Power Generation - Hydrogen and Fuel Cells: Advances in Transportation and Power - page 193

BIOMASS POWER
Biomass can generate energy in many different forms. Refuse de-
rived fuels (MSW) can produce steam or electric power. They can also be
converted to other fuels using chemical or biological processes producing
ethanol or methanol. The wood and pulp industries use their wastes to
provide a significant part of their heat, steam, and electricity needs.
The first commercial power plant to burn cattle manure to generate
electricity was established in the Imperial Valley of southern California in
1987. The plant had a capacity of about 17 megawatts and supplied elec-
tricity to 20,000 homes. The manure is burned to produce steam for the
generator.
Panda Ethanol of Dallas, Texas, is using cow manure to power four
ethanol plants. It gets the manure from near-by feedlots and uses a tech-
nology developed by Energy Products of Idaho heating the manure with
sand to produce methane more quickly. Panda is building a 100 million
gallon/year ethanol plant that will use syngas from cow manure.
E3 BioFuels and Prime Biosolutions of Omaha, Nebraska, combine
a 30,000-head feedlot with a 25-million gallon ethanol refinery using an-
aerobic digestors to capture methane from the manure. There are plans to
build 15 similar plants in the next 5 years. In Hawaii, sugar producers de-
rive 150 megawatts of energy from burning bagasse.
Mills that process rice may also generate process heat, that can be
used for direct heating, steam generation, mechanical power or electrical
power. For every five tons of rice milled, one ton of husks with an energy
content equivalent to one ton of wood is left as residue. A rice mill in Loui-
siana has satisfied all its power needs since 1984 from an on-site rice-husk
power plant. The plant sells surplus energy to the local utility.
In Honduras an energy-efficient power plant used all the wastes of
a large lumber mill. It sold power to the grid, produced an internal rate of
return on equity investment of 75%, and paid back the initial investment
in about three years.
A study by the United States Agency for International Development
on the use of sugar cane residues for power in Thailand, Jamaica, the Phil-
ippines and Costa Rica found that cane power can have lower unit costs
than most of the other power generation options available in these coun-
tries. In Thailand the study found that a new cane power plant could sup-
ply power at about $0.030 per kilowatt hour. This was well below the cost
of power generated in that country with imported coal at $0.044 per kilo-