If you think you have an idea on biofuels sustainability read it
Biodiversity can be compatible with bioenergy.
New studies confirm that grasslands could be one the most sustainable bioenergy systems when managed properly.
Read more: http://bit.ly/XPdwDO
BIOFUEL AND BIOENERGY FROM WOODY AND HERBACEOUS PERENNIALS ARE BETTER FOR BIODIVERSITY THAN ETHANOL STAPLE CORN
Several studies concluded that perennials can offer cheap energy, more biodiversity and possitive effects on climate change compared to annual crops for 1st generation biofuels.
We offer some examples of perennial bioenergy crops here:http://bit.ly/WsWWcd
Most relevant limiting factors for huge expected bioenergy growth in China for the next years
Read more:
http://bit.ly/12ibVfo
“Staygreen” gen for switchgrass?: A genetic breeding to improve ethanol yields as energy crop
Good read! Switchgrass, a perennial grass to produce sustainable energy, is being modified by genetic breeding research to stay green more time in the year and have more cellulose to produce bioethanol. Read more: http://bit.ly/XcD65a
Financial feasibility delivering biomass: Biomass price more sensitive than diesel price in Montana (US)
A brand new study (Jan.2013) from The University of Montana (College of Forestry and Conservation) modeled economic feasibility of biomass delivery across fuel and product prices. Feasible volumes ranged from near zero to full utilization across prices analyzed. Both paved and unpaved haul distance were greatly affected by prices. Feasible volume is more sensitive to delivered biomass price than diesel price.
Learn more here
How to be less alarmist when evaluating biofuels sustainability:
We received news from REUTER on a publication from Lancaster University researchers about biofuel modeling and environmental impacts to the air. We revised it and make some comments on the credibility of the conclusions.
Read more : http://ow.ly/gKPZG
Excellent videos on Hemp. See our galleries on Hemp as Energy Crop here:
So many dedicated crops to feed biorrefineries. Best suggestion: avoid fanatics and ask independent advice!
Once residues and other raw materials become scarce, determine higher logistic costs or have limited business expansion, companies and stakeholders look for dedicated energy crops.
Most executives look for agronomy services, crop models, business plan development and ask experts and “gurus” to provide assistance on a “best suited” crop to feed their biorefineries. We see this with herbaceous and woody crops, C4 grasses that might yield 100 tons per year in one cut or best oil crops producing high yields in the middle of a dessert.
But it is a clear fact that each region and condition will need much more than that. It is quite obvious that a single alternative or mono-culture cannot be the best option always and everywhere, nor reduce risk and increase biodiversity. A wide range of expertise and skills will be needed then.
But why many companies do not consider more than a single crop before starting business and plantations? For instance, in Europe everyday companies starting power energy plants or biofuel facilities,study their best alternatives with planting material suppliers and not with independent experts. But suppliers want to offer their own planting material at the time they suggest to use it.
At the time bioenergy develops intensively every year, independent advice is more and more requested and needed to provide certainties, explore options of crops, investigate and evaluate previous performance in similar regions and adapt management techniques to specific locations.
Before deciding next steps investors require to see a complete evaluation of best suited crops and management guidelines for each case and energy process matching sustainability requirements, social and environmental impacts in the area, potential risks and an expert perspective on what is safe and what is risky when agriculture need to meet industrial and markets needs.
Pennisetum purpureum (AKA Elephant grass / Napier grass and Giant king grass) is a species native to the tropical grasslands of Africa. It is a tall perennial plant, growing to 2 – 4.5mt tall, rarely up to 7.5 mt. Some of the higher DM yields reported are 19 MT/ha in Australia, 66 in Brazil, 58 in Costa Rica, 85 in El Salvador, 48 in Kenya, 14 in Malawi, 64 in Pakistan, 84 in Puerto Rico, 76 in Thailand, and 30 in Uganda (Duke, 1981b).
