Bioenergy Production: Special Emphasis on Rice Husks Usage in India - Implementing Environmental and Resource Management - page 20

3.3 Results and Discussions

There was no policy existent in the state of Uttar Pradesh (UP) for the promotion
of renewable energy source based power generation at the commencement of the
project in year 2001. Due to this lack the paper industry suffered from the imple-
mentation of emission reducing technologies. At the time of the project activity,
71 paper mills were operating in the state of UP. 94% of the power required for
the paper mills was provided through the state grid or from captive diesel genera-
tor sets producing high GHG emissions. There were hardly any rice husk based
cogeneration units in the state of UP in year 2001. This project activity is first of
its kind in the state of UP using only rice husk as a fuel. Thus the project clearly
demonstrates an opportunity to introduce the practice and also reduce GHG emis-
sions.

Emissions
Sequestered

Biomass Source

Biomass Storage

Biomass fired
boiler

Emissions
Generated

Auxiliary
Consumption

Electricity and
Steam Generation

Electricity and
Steam to Plant

Fig. 3.1. Project boundary represented by the dashed line

The project activity has replaced the fossil fuel consuming diesel generators with
carbon neutral rice husk to generate power. The CO 2 emitted by the project is
from biomass combustion and hence, being part of the global carbon cycle, does
not contribute to global warming. This is a distinct advantage of biomass-based
energy production.
SO 2 emissions of the project were less then the emissions from coal and oil
power plants, which is due to the very low presence of sulphur in rice husk. Simi-
larly NOx emissions were also less compared to coal and oil power plants. This is