Biomass Co-firing Would Play a Bigger Role Under Clean Energy Standard

Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, wants to advance discussion of a national clean energy standard. His plan would require 80 percent of electric power to be produced by low-carbon sources by 2035 and 95 percent by 2050. The Energy Information Agency (EIA) modeled what the electric power industry would look like under this scenario and released its findings this week.

According to The Hill, November 30, 2011, Sen. Bingaman plans to introduce a bill early next year. "Clean energy" would include primarily renewable energy sources and nuclear energy, but the plan would also incentivize the most efficient natural gas and coal power technologies with carbon sequestration.

Among the many findings of the EIA analysis are the following items of interest in the bioenergy arena:

"Among renewable sources, wind and biomass have the largest generation increases under the BCES (Figure 2, Tables B1 and B2). Under the BCES policy, 2035 wind generation is more than five times its 2009 level. Total 2035 wind generation under the BCES is more than double the 2035 level in the Reference case. Biomass generation shows robust growth, as well, within the BCES framework. All of the growth in biomass use relative to the Reference case is attributable to co-fired generation, which reaches 187 billion kilowatthours in 2025 before declining to 156 billion kilowatthours in 2035 as coal-fired plants that co-fire biomass are retired.

"Under the BCES, projected annual electricity sector carbon dioxide emissions are 22 percent below the Reference case level in 2025 and 43 percent lower in 2035 (Figure 3, Tables B1 and B2). In the Reference case electricity-sector carbon dioxide emissions increase modestly over the projection period, reaching annual emissions of 2,345 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in 2025 and growing further to 2,500 MMTCO2 emitted in 2035. Over the 2009-to-2035 period, cumulative CO2 emissions are 20 percent lower in the BCES case than they are in the Reference case."

It would be interesting to learn more about the modeling assumptions concerning where the biomass would be coming from and at what price. And then it would be interesting to think about whether and how this significant new biomass demand would affect biomass supplies for biofuels production, bioheat, community-scale bioenergy projects, and/or the pulp and paper industry. Assuring the sustainability of biomass feedstock production would be a significant concern. Because biomass can be used for many different purposes, but is also a limited resource, care must be given to assure that it is allocated to the highest and best economic, energy, and environmental uses and to avoid harmful, unintended consequences.