Energy Paths due to Blue Tower Process

Abstract

In order to solve the environmental problem, decarbonisation has received worldwide attention. In particular, hydrogen energy, which is produced from renewable energy resources of wind power, hydropower, photovoltaic, solar thermal power, geothermal power and biomass, is the most promising. The fuels from biomass feedstock would be electricity and/or thermal energy through typical incineration system (e.g. gas-engine or gas-turbine), or the secondary energy of hydrogen, methanol and/or dimethyl-ether (DME), which are so-called "biomass to liquid" fuels (BTL). Actually, the biomass energy system is one of the environmentally friendly energy systems which will contribute to the global warming protection. However, there would be somewhat problems at the time when the eco-friendly systems will be promoted to the target area. For instance, it is known well that the resource might cause competition with the biomass as food. Also, even if there are abundant material sources, the products through the system would be costly in comparison to the conventional one due to the characteristics of low energy density. According to the recent interviews, the cost problem is extremely significant and the market abilities of products are important from the viewpoint of the sustainable business management, too. When we consider the promotion of eco-friendly system, the operational condition on the eco-business, the technological barriers and the environmental contribution effect have to be absolutely estimated before we decide to execute the project or not. That is, we need to create the suitable energy paths and the business model. In our previous studies, we focused on the biomass gasification system whose scale is not conventional scale in the chemical industrial sector, and we concluded that the comprehensive arguments including the application example through the system were required. This means that the suitable plant scale is necessary due to the low energy density of biomass feedstock. On the promotion of new technology, the public support due to central or local government at the earlier stage, and the good business scheme based on the emission trading or the increased awareness of willingness to pay for eco-products would be required in order to operate the plant operation business, too. Thus, in this section, we propose the several energy paths on the biomass utilization from the viewpoints of “energy”, “environment” and “economy”. Especially, we consider the biomass energy system due to the Blue-Tower process which will be able to produce electricity and thermal energy by the co-generation unit (ex. gas-engine, gas-turbine or fuel cell), to purify Bio-H2 through PSA (pressure swing adsorption) unit.