Quantitative Estimation of Biomass Energy and Evaluation of Biomass Utilization - A Case Study of Jilin Province, China

Abstract

Jilin Province, as a large agricultural province, has abundant reserve of biomass resources. At the same time Jilin Province is currently suffering from energy shortage. Besides, consumption of conventional fossil fuels has resulted in the exacerbation of global warming and air pollution. Biomass energy as a renewable and substitutive energy, can mitigate the energy crisis and global warming, and improve environmental quality once it is fully utilized. This paper estimated the supply potential of biomass energy and integrated LCA and environmental cost analysis to make evaluation on biomass utilization taking biomass power generation system as example. Acquirable and utilizable amount of biomass energy in Jilin Province is equivalent to 21.26 tce, which can be accounted for 25.6% of total energy consumption in Jilin Province in 2011. Among all biomass energy, 59.1% comes from straw and agricultural residues, followed by 33.8% from livestock manure. According to the LCA results, total environmental impact of biomass power generation system is 0.721, much smaller than 25.321 of thermal power generation system. General cost of biomass power generation is higher, however its environmental cost is much lower than thermal power generation system (396 yuan/104kWh < 1819 yuan/104kWh). The results showed that biomass utilization has better environmental advantages and has the potential for the mitigation of energy crisis in Jilin Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]