1. Chuck Kutscher National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Biomass Power Potential
Energy and Climate Mini-Workshop
November 3, 2008
Chuck Kutscher
National Renewable Energy Laboratory

2. Biomass Feedstocks Poplars Wood chips Switch grass
Municipal solid waste
Corn Stover

3. U.S. Biomass Resources

4. Potential Dry Biomass Supply Estimates (2025)

5. U.S. Biomass Resource Assessment
Updated resource assessment - April 2005
Jointly developed by U.S. DOE and USDA
Referred to as the “Billion Ton Study”

7. Biomass Cost Components
Planting and management
Harvesting and collection
Transportation
Total cost is $20 - $60/ton

8. Biopower Biopower status DOE Potential World: 40 GW
U.S capacity: 10.5 GWe (all direct combustion)
5 GW Pulp and Paper
2 GW Dedicated Biomass
3 GW MSW and Landfill Gas
0.5 GW Cofiring
2004 Generation – 68.5 TWh
Cost – 8-10¢/kWh
DOE Potential
Cost – 4-6¢/kWh (integrated gasification combined cycle)
2030 – 160 TWh (net electricity exported to grid from integrated 60 billion gal/yr biorefinery industry)

9. Options for Biomass Electricity
Direct combustion
Co-firing
Electric power from biomass is undergoing an exciting transformation.
Biomass Power is not new - Direct combustion of biomass already provides 7500 MW of capacity to the U.S. grid. But the efficiencies of this process are not very high.
Co-firing has emerged as one new option - where coal plant co-fires the coal process with biomass wastes. This can reduce certain emissions and can increase the types of coal a plant can use. There are already success projects demonstrating this technology option.
And under development right now is a new way of using biomass. This system - termed gasification - gasifies the biomass fuel and uses the gas to run and advance turbine. This opportunity to use biomass in a Combines Cycles electric plant is exciting. It has already been proven in small-scale design, and the first full-scale plant is under construction in Burlington, VT.
Gasification

10. 50 MW McNeil Power Station 74 MW Wheelabrator Shasta Plant
Combustion
50 MW McNeil Power Station
Burlington, Vermont
74 MW Wheelabrator Shasta Plant
Anderson, California

12. Gasification Systems Under Development
Commercial Biomass-to-Liquids Plant, Choren Industries, Freiberg Germany, 2008: 200 mt/d biomass, 2010: 2,000 mt/d biomass
300 ton/day gasifier Burlington Electric, VT
Varnamo Sweden, 100 mt/day, 6 MWe + 9 MWth demo run for 5 years, being retrofitted for BTL
Foster Wheeler CFB Gasifier, Lahti Finland, 300 mt/d; 30,000 hours of operation at >95% availability 12

13. Small and medium size CHP is a good opportunity for biomass
5 MWe + District Heat
Skive, Denmark
kWe
Credit: Carbona Corp
Credit: Community Power Corp

14. Biomass Power Benefits
Reliable base load power
Shifts agricultural and municipal biomass emissions from methane to CO2
Resource is well dispersed, so plants can be located to minimize new transmission
Using woody biomass for electricity production has lower emissions than open burning
Addresses waste and fire management problems
Reduces new landfill capacity

15. Biomass Power Characteristics
Direct combustion boiler/steam turbine
Average size 20 MW, largest 75 MW; fuel transportation cost usually limits to 50 MW; gas/combined cycle might be 100 MW
20% efficiency for direct combustion, 40% IGCC
8-12 cents per kWh
Barriers are producing, transporting, and preparing feedstock
Supplies dominated by low-cost residue streams
50-mile economic supply radius, 20 miles preferred

16. CO2 LCA Results for One Hectare

17. Biomass Carbon Savings
1Bain, et al. 2003
2Woods, et al. 2007

18. Greenhouse Gas Burden from Removal of 1 Million Dry Tons of Forest Biomass in California in 2000
Morris, Biomass Energy Production in California, NREL/SR , November 2000

19. (based on $33/ton CO2)

20. ASES Study Assumptions
Based on WGA study of 18 western states, 170 million dry tons of biomass
Required cost of < 8¢/kWh
Most cost-effective units:
<15 MW: steam turbine or gasifier/ICE
>15 MW: IGCC
Units larger than 60 MW connected to high-voltage distribution
Extrapolated WGA results to DOE 1.25 billion ton study, excluding energy crops and crop residues (used for biofuels)

21. ASES Study Biomass Power Savings
Wood residues and municipal discards
45,000 MW (after biofuels use)
5 to 8¢/kWh
2030 Savings: 75 MtC/yr

22. WGA Biomass Supply Curve

23. 2030 Biomass Power and Carbon Displacement Potentials
Biomass used (Millions dry tons)
Power (GW)
Low Carbon (MtC/y)
High Carbon (MtC/y)
334 (forest only) 29 37 59
515 (all forest and non-crop ag biomass, ASES) 45 57 92
1256 less 420 of crop residues and energy crops used for ASES biofuels 73
149
1256
110
139
225

24. Carbon Capture and Storage

25. Impact of Carbon Price on Cost of Biomass CCS
Fig. 4. Cost of electricity as a function of carbon price. Electricity costs are plotted for biomass-CCS with steam reform, biomass-CCS
without steam reform, biomass without CCS, conventional pulverized coal, and conventional natural gas combined cycle technologies.
The decreasing electricity cost with increasing carbon price from the two biomass-CCS cases reflects the net negative carbon emissions
from these technologies. The relative slopes and electricity costs at zero carbon prices illustrate the trade-off between cost and carbon
capture efficiency. Carbon mitigation costs are equal to the carbon price associated with the intersection of electricity costs from a
mitigation technology and the base case technology, defined as coal within this context. As such, the mitigation costs for non-capture
biomass IGCC, biomass-CCS without steam reform, and biomass-CCS with reform are equal to points ‘‘A’’, ‘‘B’’, and ‘‘C’’
respectively. Note that as carbon prices approach 200 $ tC!1, biomass-CCS becomes the least cost technology. Parameter values for the
biomass technologies are taken from Table 2. To simplify the graph, parameter values for conventional technologies are deliberately set
to yield equal electricity costs with zero carbon price—specifically capital costs, fuel costs, non-fuel O&M costs, and energy efficiencies
(HHV) for coal and natural gas are 1200 and 550 $ kW!1, 1.00 and 3.46 $GJ!1, 8 and 3 $MWh!1, 40% and 50%, respectively.
Rhodes, J. and D. Keith, “Engineering Economic Analysis of Biomass IGCC with Carbon Capture and
Storage,” Biomass and Bioenergy, Vol. 29, 2005