Bioenergy? Not So Fast

Paul Hockenos
August 01, 2012 | 22 Comments

There’s no one, set-in-stone blueprint for Germany’s energy transition. A lot of it will be made up along the way and plans will change as we learn more. One of the Energiewende’s pillars, for example, namely bioenergy, has just been subjected to a blistering critique by Germany’s foremost scientists.

None other than the prestigious German National Academy of Sciences has come down hard on Germany’s intention to replace conventional oil, coal, and gas with bioenergies made from the likes of corn, grain, and straw. In fact, the plan at the moment is increase bioenergy’s share of the country’s total energy mix from 8 percent today to 23 percent by 2050.

Until now this looked like a no-brainer. German farmers have jumped on the possibility of growing “energy crops” and you can see them all across Germany’s countryside wherever there is fertile soil. Moreover, bioenergy had been considered “climate neutral” and its products like biodiesel, biogas, and biopetrol can all be conveniently stored, unlike other renewables.

But the German scientists say “not so fast!” “Neither today nor in the future will bioenergy make a quantitatively substantial contribution to the Energiewende.” There are no grounds, says the report, to develop bioenergies beyond their present capacity.

Blunt stuff! So why? They argue that energy crops require considerably more land and their production creates significantly more carbon emissions than other renewable energies, like solar and wind power. Moreover, they sap the soil of nutrients, contaminate the water supply, and create damaging competition with agricultural produce (for human consumption).

And not only are these Einsteins calling on the German government to rethink and redraft, but the EU too. The EU aims to have biofuels supplant ten percent of conventional fuels by 2020. Think again!

This is rough — and it’s certainly not the last word. But if it sticks, it’s going to require planners to make some large-scale changes to the roadmap.

The report however had one ray of sunshine: bioenergies made from compost and dung are still legit.

Paul Hockenos writes on Germany's energy transition for a number of media in the U.S. and Europe. His own blog is Going Renewable.

Lead image: Slow sign via Shutterstock

The information and views expressed in this blog post are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyWorld.com or the companies that advertise on this Web site and other publications. This blog was posted directly by the author and was not reviewed for accuracy, spelling or grammar.

22 Comments

Hans Judek
October 6, 2012

cliff claven

The main problem with using biomass directly is the low energy concentration in the material, which limits the effective transportation distance to about 30km. Insofar it makes more sense to produce a condensed energy medium like bio coal or renewable diesel with medium-sized plants and transport it to the place of consumption.

Anyway, it is a complex field and nobody has a a one-fits-all solution - let's face it.

Cliff Claven
October 6, 2012

@Brandon: I think you mean INEOS-Bio and I am familiar with them. You need to read more peer-reviewed studies and less investment brochure promises. We are all awaiting the start-up of their commercial operations in Florida to see if they can really make money or will be just another in the long line of negative energy balance, negative cash flow "demonstration" projects like IOGEN who's been at this since 2005 and is producing at an average rate of only 200 gallons per day.

Bill Brandon
October 6, 2012

cliff-claven. "Alternatively, huge amounts of external energy can be invested to make liquid transportation fuel out of that same solid biomass at the cost of a huge drop in EROI and net loss of energy provided to civilization." Sometimes you seem well informed and at others, as above, you seem to be willfuly in the dark. An Inos-bio type facility certainly refutes your statement. Once the biomass arrives at the plant, Inos-bio is energy independent and produces excess electricity and ethanol at a much higher rate than any combined cycle electrical plant. Get yourself up to date in the development arc of liquid biofuel. Better things yet are at the commercial demonstration level.