In the pictures, our company provides assistance on planting Napier grass in tropical countries in Latin America (more than 7000 hectares alrady planted). Our services include crop management, optimziation of the harvests and logistics operations and Research and Development programs.
The big issue: logistics!
More customers and policymakers seek assurances that the forest-derived fuel or feedstock they purchase is harvested in a sustainable manner.
Verifying Forest Sustainability
More customers and policymakers seek assurances that the forest-derived fuel or feedstock they purchase is harvested in a sustainable manner.
Increased talk about the use of woody biomass for energy in the U.S. has many people wondering how best to assure that the fuel and feedstock used by wood energy firms is harvested sustainably. The forest products industry—sawmills and pulp mills, in particular—has been down this road for more than 15 years and many have turned to the major forest certification systems available in the U.S., namely the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, the Forest Stewardship Council and the American Tree Farm System. These systems may or may not be the best way to demonstrate the sustainability of feedstock harvesting for the woody biomass energy sector. In the end, your customers’ needs and your company values should drive what you do about forest sustainability.
The Forest Certification Systems
SFI, FSC and ATFS are private, non-governmental programs, all of which are part of one of two major forest certification systems in the world: the Forest Stewardship Council and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification. In the U.S., the FSC system is part of the Forest Stewardship Council international program, whereas SFI and ATFS are part of PEFC.
Collectively, the three certification systems currently have 92 million acres certified in the U.S. Some of those acres are certified to both SFI and FSC and are therefore double counted, and further confusing, FSC does not allow for reciprocity with SFI or ATFS, and vice versa. Importantly, SFI and ATFS do allow reciprocity between their systems because they are both part of PEFC. SFI is for larger ownerships, over 20,000 acres, while ATFS is for ownerships smaller than 20,000 acres. Most tree farms are much smaller and average just over 200 acres.
So what do these systems do? In a nutshell, each of the FSC, SFI and ATFS systems has a standard— a series of detailed requirements for how a forest property must be managed—under which a landowner must manage in order to become certified. An outside accredited entity sends an auditor to conduct a third-part audit to determine conformance with the many detailed criteria in the standard.
The audit will be conducted by an entity that has no direct affiliation with the company or landowner being audited, ensuring that there are no conflicts of interest. If landowners pass the initial and subsequent annual audits, they can make claims about products relative to their certification program. They can also label their product with the logo of the program, if they get a companion certification to the system’s chain of custody. A CoC system essentially assures that a product indeed came from a certified forest when a landowner makes that claim.
A Bit of History
Concerns over rainforest destruction lead to the Statement of Forest Principles at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. The forest principles laid out the definition of a sustainably managed forest, which was further refined through the Montreal Process. Ultimately, this led to the formation of the FSC in 1993 by a group of people from environmental organizations, social sciences and the forest industry.
The SFI was created one year later by the American Forest and Paper Association, the national trade group of the U.S. forest products industry. Originally a self-verification system, SFI changed into a full third-party system by the late 1990s. SFI only covers the U.S. and Canada, but similar country-based forest certification systems from around the world became aligned under another international umbrella system called PEFC. SFI and ATFS had to pass the requirements of PEFC to be recognized as part of that system; SFI in 2005 and ATFS in 2008. Notably, ATFS was created for U.S. landowners in the 1940s and only changed to a third-party certification system within the past 10 years.
Energy Plants and Sustainability
Energy producing plants that use wood as feedstock, whether they are producing electricity, heat, pellets or biofuel, generally have one thing in common: they do not own the forestland from which their feedstock timber is harvested. As a result, they tend to have little direct control over where and how their feedstock is produced in the woods. Some sawmills and pulp mills are similar in that regard, but even those that own forestland in large acreages do not own enough to rely solely on their own land for feedstock.
