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CHAPTER 2 TECHNOLOGY PATHWAYS 2.1 INTRODUCTIONTOTECHNOLOGYOPTIONS Biomass in various forms can be used for a range of energy options, through a variety of technologies, to achieve various end purposes. In this chapter, we are looking at several pathways to give the reader an understanding of this range, but also to inform and model potential demand for fuel supply in the future (Chapter 3), and to understand the carbon implications for these choices (Chapter 6). This assessment looks exclusively at the use of existing low-grade forest resources in Massachusetts and surrounding counties in neighboring states, as opposed to agricultural crops or residues or plantation trees and crops which can also provide biomass for energy. Sources of non-forest based biomass, such as wood waste from construction debris, or other sources sometimes considered as biomass, such as municipal waste, were not considered. With respect to the forest’s low-grade wood resource potentially used for energy, the end products can be solid—such as cord- wood, wood chips, or wood pellets—liquid, such as pyrolysis oil or cellulosic ethanol, or gas—synthetic or producer gas made through “gasification” and “bio-char” technologies. Finally, the end uses can range from residential to industrial applications, and fall into three general categories: electricity power produc- tion, thermal applications for heating (and cooling), or emerging technologies such as cellulosic ethanol or gasification. Between the first two categories, is combined heat and power (CHP), which in turn can be thermally led (optimizing heat production with some electricity produced) or electricity-led (sizing the plant for optimal electricity production and using some of the heat). Some of these technologies and applications are well established and have been in place for years and others are pre-commercial or still under development. In the sections that follow, we describe two main currently available applications for electricity and thermal production, with CHP discussed in a subsequent section. This discussion focuses on those technologies and applications that are already well established, or are technologically available in the immediate future should policies wish to guide additional biomass in these directions. These are the applications most likely to place demands on Massachusetts’ forest resources in the short term. Still, because of the amount of federal investment for research and development in some of the emerging technologies, which, if realized, have the potential to significantly affect demand for forest resources (such as cellulosic ethanol), a third category of applications is discussed in Section 2.5, entitled “Emerging Technologies.” All of the liquid biofuels options for producing transportation fuels fall into this category, as does gasification and bio-char production. Among these application areas, we selected 12 technology pathways to describe how biomass might be used, and compared them to their six fossil fuel equivalent applications. These are described in Appendix 2-A, and summarized in Appendix 2-B. 2.2 ELECTRICITY GENERATION 2.2.1 CURRENTSOURCESOFELECTRICALSUPPLY Massachusetts uses about 55.8 million Megawatt hours (MWH) of electricity (Energy Information Administration—EIA, 2010) and produces about 47.1 million MWH (EIA, 2007). Massachu- setts is a member of ISO New England, which is responsible for wheeling power throughout the region and bringing in power from other regions as needed. Of the power the state produces, renewables account for about two million MWH (4.3 percent), with biomass power generation accounting for 119,000 MWH, or six percent of the renewable portfolio and 0.3 percent of total production (EIA, 2007). Ten natural gas-fired power plants are now the state’s leading power producers, accounting for over half of net generation. Coal, primarily from Colorado and West Virginia, is the state’s second leading generation fuel; it is used in four plants and accounts for about 25 percent of net electricity production. Massachusetts also uses oil-fired systems (seven existing plants—although oil has been increasingly replaced by natural gas over the past decade) and nuclear from the Pilgrim plant to round out the remaining percentages of its profile. Of the renewables, landfill gas is the largest contributor, accounting for about 1.1 million MW followed by hydroelectric generation at 797,000 MWH (EIA, 2010). The nuclear facility, all of the fossil fuel based power, and solid-fuel biomass power plants all use steam turbine technology, which has the common attribute of being approximately 25 to 32 percent efficient at converting the energy value of the fuel to electricity. Unused heat in these systems is released through cooling towers, or through heat exchanged in Cape Cod Bay in the case of the Pilgrim Nuclear facility (Entergy, 2008). The four coal facilities use 382,000 tons of coal each year (EIA, 2007), and the wood facilities1, at full operation, would use approximately 215,000 green tons annually (INRS, 2007). 2.2.2 ELECTRICALGENERATIONPATHWAYS Pathways 1–4 describe the range of power facilities used now, and for the foreseeable future, to produce electricity. Pathway #1 assumes a 50 MW biomass powered facility, and enables comparison to two fossil fuel options for coal (Pathway #3) and natural gas (Pathway #4) as well as a co-firing option where wood is substituted for 20 percent of the coal at a coal-fired unit (Pathway #2). All pathways assume advanced pollution controls as needed to ensure the units are performing to meet expected pollution control objectives, but the efficiency is an average based on present performance of units in use today. Generally, this is 32 percent for coal, 20–25 percent for woody biomass, and 33 percent for natural gas (Appendix 2-B). 1 There are two wood-fired electrical facilities in Massachusetts: Pinetree-Fitchburg (14 MW) which is operating and Ware Co-Gen (8.6 MW) which is idle (INRS at 40). BIOMASS SUSTAINABILITY AND CARBON POLICY STUDY MANOMET CENTER FOR CONSERVATION SCIENCES 20 NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVEPDF Image | NATURAL CAPITAL INITIATIVE AT MANOMET
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