ESL Lesson 1
Oil in Our Every Day Life
ESL Lesson 2
The History of Mining
ESL Lesson 3
Economic growth
ESL Lesson 4
Delivery Systems
ESL Lesson 5
Cities and Population Movement
ESL Lesson 6
Recycling
ESL Lesson 7
Rubber
ESL Lesson 8
Farming
Biomass Gasification
Key questions on energy options
Is the energy source sustainable?
Sustainable.
What are the potential negative externalities (effects) of producing/using this
energy source?
Care has to be taken with respect to the source used for gasification. There are also potential air quality (pollution) issues from a large-scale gasification program.
What is the EROEI?
I have not seen an EROEI calculation, but I expect it to be much higher than for cellulosic ethanol. I would estimate an EROEI in the 6-10 range (based on the method I use for calculating a fossil fuel EROEI).
Is it affordable?
Currently capital costs (investments) are too high to enable (allow) biomass gasification to compete.
Are there better alternatives?
Biomass gasification has a chance to be a highly sustainable contributor toward our energy demands.
Are there other special considerations?
Biomass gasification could be used either to produce electricity (e.g., use biomass instead of coal in a power plant application) or as the first step in a liquid-fuels program. More below.
In summary, are the advantages of the source large enough to justify any
negative consequences?
Yes.
I have described what I believe are the advantages of biomass gasification over cellulosic ethanol previously in Cellulosic Ethanol vs. Biomass Gasification. Briefly, cellulosic ethanol converts a small portion of the available biomass. Gasification converts all of it into syngas, which can then be used to make a wide variety of chemicals, including methanol, ethanol, or diesel.
The main problem with implementing (starting) large scale biomass gasification is that it is presently just too expensive. The capital (investment) costs associated with processing (producing) the biomass are very high. Current estimates, which I documented in the afore-mentioned article, put the cost of a biomass gasification plant at about 7 times (7X) the per barrel cost of a conventional oil refinery or grain ethanol plant, and double the costs of a coal-to-liquids plant. At some point we may be willing to pay these costs for our fuel, but it won't be until other options are largely exhausted (almost completely finished).
Continue to: Wind and Solar
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Rubber
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Bio-fuels and Ethanol
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Liquid Fossil Fuels
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Grain Ethanol
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Sugarcane Ethanol
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Cellulosic Ethanol
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Biodiesel
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Biomass Gasification
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Wind and Solar
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Conservation
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