Clean energy systems + technology = green energy solutions!
To many people, the most familiar forms of renewable energy are the wind and the sun. But biomass (plant material and animal waste) is the oldest source of renewable energy, used since our ancestors learned the secret of fire.
- BIOMASS TECHNOLOGIES
- APPLICATIONS
- Benefits & Advantages
What we formerly thought of waste is being reconsidered as fuel. Biomass energy may be the least developed form of renewable energy available to most municipalities today, though it is growing. There are a number of commercially available systems and large scale study projects.
There are 3 ways to make biomass into bioenergy:
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Examples of Biomass materials:
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Waste-to-Energy
Bioenergy can be made by the burning of biomass in a controlled way that powers a generator while capturing the carbon released in the burning.
- Heat generated from burning refuse can be used to drive a turbine-generator, producing electricity.
- Some of the electricity produced is used to operate the facility.
- The remainder is sold to the local utility company for distribution to its customers.
- The steam used to drive the turbine-generator is then sent to a condenser where it is converted into water and recycled back through the boilers.
An alternative to powering a generator directly is co-firing. Co-firing is an approach mixes biomass with coal and burns it at a power plant designed for coal. Through gasification, biomass can also be co-fired at natural gas-powered plants. The benefits associated with co-firing can include
- Lower operating costs
- Reductions of harmful emissions
- Greater energy security
- With the use of beneficial biomass, lower carbon emissions
- It is also a renewable resource because plants to make biomass can be grown over and over
Co-firing is also one of the more economically viable ways to increase biomass power generation today, since it can be done with modifications to existing facilities.
Enel Green Power (EGP-NA) operates the 21 MW St. Félicien Biomass Project in northern Quebec, Canada. The project offsets over a million tons of CO2 per year by burning wood waste that would otherwise be disposed of in landfills and emit significant levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
HURST Biomass Boiler Systems will strengthen your bottom line by reducing, or even eliminating your energy and disposal costs altogether, through the gasification and combustion of renewable fuel sources, also known as Biomass.
Burlington's biomass electric plant, the 50-megawatt McNeil Generating Station, which is located smack dab in the farm-filled Intervale.
Vermont Agency of Natural Resources granted Massachusetts-based Beaver Wood Energy a preliminary air permit to construct a 34-megawatt generator along Route 4 near the New York border.
Long Beach, CA, has a publicly-owned solid waste management facility called SERRF that uses mass burn technology to reduce the volume of solid waste by about 80%, while recovering electrical energy.
Residential and commercial solid waste is combusted in high temperature boilers to produce steam which in turn is used to run the turbine-generator producing electricity. The electricity is used to operate the facility with the remainder sold to the utility company Southern California Edison. SERRF processes an average of 1,290 tons of municipal solid waste each day and generates up to 36 megawatts of electricity. SERRF has sold to SCE in excess of 1½ billion kilowatts of electricity.
Plainly put, SERRF generates enough power each year to supply 35,000 residential homes with electricity and has reduced the volume of solid waste entering a landfill by over four million cubic yards. That's equivalent to trash the length and width of a football field piled three times the height of the Empire State Building.
Converting Waste to Liquid Fuels
Technology now exists to produce viable fuel products from any kind of biomass. The processes are somewhat complex and multi-step, and vary according to your needs.
Syngas - Biomass can be converted into liquid fuels in a process called "gasification", a process that converts organic or fossil based carbonaceous materials into carbon monoxide, hydrogen, carbon dioxide and methane. This is achieved by reacting the material with a controlled amount of oxygen and/or steam. The resulting gas mixture is called syngas (from synthesis gas or synthetic gas). Further processing can result in synthetic petroleum, which can be used in standard engines.
Ethanol - Spruce (softwood), Salix (hardwood) and corn stover (agricultural residue) can be used for ethanol production. If you pre-treat them using a process concept based on SO2-catalysed steam pretreatment followed by simultaneous saccharification and fermentation (SSF), the process yields more ethanol and is more cost effective.
E-85 is an alternative fuel blend containing 83% ethanol in the summer and 70% ethanol in the winter. Flexible fuel vehicles (FFVs) have corrosion-resistant fuel systems and other modest modifications to accommodate either E-85 or regular gasoline. The largest U.S. automobile manufacturers each offer several models as flexible fuel vehicles at little or no additional cost.