Cliff Claven
October 6, 2012

@hans-j: Again, thank you for the balanced discussion in your post. I think we agree that a forest or jungle produces a certain amount of biomass per unit time, and that a steady flow of that biomass is shed and falls to the ground as cellulosic waste matter that can be harvested. The question is, what is the most effective and efficient use of that waste biomass for energy purposes. It can be burned in its natural solid state directly for heat with minimal pre-treatment and achieve thermal efficiencies that are limited only by the combustion technology (from open pit fire at the low end to high-themperature and high-pressure integrated gasification combined-cycle plants at the high end). Alternatively, huge amounts of external energy can be invested to make liquid transportation fuel out of that same solid biomass at the cost of a huge drop in EROI and net loss of energy provided to civilization. It seems to me that good environmental stewardship and sound economics dicate that we should use all fuels as efficiently as possible, and that means using them for the purposes and in the roles they are most suited, not trying to fit square pegs into round holes.

Hans Judek
October 5, 2012

jchristie

Send me a mail to hjudek (a) gol.com I may have an interesting, much more efficient solution for you that we are currently discussing with an NZ company that has a similar set-up.

Cliff-claven

You are of course right concerning the variation of yields. Just remember the claims for Jatropha, which sound now so ridiculous. Poor soils, little water and no fertilizer is possible, but means poor yields. On the other hand, if the grass is already there (like in the Philippines) and already grows wild, farmers can just harvest it.

Also there is enough other waste biomass available. Just think about palm fronds from coconut palms. Each of them sheds one or two fronds per month and they weigh about 5kg dry mass. Just in the area of Mindanao with three local regions we have more than six million trees, which shed 30,000 metric tons of biomass per month, just to be collected. That alone is good for 10,000 tons of diesel.

Add to this coconut husk and inter-cropping with purpose-grown feedstock (e.g. our PowerGrass, Sorghum or similar) and you can see that this concept can make a substantial dent into the fossil fuel use.

In addition, it is socially beneficial, as it keeps funds, now churned out for crude imports, inside the country and distributes it to the poor farming population. I think that it is a win-win situation.

Cliff Claven
September 27, 2012

@hans-Judek: Thank you for your answers. Your claims are more reasonable and less inflated than most I have encountered. I strongly believe yields will be your problem. Forgoing fertilizer and waiting for the sun to dry your biomass help keep the EROI reasonable, but reduce the yield per acre-yr / power density. Attempts to raise the power density such as applying fertilizer or herbicide to keep out invasive species cut into your EROI. If you have the right circumstances of lots of land and water, and a low power density demand (rural villages), then this might have enough margin positive margin. But I can't see it ever achieving the yield and EROI simultaneously to survives the economic costs of shipping biochar to urban areas, let along across oceans.

John Christie
September 25, 2012

Gerald R
Sorry I missed your comment or question some days ago. How is Pyrolysis gasification carbon negative? It is relative to the current situation. In my case we have a diesel generator producing electricity for a small remote community and there is abundant wood residue from forestry operations. The carbon negative story comes in three parts. One third from displaced diesel engine CO2 emissions; one third from avoided decaying biomass; and the other third from the carbon sequestered in additional wood volume created by biochar soil augmentation... the biochar coming from the pyrolysis. The numbers work out to a reduction of CO2 equal to three times the CO2 emissions of the diesel engine. Because the green diesel is biomass derived, the engine CO2 is not added to the environment (ie. not longterm as is the petro diesel CO2). So as the engine generates power it continually reduces and sequesters CO2 emissions.All diesel gensets should run on pyrolysis gas or its derivative, green diesel...

