Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
the incentives are highest for sun, followed by wind but significantly less for biomass, as biomass
is considered economic competitive already as it is. Feed-in tariffs also is used in most other EU
countries, where Sweden with its high carbon tax primarily want to get rid of fossil fuels while
the other also want to promote the other new technologies significantly. Instead, Sweden is using
subsidies for the erection of new wind and solar plants with respect to the investment cost.
Another tool is the use of green certificates where a certain amount of the electricity price is to
be used for building new production capacity using renewables, where the power company should
increase its share of renewables successively. This mechanism is common in most EU countries
but was also introduced in India spring 2011. In Sweden, the effect has been that many local
power companies have invested in biomass-fired CHP-plants.
In any process solution, the impact on the environment and the climate has to be evaluated
carefully. It is of crucial importance to strive for processes that correspond to the circulation of
matter in nature as much as possible. This approach is essential in lowering the environmental
burden of the waste treatment plants. Microbes are in fact the organisms carrying out the degra-
dation of organic materials in the ecosystems. By exploiting their vast metabolic capabilities in
producing biogas, or liquid biofuels, human economies could be better adapted into nature's own
system. Microbes could also be used for modifying the waste masses into direction where their
further treatment is taking place in a more eco-friendly fashion.
In the US, there has been a program to promote bio fuels for vehicles, where the price per liter
of ethanol has been fixed at a level economically interesting for many farmers. Instead of having
to abandon their farms, they have been able to earn their living on producing ethanol from mostly
corn for vehicles, and the US has become a major producer of ethanol due to this. Here the major
goal with the program has been to get more independent of imported oil.
In Brazil there is a system called Pro-Infa, which promotes all kind of small-scale power pro-
duction, but is not promoting biomass very much. Instead, Brazil created a system for promoting
ethanol cars already during the 1970s and now no economic subsidies are needed anymore, as
the production is very competitive. Ethanol should not cost more than 70% of gas was one rule to
promote the use. With an efficient technology, the production cost today is in the same range or
cheaper for ethanol than many qualities of gas and diesel and thus is keeping a significant share
of the business volume. Most cars sold today in Brazil are flexi-fuel cars using primarily 100%
ethanol, while gas cars have 22-24% ethanol in all fuels. This is showing that it is possible to
have a system for transportation built up on biomass fuels also in big countries like Brazil.
In the chapter on global biomass resources we have seen that biomass can fulfill most of the
energy resources needed as well as for replacement of fossil fuels for production of plastics and
similar. What we have to do still is to use all material and resources in an efficient system, where
the same fibers for instance are used many times for different purposes before they eventually
are combusted, instead of combusting stem wood directly. What is considered being waste should
instead be seen as a valuable resource. One example of this is the biorefinery in Finland where
waste is used after sorting to produce a whole set of different valuable products. In China, the
example with a huge biorefinery using at first cereals, but long-term straw and other organic
agricultural wastes, is very important to demonstrate that this type of more large-scale factories is
not only a fantasy but also true reality. Good examples always are very important to give investors
encouragement to risk their money. Bad examples on the other hand have a tendency to really
threaten the same investors for long time periods, and thus delay the introduction. It also will
determine what technology that will be the most successful on a large scale in the future, as
good technology will give a driving force to really promote investments. Still, success or failure
very often is not only due to the performance of technical solutions but also due to economic
conditions where cost of raw material, tax regulations, investment incentives etc. all is important.
For large-scale investments, also the set of rules have to be long term and that investors believe
governments will stay to certain set of rules. Here we sometimes have a very big obstacle, as
investors are skeptical to what politicians say if they have proven unreliable before.
We now have been talking about the necessity of long-term rules and regulations giving incen-
tives for investments in biomass production and conversion. From an economic point normally
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