Biodiesel - If your municipality is large enough, it may have enough waste frying oil to create a biodiesel production facility. Biodiesel refers to a vegetable oil (usually made from soy beans) - or animal fat-based diesel fuel consisting of long-chain alkyl esters. It is most often made by chemically reacting lipids (e.g., vegetable oil, animal fat (tallow)) with an alcohol. Biodiesel is typically blended at 20% with petroleum diesel. This fuel blend is called B-20, and is used chiefly by vehicle fleets. B-20 is also available to individual consumers with diesel vehicles without needing modifications.
Green Diesel - Biomass can be processed to produce oil, which can be refined in a process similar to that used in petroleum refining. The refining produces green diesel, which can be used alone, or blended with petrodiesel. Biodiesel can also be used as a low carbon alternative to heating oil. Green diesel feedstock can be sourced from a variety of oils including canola, algae, jatropha and salicornia in addition to tallow.
Biologically produced Hydrogen - In the future, municipalities may be able to use agricultural waste in combination with other methods to biologically produce hydrogen, but the technology is not economical yet.
Since 1971, Teledyne Isco has provided customers in the energy, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries with pumps that can handle a wide variety of fluids. They are experienced with a variety of processes needed to produce biofuels, synthetic fuels, hydrogen, and syngas.
Sandia Labs: Several approaches for converting biomass into advanced, renewable transportation fuels are more compatible than ethanol with today's existing petroleum-based infrastructure. Sandia has several ongoing internal and external programs in bio- and thermochemically converting biomass into advanced biofuels. Sandia is a partner in the $134M, 5-year, DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which has focused on using synthetic biology to develop a biochemical route to fuels such as isopentanol, biodiesel, and aviation fuels.
Waste Gas to Energy - Biogas
Landfills can be harnessed and put to work producing electricity for your municipality. The off-gases produced by decomposition of the landfill, particularly methane, can be captured and burned to power electrical generators, particularly the combined heat and power systems that employ a Stirling engine as the main component.
More than 540 operating landfill gas recovering plants (1,684MW) are running in 46 states and there is a potential of 510 landfills (1,160MW), with nearly 80 of those projects under construction.
Biomethane fuel can also be produced from biomass. Anaerobic digestion uses micro-organisms to break down biomass to produce methane and carbon dioxide. This can occur in a carefully controlled way in anaerobic digesters used to process sewage or animal manure. After it is processed to required standards of purity, biomethane becomes a renewable substitute for natural gas and, once compressed or liquefied, can be used to fuel natural gas vehicles.
In another application, many waste water treatment plants use anaerobic digestion to stabilize sludge generated during the treatment process. Microorganisms break down organic material, releasing biogas, a mixture composed of methane and carbon dioxide, trace gases, and water. Typically, the plants flare biogas to dispose of it, but this renewable fuel can be used in fuel cells to generate heat and electricity. Using biogas in this way reduces emissions that otherwise would be generated by flaring and eliminates emissions that would be generated by using traditional power sources.
Almost every municipality needs to manage waste. Contact MLC - we can help you find a way to make that waste work for your community and become profitable.
Eisenmann's proprietary BIOGAS Green Waste technology utilizes anaerobic digestion to convert high solid waste organics to biogas. The biogas can either be directed to a combined heat and power (CHP) system to produce electrical power or it can be cleaned/compressed and fed into the natural gas pipeline or utilized as a transportation fuel alternative.
Install Landfill Gas Collector and Generator
Many municipal landfills are being retrofitted with a gas-to-energy system to lessen the landfill's negative environmental impact and utilize the landfill gas in a beneficial way. The systems are usually composed of a series of vertical extraction wells, collection lines, a skid mounted blower/flare system and a gas processing unit. Once the landfill gas collection and processing is complete, the gas can be used on-site for electricity generation, then inserted into the local electrical distribution grid. Additionally, solar arrays make a good partner to gas collectors on a landfill. Both systems can be leased simultaneously.
Enerdyne Power Systems finds creative ways to utilize landfill gas as a renewable fuel source in applications such as power generation and direct use (medium-BTU/high-BTU). Enerdyne is one of the most accomplished "Landfill Gas to Energy" developers on the East Coast.
Burn Municipal Solid Waste to Run Generator
Electricity can be produced by burning "municipal solid waste" (MSW) as a fuel. MSW power plants, also called waste to energy (WTE) plants, are designed to dispose of MSW and to produce electricity as a byproduct of the incinerator operation.