Hans Judek
September 25, 2012

Cliff-claven: Thank you for your valuable input and good questions. * What is the energy density of your bio-coal per kilogram? It is above 25MJ and can reach with certain feedstocks up to 32 MJ * Per liter renewable diesel? As it has the same chemical make-up as fossil diesel the density is also similar, which means depending on feedstock and final combination of hydrocarbon chains between 32 to 40 megajoules per liter. * What is the EROI of this fuel after all the energy costs of processing raw biomass? It depends heavily on the feedstock. Our plans with PowerGrass(C) ask for air drying as far as possible. We have just made an LCA for an airframe manufacturer and came up with about 60% of the energy in the feedstock remaining in the diesel (after deduction of everything - planting, harvesting, drying, shredding, converting and refining). * Is it from cultivated and fertilized and irrigated sources or are you just harvesting waste from the jungle floor? Both. As PowerGrass is s special hybrid form of Napier grass (elephant grass), it can grow on poor soils and arid land. Of course, the yields will not be as stunning as on fertilized fields. We also inter-cropping with coconut palms and other plantations. * Bio-coal still burns like coal in the north even if it is carbon neutral, so will it meet air quality standards and do you think there are going to be in the long term any coal plants left? Actually the coal burns very clean and we have a new type of tar-free highly efficient gassifier, that allows the use in mid-size engine-based co-generation plants as well. Coal-powered power plants will not be phased out at once. If they are efficient enough, there should not be any obstacle to use clean-burning bio coal.

The Knight
September 25, 2012

Plasma Arc Gasification... google it

Anumakonda Jagadeesh
August 28, 2012

Water hyacinth (Eichhornia Crassipes) invasions can be harnessed for environmental benefit and renewable energy production. Water hyacinths have high cellulose content, making them a potential renewable energy source. Currently however, technical and cost barriers have forestalled widespread development of this energy option.
Dehydration is normally a necessary step in transforming biomass into energy fuel. Water hyacinths are composed of 90 percent water, making this step particularly inefficient. Alternatively, ethanol can be produced through hydrolysis fermentation, currently still an expensive process. Water hyacinths can also be used to produce solid fuel, though with a low combustion value of 8.3 gigajoules (GJ) per cubic meter (m3) – less than wood – this approach remains inefficient.
Water hyacinths can also be used to produce biogas, an energy source that has already embraced in much of rural China. Of the two main approaches for biogas production, methane fermentation is currently the most feasible. One hectare of water hyacinths can produce enough biogas each day to generate between 90 and 180 cubic meters of methane, equivalent to approximately 3.44 to 6.88 GJ of energy production. The half-ton of residue remaining from this amount of biomass combustion can be used as fertilizer, offsetting costs for farmers harnessing this energy source. The other method of biogas production, hydrogen fermentation, is currently prohibitively expensive due to water hyacinth's low-sugar and cellulose-rich nature.
Pre-treated water hyacinths can also be combined with animal waste to create an efficient source of biogas, releasing 249.1 m3 of methane per kilogram (kg) of water hyacinth, enough to produce 9.54 GJ of energy.
Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
E-mail: anumakonda.jagadeesh@gmail.com

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell
August 8, 2012

I'm kind of up in the air regarding the greenhouse gas "footprint" of bio fuels. I think that we do need to slow down and access what that footprint actually is for the various bio-fuel feed stocks, as well as what effects that they have on food markets, etc. That said, the industry is still in it's infancy and I don't think that you can dismiss totally the net positive effects that bio-fuels can have.

Bob "The Clean Energy Guy" Mitchell

Cliff Claven
August 4, 2012

Hans-Judek: Energy density is key to both harvesting and transportation in your proposed scheme. What is the energy density of your bio-coal per kilogram and per liter? What is the EROI of this fuel after all the energy costs of processing raw biomass? Is it from cultivated and fertilized and irrigated sources or are you just harvesting waste from the jungle floor? Bio-coal still burns like coal in the north even if it is carbon neutral, so will it meet air quality standards and do you think there are going to be in the long term any coal plants left to shovel the bio-char into after the EPA rules and carbon taxes and market-distorting policies force the power companies to decommission them? These are genuine questions and I hope you will reply. Thank you.

