Chennai/Bangalore, India—To meet ever-increasing energy demand, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) is looking at the possibility of generating 10,000 Mw of power in the next ten years from surplus biomass.

“The rising demand for energy on one hand and depletion of fossil fuels and increasing import of coal on the other, has made it necessary for us to look at dedicated plantation-based biomass power and energy as an alternative source,” MNRE Secretary Deepak Gupta told a national workshop on “Dedicated Plantation based Biomass Power and Energy” here today.

MNRE was exploring the possibility of generating 10,000 Mw of power in the next 10 years from surplus biomass, both agro and forest residues, he said. In addition, small megawatt biomass power plants could be set up for feeding power at the tail end of the grid (11 KV line).

These plants would ensure power to many villages. MNRE proposed to bring together stakeholders to formulate a strategy to provide sustainable and reliable energy solution at an affordable cost at the grassroot level in an integrated and environment-friendly manner, he said. Presently, biomass-based power plants are mainly based on surplus agro residues such as rice husk, cotton and arhar stock and other agro and forest residue and availability of biomass has been a major issue to operate the plants to full capacity.

The problem could be over come if these plants were linked with dedicated energy plantations on degraded or waste lands for supplementing the biomass fee stock demand. This would also help in reducing the need for transportation of biomass over long distances.

MNRE initiated a new scheme in 2009-10 to promote grid interactive biomass based projects (up to 2 MW) at the tail end of the grid, as they help in reducing T&D losses and stabilising grid voltages, besides offering many other socio-economic benefits in rural areas, including rural employment, he said.

MNRE Director MNRE D K Khare said the recent draft “National Mission Document on National Mission for Greening India” by the Ministry of Environment and Forest aimed at increasing forest-tree cover on 5 million hectares of forest/non-forest lands and improving the quality of forest cover on another 5 million hectares of degraded forest land.

He said recent efforts made by private developers in raising plantation of fast growing tree species such as bambusa balcooa (bema bamboo), melia dubia, paulownia have shown encouraging results by demonstrating a high yield of 40-60 tonnes per hectare per year in a rotation of 3-4 years. In view of this, plantation of bema bamboo — which yields about 40-50 tons per hectare — on 150-200 hectares of degraded/marginal forest/non-forest degraded land could provide sustainable supply feedstock for one megawatt plant, he said.

Bangalore, India—India is targeting to generate about 10,000 MW of energy from biomass over the next decade, Deepak Gupta, Secretary, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), said here on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the inauguration of National Workshop on Dedicated Plantation-Based Biomass Power and Energy. He said power shortage was a big problem in the country and with a question on the safety of nuclear energy, there was an urgent need to resort to other sources of energy.

He added that currently up to 70 per cent of the electricity and other energy generation in the country depends on imports. He said if something was not done, by 2030 around 90 per cent of our energy generation would depend on imports.

Gupta pointed out that India had under-utilised its potential to generate energy from biomass. He said India could generate around 16,000 megawatt from biomass but was producing only around 1,000 megawatt. He said wasteland could be used to raise dedicated and high-yielding plants for biomass generation.

AK Verma, MD, Karnataka State Forest Industries Corporation Limited, highlighted the importance of plantation, especially bamboo, to provide sustainable supply of feedstock for power generation.

Dr D K Khare, Director, MNRE, said absence of clear state policy, clarity in procedures, and getting clearance from the Government and Forest Department for the plantation land were another roadblocks.

The secretary to the MNRE said the ideas and recommendations put forth in the workshop would be taken up and forwarded to government for implementation if they were found feasible and genuine.

Shankar Gowda Patil, Chairman, KSFIC, K Krishan, President, Grameena Abhivrudhi Mandali, Bangalore, were also present.

A Montville Patch Article by Carrie Jacobson
March 23, 2011

The Montville NRG plant is planning to shift to biomass, according to documents released recently by the company.

The change means that the plant will be produce 40 megawatts of what the company describes as “clean, renewable power.”

The change also means that the plant will continue to operate, according to documents, will bring in increased property tax revenues, and, in the construction phase, will add roughly 75 jobs.

The fuel will be clean wood biomass, which should improve emissions from the site. The change will also allow NRG to get a top energy certification, the documents say.

Currently, the plant runs on natural gas and oil. The biomass program takes one of the plant’s steam-producing units and renovates it to run on wood.

While the change will reduce the output of the unit while it is operating on the biomass fuel, it will diversify the fuel source, and help contribute to the state’s goal of producing 20 percent of its power by renewable sources.

Dave Gaier of NRG said that the unit will be able to ramp up its output quickly when more power is needed, running on natural gas or oil.