There are two approaches:
- Mass Burn is the most common waste-to-energy technology, in which MSW is combusted directly in much the same way as fossil fuels are used in other direct combustion technologies. Burning MSW converts water to steam to drive a turbine connected to an electricity generator.
- Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) facilities process the MSW prior to direct combustion. The level of pre-combustion processing varies among facilities, but generally involves shredding of the MSW and removal of metals and other bulky items. The shredded MSW is then used as fuel in the same manner as at mass burn plants.
Ameresco is an example of a company that has a breadth and depth of solutions for government customers. From renewable energy plants that surpass federal and state government efficiency guidelines to energy efficient retrofits, energy management system enhancements and cogeneration systems, their team of experienced energy specialists has designed, built, operated and maintained power plants and energy assets. They have experience with traditional fuel sources as well as renewable energy plants powered by biomass, geothermal, wind and hydroelectric fuels.
Create and Use Biofuels
Have your Public Works Department install and operate a biodiesel production plant using the appropriate biomass from your town to make fuel for vehicles and furnaces.
A wide variety of feedstocks can be gasified and used as a fuel or can can be processed into synthetic fuels. Biomass suitable for fuel includes:
- Wood pellets and chips,
- Waste wood
- Plastics and aluminium,
- Municipal Solid Waste (MSW),
- Refuse-derived fuel (RDF),
- Agricultural and industrial wastes,
- Sewage sludge
- Switch grass
- Discarded seed corn
- Corn stover and
- Other crop residues
Pure biodiesel (also called B100 or neat biodiesel) from Hero BX is a clean-burning alternative fuel with a range of applications. It is most often blended with petroleum diesel or with home heating oil. Biodiesel operates like petroleum diesel—no need for engine modifications. Its high cetane rating helps assure efficient ignition. Further, blending biodiesel with heating oil requires no change to oil-burning furnaces. In addition, Bioheat® fuel oil cleanses heating systems.
Biomass:
- Biofuels are inherently renewable. Because they are derived from agricultural crops that are produced by domestic farmers, biofuels reduce our dependence on foreign oil producers.
- Biodiesel creates a lower degree of dangerous particle pollution than petroleum-based gasoline and diesel fuels. Particle pollution is made up of a number of components, including acids (such as nitrates and sulfates), organic chemicals, metals, and soil or dust particles, which have the potential to cause serious health problems.
- Biofuels do not contribute to global warming, since they only emit back to the environment the carbon dioxide (CO2) that their source plants absorbed out of the atmosphere in the first place, though this of course requires good stewardship of the land.
Syngas:
- Syngas: The advantage of gasification is that using the Syngas is potentially more efficient than direct combustion of the original fuel because it can be combusted at higher temperatures or even in fuel cells.
- Syngas: It may be burned directly in gas engines, used to produce methanol and hydrogen, or converted via the Fischer-Tropsch process into synthetic fuel. Gasification can also begin with material which would otherwise have been disposed of such as biodegradable waste.
- Syngas: In addition, the high-temperature process refines out corrosive ash elements such as chloride and potassium, allowing clean gas production from otherwise problematic fuels. Gasification of fossil fuels is currently widely used on industrial scales to generate electricity.
Landfills:
- Landfills: Why not take a negative and make a big positive out of it? Landfills are a fine source of biomass, and the technology exploiting it is in use all over the United States.
- Landfills: Waste can be burned to produce electricity.
- Landfills: Waste produces methane which can fuel a generator.
- Landfills: It can be actively producing methane and simultaneously be the prime location for a solar array. Produce twice the amount of electricity!
Financial:
- Immediate reduction in energy costs. Your municipality will also realize tremendous energy costs savings over the course of the lease!
- Positive impact on your balance sheet. With MLC lease financing for your energy project, you have no capital investment and you can get your project started now and reap all of the cost-savings. This makes sense because you can make better use of your capital for other important needs.
- Bioenergy provides clean, cost-effective and environmentally friendly energy.
- Reliability. Both the bioenergy technology and the solar technology that could be used at a landfill are proven and safe.
- Excellent incentives are still available! Refer to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE) for the latest complete information on local, state, regional, and federal incentives.
- MLC will fastrack your equipment lease to get your project up and running in no time.
Our energy performance audit and contract partners can perform an assessment of your current systems against your usage needs. Then MLC secures the lease financing to fund your project quickly. The MLC team also provides the professional assistance you need to navigate regulations or restrictions, and help you make the most of local, state and federal incentives. Which means you get all of the benefits, and none of the hassles!