Energy from biomass and wastes: a review and 1983 update

Abstract

The effort to develop and apply technology for fuels and energy from biomass and wastes overcame a serious obstacle in 1983. This effort grew despite the reduction in financial support that started two years ago. Although subject to extensive criticism, from time to time, and to revision of the U.S. National Energy Policy Plan, which changed the objectives and direction of on-going research, the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) program seems to have been clearly targeted and pursued. In the 2000–2010 A.D. time frame, the contribution of energy from biomass and wastes to primary energy consumption is expected to increase to 4.2–4.5% of the total energy supplied to the U.S. economy, while wood and hydropower are projected to supply up to about 25% of total world energy consumption. At the present time, wood and wood-waste combustion bustems are the main sources of energy from biomass and wastes in the United States. Industrial applications are the largest component, but residential usage of wood fuel is increasing. Other technologies that are beginning to contribute are smallscale anaerobic digestion of farm and industrial wastes for methane, thermochemical gasification of wood and wood wastes for fuel gases, mass-burning of municipal solid wastes and combustion or co-firing of refuse-derived fuel for steam and electricity, landfill gas recovery for medium- and high-calorific-content gas, and biomass-derived ethanol fuel. With the exception of ethanol in unleaded gasoline blends, commercial applications of all of these technologies have shown slow-to-modest growth when compared with potential markets. However, sales of ethanol fuel have more than quadrupled since 1981. Sales of octane-enhancing methanol-cosolvent blends with gasoline and possibly neat methanol fuel are expected to show strong growth in the next few years, but biomass will probably not play a major role as a methanol feedstock. Because of the limitation on transport distance of biomass, dispersed, smallscale plants, the economics of which are very site specific, will predominate in the near future.