Chuck Kutscher National Renewable Energy Laboratory Biomass Power Potential Energy and Climate Mini-Workshop November 3, 2008 Chuck Kutscher National Renewable Energy Laboratory

Biomass Feedstocks Poplars Wood chips Switch grass Municipal solid waste Corn Stover

U.S. Biomass Resources

Potential Dry Biomass Supply Estimates (2025)

U.S. Biomass Resource Assessment Updated resource assessment - April 2005 Jointly developed by U.S. DOE and USDA Referred to as the “Billion Ton Study”

Biomass Cost Components Planting and management Harvesting and collection Transportation Total cost is $20 - $60/ton

Biopower Biopower status DOE Potential World: 40 GW U.S. 2007 capacity: 10.5 GWe (all direct combustion) 5 GW Pulp and Paper 2 GW Dedicated Biomass 3 GW MSW and Landfill Gas 0.5 GW Cofiring 2004 Generation – 68.5 TWh Cost – 8-10¢/kWh DOE Potential Cost – 4-6¢/kWh (integrated gasification combined cycle) 2030 – 160 TWh (net electricity exported to grid from integrated 60 billion gal/yr biorefinery industry)

Options for Biomass Electricity Direct combustion Co-firing Electric power from biomass is undergoing an exciting transformation. Biomass Power is not new - Direct combustion of biomass already provides 7500 MW of capacity to the U.S. grid. But the efficiencies of this process are not very high. Co-firing has emerged as one new option - where coal plant co-fires the coal process with biomass wastes. This can reduce certain emissions and can increase the types of coal a plant can use. There are already success projects demonstrating this technology option. And under development right now is a new way of using biomass. This system - termed gasification - gasifies the biomass fuel and uses the gas to run and advance turbine. This opportunity to use biomass in a Combines Cycles electric plant is exciting. It has already been proven in small-scale design, and the first full-scale plant is under construction in Burlington, VT. Gasification

50 MW McNeil Power Station 74 MW Wheelabrator Shasta Plant Combustion 50 MW McNeil Power Station Burlington, Vermont 74 MW Wheelabrator Shasta Plant Anderson, California

Gasification Systems Under Development Commercial Biomass-to-Liquids Plant, Choren Industries, Freiberg Germany, 2008: 200 mt/d biomass, 2010: 2,000 mt/d biomass 300 ton/day gasifier Burlington Electric, VT Varnamo Sweden, 100 mt/day, 6 MWe + 9 MWth demo run for 5 years, being retrofitted for BTL Foster Wheeler CFB Gasifier, Lahti Finland, 300 mt/d; 30,000 hours of operation at >95% availability 12

Small and medium size CHP is a good opportunity for biomass 5 MWe + District Heat Skive, Denmark 15-100 kWe Credit: Carbona Corp Credit: Community Power Corp

Biomass Power Benefits Reliable base load power Shifts agricultural and municipal biomass emissions from methane to CO2 Resource is well dispersed, so plants can be located to minimize new transmission Using woody biomass for electricity production has lower emissions than open burning Addresses waste and fire management problems Reduces new landfill capacity

Biomass Power Characteristics Direct combustion boiler/steam turbine Average size 20 MW, largest 75 MW; fuel transportation cost usually limits to 50 MW; gas/combined cycle might be 100 MW 20% efficiency for direct combustion, 40% IGCC 8-12 cents per kWh Barriers are producing, transporting, and preparing feedstock Supplies dominated by low-cost residue streams 50-mile economic supply radius, 20 miles preferred

CO2 LCA Results for One Hectare

Biomass Carbon Savings 1Bain, et al. 2003 2Woods, et al. 2007

Greenhouse Gas Burden from Removal of 1 Million Dry Tons of Forest Biomass in California in 2000 Morris, Biomass Energy Production in California, NREL/SR-570-28805, November 2000

(based on $33/ton CO2)

ASES Study Assumptions Based on WGA study of 18 western states, 170 million dry tons of biomass Required cost of < 8¢/kWh Most cost-effective units: <15 MW: steam turbine or gasifier/ICE >15 MW: IGCC Units larger than 60 MW connected to high-voltage distribution Extrapolated WGA results to DOE 1.25 billion ton study, excluding energy crops and crop residues (used for biofuels)

ASES Study Biomass Power Savings Wood residues and municipal discards 45,000 MW (after biofuels use) 5 to 8¢/kWh 2030 Savings: 75 MtC/yr

WGA Biomass Supply Curve

2030 Biomass Power and Carbon Displacement Potentials Biomass used (Millions dry tons) Power (GW) Low Carbon (MtC/y) High Carbon (MtC/y) 334 (forest only) 29 37 59 515 (all forest and non-crop ag biomass, ASES) 45 57 92 1256 less 420 of crop residues and energy crops used for ASES biofuels 73 149 1256 110 139 225

Carbon Capture and Storage

Impact of Carbon Price on Cost of Biomass CCS Fig. 4. Cost of electricity as a function of carbon price. Electricity costs are plotted for biomass-CCS with steam reform, biomass-CCS without steam reform, biomass without CCS, conventional pulverized coal, and conventional natural gas combined cycle technologies. The decreasing electricity cost with increasing carbon price from the two biomass-CCS cases reflects the net negative carbon emissions from these technologies. The relative slopes and electricity costs at zero carbon prices illustrate the trade-off between cost and carbon capture efficiency. Carbon mitigation costs are equal to the carbon price associated with the intersection of electricity costs from a mitigation technology and the base case technology, defined as coal within this context. As such, the mitigation costs for non-capture biomass IGCC, biomass-CCS without steam reform, and biomass-CCS with reform are equal to points ‘‘A’’, ‘‘B’’, and ‘‘C’’ respectively. Note that as carbon prices approach 200 $ tC!1, biomass-CCS becomes the least cost technology. Parameter values for the biomass technologies are taken from Table 2. To simplify the graph, parameter values for conventional technologies are deliberately set to yield equal electricity costs with zero carbon price—specifically capital costs, fuel costs, non-fuel O&M costs, and energy efficiencies (HHV) for coal and natural gas are 1200 and 550 $ kW!1, 1.00 and 3.46 $GJ!1, 8 and 3 $MWh!1, 40% and 50%, respectively. Rhodes, J. and D. Keith, “Engineering Economic Analysis of Biomass IGCC with Carbon Capture and Storage,” Biomass and Bioenergy, Vol. 29, 2005