Forty megawatts of power is enough to supply fuel to 30,000 homes, the company says. “By running on ultra-low sulfur liquid fuel or natural gas,” the documents say, “the project will still be able to generate its full (megawatts), enough to support over 65,000 homes.”

A-Power Energy Generation Systems has signed an agreement to develop the first phase of a biomass power generation plant in Shandong province, China.

As per the RMB125m ($19m) contract, the China-based company will develop the 12MW renewable energy project in Yangxin county.

Under the first phase, A-Power will act as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the power project.

Construction on the renewable energy project, which is owned by Yangxin County Jinyuan Biomass Thermal Power Generation, began on 18 March 2011 and is slated to be completed by the end of this year.

A-Power is a provider of distributed power generation systems in China and a manufacturer of wind turbines.

Following through on its promise made in January, the U.S. EPA has officially released its proposal to defer for three years the Tailoring Rule permitting requirements for carbon dioxide emissions from biogenic sources, including biomass.

The agency said the additional time will allow it to conduct a detailed analysis to determine how biogenic emissions should be treated under the agency’s air permitting program. EPA will seek advice from a number of experts including federal partners, states, scientists, and industry stakeholders. A 45-day comment period will open once the proposal is published to the federal register. Sources included in the proposal are those facilities that emit carbon dioxide from burning forest or agricultural products for energy, wastewater treatment, landfills and fermentation processes for ethanol production.

Until the EPA takes final action on the deferral, permitting authorities can deem biomass fuel the best available control technology for carbon dioxide emissions from large sources, it said.

Beginning Jan. 2, the Clean Air Act required large plants and factories planning to make major modifications or those build new facilities to obtain pre-construction permits addressing their GHG emissions. Emissions from small sources, such as farms and restaurants, are not covered by these permitting requirements.

The EPA first announced its intention to defer permitting requirements for biogenic sources Jan. 12, causing a flurry of excitement in the biomass industry. “EPA’s action will provide the agency with the time it needs to ensure that GHG policies properly account for the emissions and carbon sequestration associated with biomass,” said Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack. “In many cases, energy produced from biomass will provide significant reductions of GHGs relative to fossil fuels. The USDA looks forward to working with EPA in ensuring that this administration’s policies use the best science and spur innovation and job creation in the renewable energy sector.”

Brian Patterson, associate and senior consultant with Golder Associates Inc., also weighed in. “With EPA’s commitment to defer regulation of greenhouse gases from biomass combustion in federal air quality permitting programs for at least three years, larger new and existing biomass combustion projects will avoid significant portions of those programs,” he said. “In most cases, this will reduce the capital and operating costs of these projects. However, state-specific permitting programs will also play a role in the ultimate project air quality requirements.”

A new report suggests that global reliance on biomass energy production is set to treble by the year 2050.

Research from the International Institute for Environment and Development finds that biomass fuel will be responsible for 30 per cent of global energy production by this date.

This is down to the swift advancement of new technology that can convert wood to liquid and gaseous fuel that can be converted to electricity.

Report co-author Sibel Korhaliller believes that biomass fuel is at the forefront of governments’ drive for the development of greener, sustainable fuel sources.

“Government should embrace and legalise biomass fuels as a source of energy and enact policies that make supply chains sustainable,” added fellow co-author Duncan Macqueen.

UK energy minister Chris Huhne has recently revealed that the government is committed to creating a framework that will support alternative energy production methods, such as biomass, through the Renewable Heat Incentive.

A Columbia Daily Tribune Article by Jacob Barker
March 4, 2011

MFA Oil Biomass LLC isn’t waiting to sign up customers to burn the grass it plans to establish in Mid-Missouri and other areas as a dedicated energy crop.

The partnership formed by Columbia-based MFA Oil and Ohio-based Aloterra Energy is in discussions to sell the city of Columbia 200 tons to 300 tons of Miscanthus giganteus from a grow site it has near Wichita, Kan.

Assistant Water and Light Director Ryan Williams said the department is working to purchase some of the new biomass crop for a “test burn” to see how it interacts with the boilers in the city’s power plant.

MFA and Aloterra announced their partnership at a Feb. 15 news conference in Jefferson City and said they hoped to grow 50,000 acres of the plant on each of three sites — one in Mid-Missouri, one in southwest Missouri and one in northeast Arkansas.

However, the company’s plans are largely dependent on securing federal funding through the Biomass Crop Assistance Program, or BCAP, to offset the costs farmers would incur planting the perennial grass, which takes three years to produce a harvest.

Although the partnership still is waiting for its grant application to be approved, discussions are moving forward with the city, said Scott Coye-Huhn, director of business development at Aloterra Energy.

