Biomass potential in U.S. assessed at 423 million tonnes

GOLDEN, Colorado, US, February 8, 2006 (Refocus Weekly)

The United States could produce 423 million tonnes a year of biomass, according to a report prepared for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Of that national total, 157 m-tonnes is crop residues and 77 m-tonnes from primary mill, with the balance coming from switchgrass, forest, landfill methane, methane from manure, urban wood and methane from domestic wastewater, says ‘A Geographic Perspective on the Current Biomass Resource Availability in the United States.’

“Biomass is receiving increasing attention as scientists, policy makers, and growers search for clean, renewable energy alternatives,” it explains. “Compared with other renewable resources, biomass is very flexible; it can be used as fuel for direct combustion, gasified, used in combined heat & power technologies, or biochemical conversions.”

Biomass has a wide range of feedstocks and a broad geographic distribution, “in some cases offering a least-cost and near-term alternative,” and the report was to estimate the biomass resources available in the U.S. and map the results using geographic information systems.

Iowa has the highest available resource at 35 million tonnes a year, followed by Illinois at 28 and Minnesota at 26 m-tonnes. The smallest resource is the District of Columbia with 57 and Rhode Island with 174 m-tonnes a year.

The crops included in the analysis on crop residues include corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, sorghum, barley, oats, rice, rye, canola, beans, peas, peanuts, potatoes, safflower, sunflower, sugarcane, and flaxseed, and the report shows the resource for each county in every state. The available quantity of crop residues was estimated by assessing total grain production, crop-to-residue ratio and moisture content, and factoring in the amount of residue left on the field for soil protection, grazing and other agricultural activities.

Quantities that must remain on a field for erosion control differ by crop type, soil type, weather conditions, and tillage system used, but it assumes that 30% residue cover is reasonable for soil protection. Animals seldom consume more than 25% of stover in grazing, and 15% of crop residue is used for bedding and silage, and the report assumes that 35% of the total residue could be collected as biomass.

Primary mill residues are composed of wood materials (coarse and fine) and bark generated at manufacturing plants (wood-using mills) when round wood products are processed into primary wood products. The report also examines the mill residues burned as waste or landfilled.

“Another potential use of energy crops is on environmentally-damaged lands, such as closed mining sites,” but the report says it is difficult to calculate the energy crops that could be produced on such sites. Thousands of acres now are largely considered wastelands, and one successful project in central Florida involved 250,000 eucalyptus and cottonwood trees planted on a former phosphate mine which now is the largest tree biomass energy crop plantation in the U.S.


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