SFI, FSC and ATFS help address the challenge of accountability when sourcing feedstock from forests owned by outside parties. In each case, certified entities are allowed to make public claims about sustainability, based on the premise that being certified to the rigorous third-party audited standard is an indication that they are managing in a sustainable way. If a wood-using energy plant were able to obtain the vast majority of its wood supply from certified forest land, it could use a CoC system to claim that its wood supply comes from sustainably harvested forests. This, however, is where the rub is. Most places in the U.S. simply do not have enough certified acreage to allow a manufacturing plant to make this claim, and the relatively low-value landowners receive from harvesting wood for energy purposes—as opposed to lumber, etc.—means that biomass users have limited opportunity to incentivize new certified acreage. Exceptions might include parts of Maine and Wisconsin, where substantial acreage is already certified to one or more of the systems. But if you aren’t located in Maine and Wisconsin or some other pocket of certified forest, what do you do?
SFI has an option called fiber sourcing certification, which uses a different standard than the regular land management SFI standard. Fiber sourcing certifies the entire wood procurement system of the facility. It is a less rigorous system, but it reaches out to all the forest landowners who provide woody feedstock.
Another Approach: Design Your Own System
In some cases, it might not be feasible or practical to use SFI, FSC or ATFS to demonstrate your commitment to forest sustainability, especially if your customers are not demanding it. In this case, there are ways to design your own system. One approach Innovative Natural Resource Solutions has used with clients is developing a tracking system for wood sources. With this approach, it can be useful to show information about where your wood comes from, the amount that comes from certified forests, or the amount that was harvested with a licensed or certified forester and/or logger involved. There are many other ways to add additional components to a self-designed system. In the end, the system should do what you and your customers need it to do.
SOURCE: BIOMASS MAGAZINE
Some experiences we recently had in Mexico with a big client are shown in these pictures.
Pennisetum purpureum (AKA Elephant grass / Napier grass and Giant king grass) is a species native to the tropical grasslands of Africa. It is a tall perennial plant, growing to 2 – 4.5mt tall, rarely up to 7.5 mt. Some of the higher DM yields reported are 19 MT/ha in Australia, 66 in Brazil, 58 in Costa Rica, 85 in El Salvador, 48 in Kenya, 14 in Malawi, 64 in Pakistan, 84 in Puerto Rico, 76 in Thailand, and 30 in Uganda (Duke, 1981b).
See more here: http://pinterest.com/Bioenergycrops/napier-grass-pennisetum-purpurerum/
Conserving biodiversity by utilizing wood thinned from forests as biomass fuel for power generation (Sustainable Utilization of Biological Resources)
Summary:
Nobeoka City and Asahi Kasei are planning to sustainably utilize the forest resources of the watershed area of the Gokase River in Miyazaki for biomass power generation, in order to conserve biodiversity and reduce the use of fossil fuels. The Gokase River watershed area includes both flatlands and mountainous areas, with cedar and cypress trees planted in the mountainous areas for forestry purposes. The cedar and cypress are mature enough for use as timber. The forestry business, however, has declined markedly due to increased imports of cheap lumber since the 1970s. As a result, some forests are left untouched with no thinning work performed. Even where forests are actively managed for timber production, thinnings which are unsuitable for use as construction material are often left discarded on the ground. In both cases, this makes it difficult for natural groundcover to grow due to a lack of sunlight. This has not only altered the socio-ecological production landscape, but is believed to have caused a decrease in biodiversity. To improve this situation, Asahi Kasei intends to utilize woodchips obtained from the Gokase River watershed area as biomass fuel at a new power plant which will start operation in July 2012. In mixed combustion with coal, the plant will use approximately 100,000 tons of wood biomass per year—in terms of energy content, over 60% of the fuel used. By utilizing heretofore-discarded forest resources in a sustainable cycle, this project is expected to facilitate a revitalization of the ecosystem, restoring the natural biodiversity as well as the forest’s groundwater recharge function. In addition, commerce in woodchips is expected to invigorate the forestry industry as well as the overall economy of the region with increased employment. This program is the second major effort by Nobeoka City and Asahi Kasei for the conservation of biodiversity in Miyazaki. In 2007, in collaboration with Miyazaki Prefecture and landowners, we began cutting down man-made forests which no longer functioned economically and planting broad-leaf trees native to the area to restore the natural ecosystem. The major challenge for Nobeoka City and Asahi Kasei is to lower the price of wood biomass fuel obtained from the Gokase River watershed area to the same level as that of coal. In cooperation with forestry associations in neighborhood areas, Nobeoka City and Asahi Kasei began to purvey wood biomass fuel in small scale for one year, to in order to identify the factors that are making the price of wood biomass fuel higher than that of coal, and study what needs to be done to establish an economically feasible system.
