Biomass at the Crossroads: as Copenhagen looms – can biomass keep up with demand?

US states with existing Renewable Power Standards are marked in orange

As Senator Barbara Boxer pushed the US climate bill through the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last Friday, but an ominous “no”vote by Senator Max Baucus of Montana, whose own Finance Committee has to also discharge the bill — increases the drama over climate and biomass legislation in the weeks leading up to the Copenhagen climate summit.

State power mandates
Irrespective of the outcome of the climate bill, 24 US states now have state renewable portfolio standards with renewable power targets from 15 percent in 2025 (Alabama) to 40 percent by 2017 (Maine). The state RPS maps are here.

Do DOE Green Power programs help?
Meanwhile, the Department of Energy is tracking the voluntary green power purchases of 1100 companies through the Green Power Partnership, which is now responsible for an attributed 17,800 GWh of solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, biogas and small hydro power. The top 50 companies represent 12,500 Gwh of that demand, or 70 percent of the total. The top 10 companies purchased 6,811 Gwh, or 38 percent of the program’s total.  Companies outside of the top 50 averaged 6 Gwh in annual purchases.

As legislators wrangle in the US, and diplomats desperately try to keep a new climate treaty in the works on the world stage — global signs point to a continuing threat that energy use will surge as economies recover and force fast-growing economies to rely increasingly on fossil fuels, rather than reducing reliance.

Who will Power China?
In Asia-Pac, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) is projecting that renewable energy generation will increase only 1.3 percent per year in the region between now and 2030, while regional energy demand will grow 2.,4 percent. Global energy usage is expected to grow 1.5 percent  per year. Part of the problem? As of 2005, according to a report in Renewable Energy Focus, 930 million Asians did not have access o electricity at all, and as more communities come onto the grid, they generally rely less on wood biomass.

A sign of things to come: a project by China Industrial Waste Management to build and operate a municipal sludge treatment and disposal facility in Dalian, China.  Upon launch, the Project’s 12 tanks will process 600 tons of municipal sludge per day and generate 25,000 to 30,000 cubic meters of biogas per day – or 36.5 – 43.8 Gwh of power per year. The project was commenced in April 2007 and is expected to be operational in early 2010. The total cost for the Project is approximately $18 million.

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