Biomass Energy: the Global Potential in Numbers

Copenhagen—Biomass is the original source of energy for humanity (It’s lasted far longer than bear skins, the original insulation) and still one of the most pervasive. But can it continue to scale?

Yes, says Claus Felby of the University of Copenhagen, but we’ve got to figure out better ways to harvest it.

Globally, the amount of energy contained in the biomass produced by plants annually is five times larger than our current energy consumption, he said in a lecture at Copenmind, a technology transfer conference that took place this week. Put another way, that’s 5X our energy consumption in indirect solar power.

Right now, though, the world only gets 10 percent of its energy from biomass. ‘We need to increase it by a factor of three to four,” he said. “If we cannot supply enough sustainable biomass, we cannot develop a sustainable economy. Economic growth will depend on ecological growth.”

Two-thirds of it could be used for heating and the other 1/3 could go to transportation.

Does the land exist to expand like that with existing crops and current technologies? No. He did an examination of Denmark’s own land capacity. If you wanted to run 10 percent of Denmark’s vehicles on biofuels, you would need 1.5 million hectares. Denmark only has 2.5 million hectares under cultivation.

So what can we do?

1. Cross-breed new types of plants. 75 percent of a plant’s mass is sugar. We need to develop plants that will yield the types of sugars that are more easily extracted and converted to fuel.

2. Stop eating so much, particularly meat. This could have the biggest dent. Right now, only 1 percent of cropland globally is dedicated to biofuels. Close to 70 percent are used to grow feed for animals.

3. New types of power plants. In 2009, Europe’s first combined biomass/biofuel power plant will start producing. This plant, located in Denmark, produces ethanol and power, and the waste heat is captured to help run the plant. It’s been in development for seven years.

4. Better farming techniques. Felby created an economic model to determine how much could be saved (in fertilizer, carbon credits etc,) if farmers optimized production with multicrop growing and other techniques designed to reduce energy consumption. He concluded that efficiency techniques could save 1359 Euros per hectare per year.