Don't Worry, Be Happy: China Might Burn Biomass With Their Coal.

[NNadir]

The paper to which I'll refer is this one: Accelerate Large-Scale Biomass Residue Utilization via Cofiring to Help China Achieve Its 2030 Carbon-Peaking Goals Huimin Yun, Jianjun Dai, Tianwei Tan, and Xiaotao Bi Environmental Science & Technology 2023 57 (25), 9163-9173

I won't have much time with this paper, which is regrettable, because it allows us to say the magic words that are always so soothing, if effectively useless, as we do nothing, beyond soothsaying, to address climate change.

The magic words: "It's RENEWABLE ENERGY."

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

From the introductory text:

Since 2000, global coal-fired power fleets have doubled to 2045 GW after explosive growth in China and India, which have shared 50 and 11% of the world’s total capacity, respectively, and with an additional 200 GW under construction and 300 GW planned. (1) Coal power plants produce 20% of global carbon emissions, more than any other single source. (2) The urgency of climate change actions demands the world to accelerate reducing coal consumption without carbon capture and storage (CCS). As one of the largest renewable fuel sources, burning of biomass is considered carbon-neutral as carbon dioxide is absorbed again through photosynthesis by new trees. The global biomass residues supply from agriculture and forestry has reached about 20 billion tons (Bts, wet matter) annually, and only 27% is used for bioenergy. (3) Increasing accumulation of unexploited residual biomass not only causes waste of renewable resources but also may lead to wildfires affecting global atmospheric chemistry and severe environmental pollution and health damage. (4) Therefore, it is crucial and a win–win strategy to accelerate large-scale biomass utilization to help mitigate carbon emissions.

Direct burning for heating and cooking is the simplest way to utilize biomass residues, with mature and affordable combustion technologies widely available. However, it may release substantial air pollutants, creating great concerns about local air pollution unless expensive advanced air control units are deployed. (5) Clean application of biomass residues as a renewable energy source includes gasification, pyrolysis, fermentation, etc. but they are still under development or early-stage demonstration (6−8) (Figure 1). Combustion of biomass for power generation can reduce air pollution and carbon emissions simultaneously by taking advantage of the advanced air control equipment in a centralized plant. (9) However, dedicated biomass power generation (DBP, i.e., 100% biomass firing power plants) has been limited to small-scale and economically unattractive due to high capital investment (10) and unreliable seasonal biomass supply. (11) Cofiring biomass with coal in existing coal power plants seems to be a more viable approach for avoiding these disadvantages of DBP.

Biomass cofiring has been widely applied in European countries. (10) However, its deployment in developing countries, e.g., China and India, has been delayed, likely because of some “practical limitations”, i.e., biomass accessibility, technological (maximum biomass blending ratio) and economic (profitability) limitations, and a lack of policy support. (11) Under the pressure of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), part of the existing coal-fired power fleets will be at risk of stranded assets if they are incompliant with the national carbon mitigation goals. (12,13) Unlike the majority of the coal-fired power units that are old enough to retire in developed countries, most units in developing countries are under 15 years of age. (14) As a result, a great number of assets will be stranded if no action is taken in the coming decades. (15) It is thus crucial that the developing countries undertake affordable and ready-to-deploy technologies, e.g., cofiring, to utilize their vast biomass residues and meanwhile reduce the coal consumption in their massive coal-fired power fleets.

Existing studies of biomass cofiring are often based on single-unit analysis. Although broad topics have been discussed, e.g., carbon mitigation, (16) air quality, (17) health, (18) and economic benefits, (14) they cannot represent nationwide impacts. Few works (19) have been carried out based on a nationwide analysis to identify carbon and air pollution mitigations but with simplified assumptions without excluding already used biomass and ignoring the practical limitations...

...and so on...

Some figures from the text:



The caption:

Figure 1. Technology readiness level (TRL) of available advanced biomass conversion and utilization technologies. (6−8)

Of these, there is really only one listed that strikes me as sustainable and clean, gasification of biomass to DME, and this only in the case where the heat source for reformation is nuclear energy. Methanol from the gasification of biomass, also using nuclear heat, is also acceptable, but inferior to DME.




The caption:

Figure 2. Methodology framework: (I) spatial-explicit evaluation of available biomass residues for cofiring; (II) Integrated Assessment Models of biomass utilization for cofiring, covering biomass collection, pretreatment, transportation, storage, and power generation models; and (III) multiple attribute assessments, including biomass utilization and coal replacement potential, economic (LCOE, revenue, and MACs), and environmental (carbon intensity of coal-fired and cofiring power, carbon mitigation potential of the cofiring power, CCCEs (Committed Cumulative Carbon Emissions) from 2023 to 2030, the contribution ratio of cofiring to China’s carbon-peaking goals, and saved stranded assets via cofiring) impacts.

Collection, pretreatment, and transportation are big ones.




The caption:

Figure 3. (a) Reported biomass reserves from China’s agriculture and forestry from this study and the literature; (b) biomass utilization potential at different cofiring ratios; (c) biomass cofiring capacities in different regions of China; and (d) electricity structure, generation, and consumption in different regions of China, and biomass used for cofiring and surplus.

If you hang around here a lot, you'd think that solar energy is a big deal in China, so much so that hydrogen salespeople/salesbots posting ads here say there's oodles of it to squander on exergy destroying hydrogen manufacture. (I say this at the risk of getting yet another hydrogen marketing video posted here.)

The graphic is a dose of reality.

Reality? We don't need no stinking reality!!!!

Exergy destruction and hydrogen:

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

Have a nice day.

[eppur_se_muova]

1. The biggest problem with any push to burn biomass is that it incentives yet more cutting of trees.

If burning wood waste to generate electricity offsets the cost of cutting and processing trees, more trees will be cut for more profit -- even in a Communist country.

[NNadir]

2. The case with Drax, the "biomass" (coal) plant in the UK is illustrative.

They are burning American forests in their plant, and calling themselves "green."

They claim they are only using wood "waste" but there is no independent verification of where exactly whence the wood comes.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. Burning bunker fuel to ship trees across the ocean -- adding more fossil-derived CO2.

I thought I remember reading about Canada exporting its biomass to UK as well.

[NNadir]

4. When this is over, there isn't going to be all that much wood in Canada. It's being "pre-burned."

As it happens, Canadian forests are the chief source for toilet paper and paper towels.

There's a lot of ways that climate change is destroying the future, but, but, but...

FUKUSHIMA!!!!!!