To develop a sustainable, stable supply of biomass energy derived from forestry and/or farming that delivers energy to a combined heat and power (CHP) facility at 4 million Btu. (12% cost of capital, 10 year period).

Assessed technology state-of-the-art, commercial experience, and costs. Characteristics and conditions most conducive to commercial success were identified and used to focus project development. Initiated study to identify co-firing opportunities.

The Highlights of Biopower Technical Assessment: State of the Industry and Technology continues to spark interest in biopower. It is available for download (PDF 638 KB). You may also access the entire report (PDF 3.8 MB). The report was cited in state and regional planning documents including the July 2004 A Strategic Roadmap for the Northeast Region of the Sun Grant Research Initiative (PDF 2.6 MB) and in the Oregon Energy Trust's Biomass Market Assessment: Final Report (PDF 127 KB) of December 2004.

The DOE National Bioenergy Center assessed the current state-of-the-art (commercial and pre-commercial experiences, successes and failures, and costs) and evaluated potential paths forward to meet these goals. The Chemicals Plus technology assessment is wrapping up and came up with these conclusions:

• Capital costs differential for coal-fired and bio-fed plants in the size of interest is within 30%
• Gasification is the least technically developed, but most efficient bio-based energy generation process
• Co-firing is the cheapest option because of lower capital costs
• Secondary waste treatment from a biofinery could be 10% of total capital equipment costs
• Experience from near-term projects to product power from woody-type biomass would be useful for designing biofinery waste treatment facilities
• The biggest near-term opportunity is to use existing biomass waste for co-fired power production

DOE EERE's Biomass Program is funding a follow up study by NREL and ORNL to identify prospective biomass co-firing opportunities for the chemical industry. Identify sites for possible pilot demonstrations and develop plans for project proposals. Include production of value-added chemicals and additional feed sources to scope of research. Include total life costs in evaluations as well as the impact of the scale of production on economics and social acceptance.

• Map locations of industrial coal-fired plants at state and county level.
• Map locations of biomass feedstock supplies at state and county level.
• Determine "good matches" for detailed evaluation of biomass availability, including "already-collected" materials.
• Recommend appropriate biomass CHP systems (e.g., gasification, co-firing) as well as evaluate opportunities for syngas for chemicals production.

DuPont, Cargill-Dow, General Electric, Interface, DOE, DOA, National Bioenergy Center, Oak Ridge National Lab, World Resource Institute, Tate & Lyle, GRMD, Ciba

Sharon Robinson
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
(865) 574-6779
robinsonsm@ornl.gov