ENERGY RESOURCES FROM BIOMASS

摘要

For a number of reasons, dependence on fossil fuels will have to decrease in the medium future. Biomass derived fuels will probably have an important role to play in this change - especially in producing liquid fuels for transport. For biomass to replace most of the liquid transport fuels currently used will eventually require a land area equivalent to about 50% of that currently used for agriculture and this will lead to massive processing plants. However, this is not impossible and can happen gradually. Oil palms are the only oil crop likely to be practical on a large scale, but sugar crops and most importantly cellulose crops are likely to be the most important. The most promising technologies are conversion of carbohydrates to ethanol with combustion of residual organics, and fast pyrolysis of whole biomass with subsequent upgrading by hydrogenation using hydrogen prepared by electrolysis using renewable electricity.