Hans Judek
August 3, 2012

The main problem is not the growth and availability of biomass, it is the discrepancy of production and consumption. There is plenty, plenty, plenty of biomass in the tropical regions of our planet. However, the most energy consumption is taking place in the cooler parts, where growth of biomass is less fertile. Adding to this problem is the fact that the energy contents per weight unit in biomass is low. That sets limits to its transportation distance. So when it is possible to compact the energy, it can be transported easily from the South to the North - benefiting both, the farmers in the poor developing and threshold countries and the consumers in the North.
One example, which I have recently introduced to the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry METI. The Fukushima catastrophe and the subsequent mothballing of the Hamaoka NPP have reduced power production by 10.5GW. Compensating this with biomass is possible. For example, our partners in the Philippines have 2 million hectares of arid and semi-arid land under contract, where they can grow high-yield grasses. Our best shot is a hybrid variety that yields up to 600t wet or 140t dry, and even untended 80t dry. Converting this biomass with the energy efficient hydrothermal carbonization into bio coal, compacts the energy by 93% to a mere 7% of its original volume, making it easily transportable. The 2 million hectares would already be sufficient to compensate for the 10.5GW. Harvesting the grass is also energy efficient. In addition, there are huge amounts of waste biomass available.
So it is possible, but we have to be creative and socially and environmentally conscious.

Cliff Claven
August 3, 2012

A key part of this report that is related to the discussion above is the distinction between fertilized biomass and unfertilized, natural growth 'net primary production' (NPP) biomass. Harvesting what nature grows on her own in a year is totally different than injecting fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides derived from petroleum to accelerate the crop and then investing huge amounts of energy to convert it into a liquid fuel at great conversion loss, which all results in sabotaging the energy balance and GHG balance. Harvesting nature's excess and waste and burning it directly in its solid form is sound on all counts. Cultivating biomass for liquid fuel is hopeless and foolish and counterproductive to every goal. The limitation that must be realized is that the NPP volume is never going to support any significant fraction of industrial-age economy. Burning wood or straw or waste is fine, but those quantiies will alway be small amounts that can never substitute for the sheer volume of energy modern civilization demands from its liquid fuels (27 quadrillion BTUs per year for the US).

John Christie
August 3, 2012

GeraldR
The 'carbon negative' comes from 3 sources, each about the same: for a tonne of forest mass, about 286 kg becomes debris, sawdust, and hog fuel, which in a remote community is waste, and creates methane ghg. Thats the first third; the methane ghg. Second, the diesel generators produce CO2 from petro diesel and all of that is replaced; that is the second third. The final third comes from the benefits of augmenting soil with the biochar that results from the pyrolysis process. That is a very significant amount especially when used in deprived soil... so conservatively another third. I have the detailed mass calculations - I'm not being simple here other than to help explain. The total avoided ghg from that 1T of forest mass is 483 kg CO2e. It offsets 241.9 kg of generator system created CO2 (which many would say is zero ghg being derived from biomass). Therefore, the process is 100% or 200% carbon negative, depending on how you count the generator proccduced CO2 (ie 0 or more). The pyrolysis process I am referring to is CHyP by Proton Power. They get 66% H2, 30% CO2, and <5% CO. There are no gaseous hydrocarbons. The biochar contains 67% elemental C plus the toxins and the nutrients of the tree.
This is specific to a remote community on diesel generators with its own grid that has access to wood residue.

Gerry Wootton
August 3, 2012

@jchristie - please explain 'Pyrolysis gasification systems using wood residue are actually 'carbon negative', sequestering carbon as energy is produced". Pyrolysis results in the liberation of hydrogen, carbon monoxide and volatile hydrocarbons (H2, CO, CH4, C2H2, etc) which are then burned to produce energy which results in primary emissions of water and CO2. Other products are solids and liquids which are rich in carbon and can also be burned. I'm missing the part where the process removes carbon from the atmosphere making it carbon negative.