Columbia’s renewable energy ordinance, passed in November 2004, requires 5 percent of its retail energy sales to come from renewable sources by the end of 2012. By 2023, 15 percent must come from renewable sources. At the end of 2009, 4.3 percent of the city’s energy portfolio came from renewables, according to a report from the Water and Light Department.

The city already burns some wood waste biomass at its power plant, which accounted for 0.5 percent of its energy sales in 2009. Jim Windsor, Water and Light’s manager of rates and fiscal planning, said the city pays about $35 a ton for the biomass it uses now. Early estimates for the Miscanthus crop indicate it would cost $60 to $70 per ton, said Marilyn Starke, the Finance Department’s purchasing agent. Windsor pointed out that if a fuel source produces more energy per ton, a higher cost per ton doesn’t translate into a higher overall cost.

But before the city can give the Miscanthus a test burn at the power plant, it has to competitively bid the contract for MFA’s biofuel. Finding other companies that sell Miscanthus giganteus, though, has been a challenge.

“We have not officially issued a bid at this point,” Starke said. “Water and Light is doing some checking because we believe the product may be a sole source.”

When a department can’t find multiple companies offering a product it wants to buy, it has to claim the product is a “sole source,” Starke said. That requires research and documentation from the department, and then Starke said she looks into it on her own.

Coye-Huhn said there are only a few fields in the country that can produce and sell Miscanthus.

“There’s not many of us,” he said. “I could count on one hand how many of us could actually supply Miscanthus for a test burn.”

Even so, Columbia isn’t the only end-user looking to get its hands on some of Aloterra’s Miscanthus. “We have other contracts that we’ve signed with large-scale aggregators that have specifically asked us not to be named,” Coye-Huhn said.

The biggest question right now is the BCAP funding. The U.S. House budget calls for slashing the program’s funding to $112 million a year. Coye-Huhn said that should provide the $13 million the company needs in the first year. The company is ready to distribute the grass, but if approval doesn’t come through in the next few weeks, MFA Oil Biomass could miss the planting window, he said. “We can’t start pulling millions of these out of the ground and find out we didn’t get the funding,” Coye-Huhn said. “We’ve got to wait.”

Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber has unveiled the Oregon Forest Products Energy Project, a program that will help fund biomass cogeneration projects at existing forest product companies within the state.

Part of a combined effort by the Oregon Department of Energy and Department of Forestry, Business Oregon and Energy Trust of Oregon, the first phase of the program will pay 65 percent of the cost of in-depth feasibility and engineering studies for six to 12 projects, all which must be completed by the end of October. Applications will be accepted from forest products firms such as sawmills, panel plants, engineered wood projects plants and other large users of thermal energy, but not pulp and paper producers, consulting firms, biomass harvest operations, logging, transportation, equipment manufacturers, education and research organizations and institutions, or industry and trade associations.

Projects that are determined feasible will move on to the next phase of the program, which will provide technical and financial support during the project development phase including detailed design and engineering, permitting, business plan development, interconnection, and other pre-construction activities. The final phase will consist of project and long-term financing.

An overlying goal of the program is to produce a project development guide that includes lessons learned and a set of policy recommendations to further the development of woody biomass energy projects.

To download a request for grant application, go to http://orpin.oregon.gov/open.dll/welcome.

A Biomass Power & Thermal Article by Mike Schmidt
January 25, 2011

The solution to some of America’s most pressing environmental, energy and economic challenges can quite literally be found at our feet. Sustainable harvesting of forest renewables (woody biomass) is “preventive medicine” for our forests, helping limit the number and severity of forest fires, reducing the habitat of destructive insects to help ensure that the healthiest trees thrive, and promoting the growth of healthier, stronger trees. In addition, it offers struggling communities a much-needed, new revenue stream and other social benefits.

As an energy source, forest renewables may still be relatively new, but they have unlimited potential.

Forest renewables come from several sources, including:

• Residues and byproducts from wood processing mills and pulp and paper mills.
• Residues from logging and site-clearing operations.
• Biomass from fuel treatment operations to reduce forest fires.

The USDA and the U.S. DOE estimate 368 million dry tons of sustainably removable biomass can be produced from U.S. forestlands per year (1). Harvesting it represents substantial environmental, social and economic opportunities, particularly for rural forestry communities.

Fewer and Less Catastrophic Forest Fires

Excessive dead, dry material that has accumulated in our forests poses significant wild land fire risks. Over the past 10 years, these fires have consumed more than 49 million acres of forest in the United States alone, and federal agencies have spent more than $8.2 billion fighting them. Removing forest renewables could help save millions of acres of forest and billions of taxpayer dollars spent battling forest fires.

According to Danny Dructor, executive director of the 10,000-member American Loggers Council, harvesting forest renewables can go a long way toward reducing that destruction and expense.

