Waste biomass availability factors

The market penetration of synthetic fuels from virgin and waste biomass in the United States depends on several basic factors such as demand, price, performance, competitive feedstock uses, government incentives, whether an established fuel is replaced by a chemically identical fuel or a different fuel, and the cost and availability of other fuels such as oil and natural gas. Many detailed analyses have been performed to predict the market penetration of biomass energy over the next 10 to 50 years. There seems to be a range from about 4 to 20 quads per year that characterize the growth of biomass energy consumption. All of these projections of future market penetrations for biomass energy in the United States should be viewed in the proper perspective. 

Another factor is the potential economic benefit that may be realized due to possible future environmental regulations from utilizing both waste and virgin biomass as energy resources. Carbon taxes imposed on the use of fossil fuels in the United States to help reduce undesirable automobile and power plant emissions to the atmosphere would provide additional economic incentives to stimulate development of new biomass energy systems. Certain tax credits and subsidies are already available for commercial use of specific types of biomass energy systems (93). 

Both in the USA and the EU, the introduction of renewable fuels standards is likely to increase considerably the consumption of bioethanol. Lignocelluloses from agricultural and forest industry residues and/or the carbohydrate fraction of municipal solid waste (MSW) will be the future source of biomass, but starch-rich sources such as corn grain (the major raw material for ethanol in USA) and sugar cane (in Brazil) are currently used. Although land devoted to fuel could reduce land available for food production, this is at present not a serious problem, but could become progressively more important with increasing use of bioethanol. For this reason, it is important to utilize other crops that could be cultivated in unused land (an important social factor to preserve rural populations) and, especially, start to use cellulose-based feedstocks and waste materials as raw material. 

Wood biomass involves trees with cotranercial stracture and forest residues not being used in the traditional forest products industries. Available forest residues may appear to be an attractive fuel source. Collection and handling and transport costs are critical factors in the use of forest residues. Although the heat produced from wood wastes is less than that from oil or gas, its cost compared to fossil fuels makes it an attractive somce of readily available heat or heat and power. The most... 

In addition to availability the most important factor for using a biomass/waste stream for energy recovery is purely economical. Studies have shown that the most critical and influential parameter in the profitability of a biomass/waste-to-energy system is tbe (negative) fuel price. Due to the rapid growing market and the relatively small amounts of contractible biomass in the Netherlands, this is a very competitive issue and subsequently little information is available. 

Biomass. There are two predominant types of biomass starch and lignocellulosics. Com, wheat, sorghum, and potato are representative of the starch class, whereas agricultural wastes (such as com cobs and stovers, wheat straw, etc.), forestry wastes, and dedicated woody and herbaceous crops comprise the bulk of available and potential lignocellulosics. There is a general consensus that current and future supplies of biomass will not be a limiting factor in the production of organic chemicals (2),... 

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