Bio-Energy Crops Research
Various crops are being looked at around the world as a source of “green” energy. In North America, the most immediate use of these crops is for burning to heat greenhouses and homes. Research continues to search for a significant breakthrough in developing cost effective technologies to convert biomass crops into ethanol through cellulose ethanol production.
The main bio-energy crop species being looked at are switchgrass and miscanthus (x giganteus). Both these grass species are warm season grasses. Switchgrass has a very small seed and is slow to establish. Miscanthus is a sterile hybrid, so it must be propagated by planting underground stems, called rhizomes. Establishing a stand with rhizomes is relatively expensive compared to planting seed. Once established, both switchgrass and miscanthus are productive for more than 10 years.
We recently had the opportunity to tour a couple of research stations in the United States that are researching different bio-energy crops.
Michigan State University
Michigan State University researchers are looking at establishment of switchgrass with and without a companion oat crop. The objective is to look at the potential of having an oat forage crop to harvest in the establishment year when there is normally very little switchgrass yield to harvest. The switchgrass establishment success will be compared to direct seeded plots to determine the impact of the companion oat crop on switchgrass establishment.
Another researcher is comparing a one- versus two-harvest switchgrass system per year to evaluate the total biomass yield potential and quality for burning or cellulose ethanol production.
A third research project is researching the yield response to various nitrogen rates under both switchgrass harvest systems to determine the most economical nitrogen rate.
University of Illinois
Illinois State University is researching planting, harvest, storage, transport, conversion to biofuels and carbon sequestration of bio-energy crops. Illinois field trials in 2005 and 2006 by Dr Frank Dohleman has shown switchgrass dry matter yields of about 5 tons/acre (11.3 tonnes/ha) and miscanthus yields of 14 tons/acre (31.7 tonnes/ha). Their current research is now focusing on miscanthus because of its greater yield potential.
Miscanthus is a sterile hybrid, so it must be propagated by planting underground stems, called rhizomes. The harvesting of rhizomes from existing miscanthus stands and the planting of new stands is a very labourious process. Research into mechanization of harvesting and planting of the rhizomes to reduce the time and labour to establish this crop. In Europe, where Miscanthus has been grown for more than a decade, patented farm equipment can plant about 50 acres of Miscanthus rhizomes a day.
In Ontario
Currently there is on-going bio-energy crop research at several stations across Ontario. Research programs are looking at potential bio-energy crops species, such as miscanthus, switchgrass, big blue stem, prairie cord grass, common reed (phragmites), hybrid corn and hybrid sorghum. There are breeding programs to develop higher yielding varieties. Agronomic research is looking at establishment, weed control, fertility, harvest timing (fall versus spring) and handling systems.
There are about 600 to 700 acres in of switchgrass in Ontario currently in production. Some of this production is already being used for heating. There is a small company starting up in eastern Ontario that is looking to contract with farmers to grow switchgrass for greenhouse heating.
In the short term, most of the bio-energy crops will be utilized by burning to produce heat for greenhouse operations and home heating, to offset natural gas and other fuels. Long term, bio-energy crops may be used in a cellulose conversion process to produce ethanol, as cost effective conversion methods are developed.