“The impact of forest fires is greatest in the Western states,” he points out. “If we could take that biomass off the forest floor, the understory and small-diameter trees that really have no market value as timber, we could reduce the fuel that feeds those fires. And I’m convinced we could reduce the number and the severity of the catastrophic wildfires that we’re seeing.”

Reduced Insect Infestation

In addition to decreasing fuel for potential fires, harvesting forest renewables also reduces habitat and food for destructive insects such as the mountain pine beetle, which thrives in overstocked areas and kills healthy trees.

According to the U.S. Forest Service, 2.5 million acres of pine trees in Colorado and Wyoming were affected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic between 1996 and 2008 (2). The Natural Resources Defense Council also released a report in July on the dead and dying high-elevation forests in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Within these regions, aerial photographs have documented 1 million acres of whitebark pine forest dead or dying from the mountain pine beetle and, to a lesser extent, an invasive fungus. One of the report’s authors, Wally Macfarlane, has stated that another million acres of whitebark pine forest are at risk (3).

Harvesting forest renewables can not only reduce insect food and habitat, but it can also thin forests to promote the growth of healthier trees, which are better able to resist infestation, grow to their full potential and contribute to a healthier environment.

Compatible With Forest Service

Recognizing the value of sustainable harvesting of forest renewables, the U.S. Forest Service began implementing its Woody Biomass Utilization Strategy in 2008. The program includes harvesting dead trees in 19,000 acres of forests to help reduce the threat and impact of wildfires and prevent further spread of beetle infestation.

Cody Neff, owner of West Range Reclamation of Crawford, Colo., is happy to be part of that strategy. Neff has been involved in ecosystem management for more than 10 years, working with a wide variety of federal, state and environmental agencies such as the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, Colorado’s Division of Wildlife and State Forest Service and the Nature Conservancy. In 2009, the Forest Service awarded his company a 10-year forest stewardship contract that includes reducing hazardous biofuels in Colorado’s Arapaho, Roosevelt and Pike-San Isabel National Forests.

“Most of our forests are dangerously loaded with hazardous fuels, including understory and beetle-infested trees,” Neff says. “Wildfire has historically played an essential role in the natural development of our Western ecosystems, but today’s wildfires are not those of the past. They are much more dangerous and devastating. Unhealthy forests are also much more susceptible to disease and insect epidemics, which in turn create even more fuel for wildfires. Sound forest management, including sustainable harvesting of renewables, can help conserve the Western landscape that we all value so much.

Neff has personally witnessed the positive effect this harvesting can have in limiting a forest fire. “A fire broke out near Boulder, Colo., just two weeks after we had removed diseased trees and understory from what had been a particularly dangerous area,” he says. “The fire had escalated into the canopy, but when it reached our treatment area, the limited understory enabled firefighters to put it out. It was more than gratifying to see the good that had resulted from our work—the forest that was saved because of it.”

Economic and Social Benefits

Harvesting and converting forest renewables to energy can provide a solution to some of the country’s most pressing economic and energy challenges. These benefits start by making use of logging slash, which is typically left to waste on the forest floor or simply collected and burned. An associate professor of forest operations at Auburn University’s School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Tom Gallagher has studied the issue and understands its short- and long-term potential.

“The ‘low-hanging fruit’ right now is logging slash,” Gallagher explains. “Millions of tons of this material are available every year without impacting other markets, and it only makes sense to capitalize on this opportunity. Is woody biomass really something we can use to produce energy in a sustainable way? Absolutely. Further research is needed to make biomass harvesting and processing more efficient. But I have all the confidence in the world that with collaborative efforts by all the stakeholders—government, landowners, loggers and markets—we can make world-changing use of this sustainable material.”

The ALC’s Dructor sums up the problem and the opportunity this way: “Most timber-dependent small communities are facing upwards of 20 percent unemployment. By developing energy from woody biomass, we can create new markets, new opportunities and new jobs. We can revitalize rural economies and help kids who are growing up in small communities remain in those communities by providing high-paying jobs.”

Healthy forests rely on sustainable forest management, which includes the removal of excess biomass. Sustainable harvesting of forest renewables represents an important new step in the overall strategy of sustainable forest management.

References

1. Biomass as Feedstock for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry: The Technical Feasibility of a Billion-Ton Annual Supply, U.S. DOE and USDA, 2005.
2. U.S. Forest Service Woody Biomass Utilization website, www.fs.fed.us/woodybiomass
3. Using the Landscape Assessment System (LAS) to Assess Mountain Pine Beetle-Caused Mortality of Whitebark Pine, Macfarlane/Logan/Kern, Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, 2009: Project Report, 2010.