Potential Bioenergy Options In Developed and Developing countries

In the EU15, agriculture occupies 40% of the total land area and nearly 30% of the continent land is covered with forest. Future potential of organic waste Organic wastes, wood industry residues, agricultural; and food processing residues, manure is 100Mtoe in 2010. The total biomass energy potential in North America is 19.9EJ/annum.This clearly shows the potential of bio energy options in developed countries.

Various barriers to utilization can be identified. For instance, Small scale power production technologies have high power production costs. Theses plants use steam cycle which have low cycle efficiencies. Additionally, variations in rainfall and fuel price leads to fuel supply and fuel quality problems in heat and power production. Hence, efficiency improvement and reduction of costs must be targets of research and development activities.

In large scale combined heat and power plants, slagging; fouling and corrosion are major technical problems. Co firing with fossil fuels can be one solution to avoid these problems. Non technical problems in this area are high investment cost requirement and competition form pulp and paper industries. Hence, appropriate technologies for biomass combustion should be developed and technologies should also be improved.

In biofuels sector, biodiesel can be used as a diesel fuel. Methanol could be potential transportation fuel is methanol powered fuel cells and fuel cell electric vehicles are developed. However, Lack of infrastructure for blending and distribution are barriers in implementation of biofuels in EU.

Second generation liquid biofuels are made from lignocelluloses biomass such as wood, straw and grass. This leads to lower cost as compared to first generation liquid biofuels like ethanol and smaller land requirement.

Municipal solid waste can be fermented to produce biogas. Incineration is another option to produce heat. Waste to energy conversion is technically constrained due to poor homogeneity of mixed waste hence waste incineration requires special waste fraction or sorting.

The export volume of bioenergy technology in EU is expected to be 6million European currency unit by the year 2010. Bioenergy in EU will create many manufacturing industries and 200,000 new jobs directly and indirectly. It is also estimated that increased bioenergy utilization leads creation of 150-200 new industries .Hence the impact of bioenergy utilization in developed countries significant.

Environmental consequences of bioenergy utilization have been discussed. Biomass production may destroy habitat through increasingly intensive forest management and conversion of natural lands to energy farms.

Increased demand for biofuels may increase use of crop land to grow energy crops. Use of agricultural wastes and crop residues for energy production may decrease soil fertility and reduce organic materials and micro-nutrients that should have been returned to the land.

The contribution of biomass energy must make to achieve CO₂ stabilization concentration of 550ppmv. Many bioenergy options lead to reduced air and water pollution. Ethanol blending with gasoline increases the octane number and provides oxygen for complete combustion.

In the context of developing countries, biomass accounts for about a third of total primary energy consumption in the developing countries (up to 90% in some of the poorest), and its total annual contribution continues to rise.

Economically, bioenergy systems are important employment and income generators. The production system of biomass is labor demanding, mainly in its operation and maintenance. Such employment enhancing development opportunities could come to play an important role in the present search of sustainable and economic means to raise the level of development in rural areas. Biomass systems are the much lower investment cost per job created compared to industrial projects, petroleum industries or hydropower plants.

The present patterns of biomass use prevailing in many households in Africa are the cause of human drudgery in the process of collection of wood, and of a large incidence of lung illnesses due to the smoke, especially in children and women. Therefore the upgrading of the forms of production and use of these resources is an urgent matter. Fuel saving stoves, biogas digesters and other decentralized systems offer excellent opportunities in this respect.

Cooking stoves, burners and ovens are the conventional conversion technologies for converting primary energy sources to useful energy in the developing countries, and an important indicator of the use of biomass is the efficiency of these units. In line with economic development, the degree of use of these technologies is highest on average in Latin America (up to 35%) and lowest in Africa (up to 21%).Hence, efficiency improvement is the necessary solution for efficient use of biomass.

Many of the problems in the energy-supply sector are not only due to a lack of adequate technology, but also to the institutional structure and procedures. Also, most of the population of developing countries is suffering from low income economic conditions and difficult access to financing systems. In the residential/ commercial sector, for example, consumers are highly sensitive to the first costs of equipment for the bioenergy, and in many cases do not purchase the equipment they use. In the industrial sector, plant managers’ efforts to improve energy-efficiency can be impeded by lack of foreign exchange to purchase critical components not available locally; and lack of skilled engineers and managers.

Training and technical assistance should be integral parts of bioenergy technology transfer. Without good training, efforts to transfer technology hardware are frequently ineffective. The transfer of bioenergy and energy-efficiency technologies requires skills to evaluate their appropriateness, cost-benefit, applications, and local manufacturing prospects. The scale of production, technical and managerial skills, relative prices, and raw materials often differ among the developing countries; technology developed in the industrialized countries may need considerable adaptation to developing-country conditions.

Conclusion

Though biomass has been used for very long time, bioenergy options and their potential has not been realized soon enough. Additionally, technological development path has been in the fossil fuel utilization.

Bio energy options are potential in both developed and developing countries. They could lead to significant job creation, environmental protection and help fight climate change. In developed countries bioenergy utilization, besides its economical benefits, will also contribute in stabilization of CO₂ in the atmosphere. Adoption of bioenergy options in these countries has a potential impact in climate change and green house gas emissions.

Most bioenergy options are technically constrained. A lot has to be done to make bioenergy options cost competitive with fossil fuels. Research activities should focus on making bioenergy options viable and affordable. New potential bioenergy options like ethanol form cellulose should be investigated well as it is a potential low cost option.

In developing countries, efficiency improvement in biomass utilization is very significant. Especially these countries are highly dependant on biomass. Additionally, the utilization of bioenergy options is mainly constrained due to high first cost. Training and technical assistance should also be integral parts of bioenergy technology transfer in developing countries as these countries lack skilled man power.

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