John Christie
August 3, 2012

As usual, 'it depends'. Some biomass processes that use the energy created close to the source, are very cost effective because they use waste product that is too remote or otherwise costs too much to compete with other uses (remote community sawmill wood waste). They are also environmentally beneficial because they produce energy and proportionally less CO2, and replace the decomposition created methane. As the economics permit, more and more of the forestry waste will be economically harvested, encouraging more rapid regrowth and less decomposition methane arising from the forest floor. Forestry and energy production will become much more integrated. In the case of pyrolysis gasification, it leaves beneficial biochar which can be used as a soil augmentation that replaces nitrogen based fertilizers and causes more rapid cellulosic growth (carbon capture). The toxins from the original cellulose are proven to be bound up in the biochar and do not leach out into the water table. Biochar has a huge future yet to be fully defined and shown. Pyrolysis gasification systems using wood residue are actually 'carbon negative', sequestering carbon as energy is produced....simultaneously producing energy and cleaning up the atmosphere like even solar and wind cannot. So, like most other energy generation methods, its a matter of technology match with geography and economics. In the long run (I won't say 'In the end'), there is no silver bullet; it will be a blend of solutions, each with their own unique best applications. Exactly the same story for alternative fuels for automobiles, as I used to say when in that business and asked, "What alternative fuel will replace gasoline?...It depends.....

Bill Brandon
August 3, 2012

This is a common problem I see with many scientific reviews - keep the paradigm but replace the fuel. Direct combustion of biofuels is inefficent so fuel needs are high. There are proven commercial technologies in the US that use waste to produce electricity and ethanol. It can be argued about the wisdom of growing dedicated energyl crops but it will be economics that limit their use. B_Brandon

Gerry Wootton
August 3, 2012

Burning stuff is burning stuff. There is an argument to be made that some stuff is better to burn than others. Bottom line is that no matter what is burnt, there are emissions including green house gases. Within the area of biomass there are two types available - waste and product. The idea with waste is that it is 'free' material - the value of what is consumed being ignored or more exactly the cost of responsible disposal being avoided. In a few cases, there can be a GHG advantage - those would be the case where methane from bio waste is converted into carbon dioxide (not a good long term tradeoff but effective in the short term). In most cases, it is simply converting trapped carbon into carbon dioxide - but trapped carbon has ecological value. In the case of product, it's not free as it competes in a market for other uses which can have a negative impact on those other uses (food for example). The notion that it is sustainable is misguided - one of the points the scientists address. For a start, waste biomass is not really waste as it is mulch for agricultural and forest economies: the argument is that plants can reclaim carbon from the atmosphere possibly ignoring the role of trapped carbon in the ecosystem. Notably, some commercial hardwood species depend heavily on trapped carbon for their growth but in general, it is a good portion of what differentiates soil from dirt. Something to think about - you pay good money for it at the garden center.
Corn ethanol is distinctly non-renewable - we have direct evidence from early corn based economies where they simply to moved to a new area every so many decades in response to resource depletion. Modern agriculture with it's continuous soil amendment only creates the appearance of sustainability. Bottom line, it's not green or sustainable; sometimes, it's just waste management with good PR.

Sigis Chemeshka
August 3, 2012

When Natural gas prices are dramaticaly growing with skyrocket pace in the Central Europe, there is no question about developing biofuels industry in the energetics.

Sam Salamay
August 3, 2012

Sweet Sorghum to ethanol is the answer. It grows on marginal land and has the same attributes as sugarcane in Brazil. The sugar platform is cost-effective and offers farmers prosperity. Go to www.epecholdings.com

Cliff Claven
August 3, 2012

Hopefully this will ignite scientists on this side of the Atlantic to take a similar stand. Cultivated crop biofuels are a thermodynamic sinkhole and accelerators of environmental damage. That they are "clean and green" is a myth that needs to be busted in the minds of the politicians and public that have been brainwashed by celebrities and the mainstream media.

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Paul Hockenos

Paul Hockenos is a Berlin-based author who has written about Europe since 1989. Paul is the author of three major books on European politics: Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe, Homeland Calling: Exile...