Environment
At Intrinergy, we help utilities, manufacturers, and communities throughout the world reduce their carbon emissions by using biomass-based renewable energy. Biomass is a renewable, widely accessible, solid fuel that can be used to significantly reduce carbon emissions. Its local availability creates an extremely stable base of supply, typically allowing users to avoid the volatile price swings generally associated with energy and commodities. Most importantly, when combined with renewable energy credits and carbon credits, biomass prices are competitive with the cost of traditional fossil fuels. Because biomass can be used in existing, installed power and energy generating infrastructure without requiring users to accept expensive conversion technologies or operational tradeoffs traditionally associated with renewable energy, it can unlock opportunities to make positive environmental progress in many markets that remain technically or economically beyond the reach of other renewable solutions. These and other benefits of biomass energy are explained below in detail:
1. Biomass Reduces Carbon Emissions
Like fossil fuels, biomass releases CO2 when burned. However, the CO2 released during biomass combustion is already part of the natural carbon cycle, in which CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere during the growth of a tree and then re-released after it dies and decays. As such, the use of biomass fuel does not result in a net increase in CO2 levels. In contrast, combusting fossil fuels like coal, oil or natural gas adds to overall levels of CO2 in the atmosphere because the carbon it releases would have remained sequestered if it were not dug up and used for fuel, thus driving greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere and climate change.1
1Clean Energy: How Biomass Energy Works, (Union of Concerned Scientists, 2008).
2. Biomass Emits Fewer Pollutants
Studies at the National Renewable Energy Lab and the EPA, among others, have demonstrated that co-firing biomass with coal at utility power plants reduces the emissions of air pollutants such as mercury, smog-forming NOx, and acid-rain-forming SO2.2 In fact, some studies have shown that biomass co-firing can reduce NOx emissions by more than twice the rate of the biomass fired (i.e. co-firing wood at 7% heat input can reduce NOx by up to 15%) without increasing other emissions like particulates.3 4 5
2States, Federal Energy Management Program, Federal Technology Alert – Biomass Cofiring in Coal-Fired Boilers (Washington: Department of Energy, May 2004).
3Hughes, Evan E., “Utility
Coal-Biomass Cofiring Tests”, Electric Power Research Institute, 8 Feb. 2010.
4Tillman, D.A., “Biomass Cofiring: the Technology, the Experience, the Combustion Consequences,” Biomass Bioenergy 2002: 365-385.
5Northeast Regional Biomass Program, “Utility Coal-Biomass Co-Firing Plant Opportunities and Conceptual Assessments,” 13 Dec. 1996.
3. Biomass Reduces Our Depletion of Non-renewable Resources
Fossil fuels like natural gas cannot regenerate; once used, they are lost forever. Because continuous depletion is unavoidable, fossil fuel use is ultimately unsustainable. In contrast, a tract of forest uses sunlight to regenerate within several years after being logged; responsible logging practices have driven a steady growth in forest population since the second half of the 20th century, creating a renewable cycle of growth-harvest-energy-growth.6 Using biomass instead of natural gas or other fossil fuels thus replaces unsustainable, non-renewable energy sources with sustainable ones.
6United States, Forest Service, U.S. Forest Research Facts and Historical Trends (Washington: Department of Agriculture, September 2009).
4. Biomass Collection Improves Land Health
Use of a percentage of forest thinnings, slash from logging operations, residues from wood products industries, and agricultural residues (e.g. corn stover, rice residuals, cotton gin byproduct, pecan husks) for fuel is environmentally preferable to allowing it to accumulate and/or decompose in fields, forests, and landfills. For example, when a tract of forest is logged to make paper, furniture, or two-by-fours, many of the smaller trees, branches, tree tops, and broken pieces remain on the job site in large slash piles. Studies demonstrate that collecting 50% of the logging residue will help speed regeneration of the forest. Likewise, removing between 50-70% of the accumulation of corn stover from a harvested field enables farmers to replant without heavy tilling, a process which not only releases excess CO2 but also damages the soil.7 Conversely, extracting, refining, and delivering fossil fuels create pollution that impacts air, land, and water. Even natural gas production can be harmful, releasing methane, carbon monoxide, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere and chemicals-laced water used for hydraulic fracturing into watersheds.
7Hettenhaus, Jim, “Talking About Corn Stover with Jim Hettenhaus,” The Carbohydrate Economy, Summer 2002: 1, 8-11.
5. Biomass Provides Market-Ready Renewable Energy
For many industrial heat and power applications, biomass is the only renewable energy that is technically or economically feasible. Biomass energy can be turned on (or off) on demand, meaning that it is fully “dispatchable.” It also maintains high capacity factors for availability, which translates to firm delivery capacity. Dispatchability and firm capacity are essential to utilities and many industrial applications. Furthermore, in electrical utilities, biomass co-firing can offer the fastest, lowest-cost opportunity to add renewable energy—by utilizing existing power generating equipment.
6. Biomass Enables Reduced Energy Costs and More Local Jobs
Biomass is the only practical renewable alternative to fossil fuels in several heating and power applications, particularly at industrial facilities. When its renewable attributes can be monetized, biomass can save or stabilize energy costs for struggling manufacturers, and hence save jobs. The ability to operate using additional fuel sources, particularly in co-firing applications, also provides a hedge against price increases and supply shortages for existing fuels such as stoker coals. Finally, its harvesting generates new jobs local to the point of use, and by replacing fuel-oil use in many industrial applications, helps reduce dependence on foreign oil.
