byproducts from agricultural and forestry indnstries. The potential supply of biomass is significantly large as an energy crop. 

The R D effort in renewable energy includes an extensive effort in the area of biomass fuels. After initial assessments of the potential of MSW, agricultural residues and crops and forestry (JL) it has been recognised that while all three renewable resources will contribute to the near term substitution of liquid fuels in non critical applications, only forests and the recently dead form of biomass - Peat - can contribute liquid fuels on a scale close to that demanded which is to say at the Exajoule level. The Canadian forest covers almost one third of the land mass, while agriculture utilises less than 7 per cent. At least... 

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