A GHG balance of electricity production from co-firing palm oil products from Malaysia

Many European countries consider introducing sustainability criteria for biomass production. One of the crucial criteria is the GHG performance. The Netherlands imports significant quantities of biomass for energy production, among which palm oil has been used increasingly for co-firing in existing gas-fired power plants for renewable electricity production. Imported biomass, however, cannot simply be considered a sustainable energy source. The production and removal of biomass in other places in the world result in ecological, land-use and socio-economic impacts and in GHG emissions (e.g. for transportation). As a result of the sustainability discussions, the Cramer Commission in the Netherlands has formulated (draft) criteria and indicators for sustainable biomass production. This study [762 KB] , carried out by the Copernicus Institute, develops a detailed methodology for determining the GHG balance of co-firing palm oil products in the Netherlands. Then the methodology is applied to a specific bio-electricity chain: the production of palm oil and palm fatty acid distillate, in Northeast Borneo in Malaysia, their transport to the Netherlands and co-firing with natural gas for electricity production. The study illustrates, under which circumstances GHG reductions of 50-70% can be reached.

The prospects for large-scale import of biomass and biofuels into Sweden - a review of critical issues

Paper [497 KB] published by Julia Hansson, Göran Berndes and Pal

Potential of grown biomass for energy under four GHG emission scenarios

Is part of Ph.D.-research carried out by Monique Hoogwijk in collaboration between Copernicus and RIVM (the State Institute for Health and Environment of the Netherlands). It covers two parts (A & B).

Part A: the geographical and technical potential
v1b.36wbc2imageamoniquepaper.pdf [6.676 KB]

Part B: exploration of regional and global cost-supply curves
od5.1wbc2imagebmoniquepaper.pdf [111 KB]

The full Ph.D.-thesis can be found at:
http://www.chem.uu.nl/nws/www/nws.html (go to publications -> Ph.D.-theses).


Info EUBIONET II

Info on EUBIONET II can be downloaded here: eubionetii.pdf [94 KB]


Future demand for fertilizer from bioenergy crop production

In this study by Smeets and Faaij, an assessment is made of the future demand of fertilizers from bioenergy crop production. A representative sample of various assessments on the contribution of bioenergy is derived from literature. The projections are translated into fertilizer demand, assuming that all bioenergy is produced from dedicated woody bioenergy crops. The amount of nutrients in the harvested biomass is used as a proxy for the fertilizer demand.

The full paper can be found here: smeetsfuturedemandforfertilizerfrombioenergycr.pdf [45 KB]
The corresponding Excel-datafile can be downloaded here: smeetsfertilizerdemand.zip [1.138 KB]