Energy development of residual biomass constituted by straw from cereals

Abstract

Vegetal biomass, residual or not, has constituted the traditional fuel mankind. Even nowadays, more than 1,500 million people depended upon these residues to meet their energy needs. With the massive used of fossil fuels, the energy development of biomass started diminishing steadily. However, during the last years, the energy panorama has varied remarkably worldwide. The high cost of fossil fuels and technological progress have made possible the appearance of energy-development of biomass systems that allow us to obtain energy directly or indirectly by means of combustion processes, pyrolisis or gasification. These development systems are more and more efficient, reliable and clean. Due to this fact, biomass has started being taken into account as a total or partial alternative to fossil fuels. According to estimations carried out for the elaboration of the so called Plan de Fomento de las Energías Renovables (Renewable Energies Fostering Plan), biomass represents currently in Spain 53’8% (3.792 ktep) of the consumption of primary energy of renewable origin including all the hydraulic energy, or 89.1% of all the renewable energies excluding it. The Renewable Energies Fostering Plan proposed for Spain, passed by Government the 31st of December, 1999, bases its proposal on an increase of 90.2 Mtep obtained from biomass, wich represents 74’4% of the global increase of primary energy contributed by all renewable energies. This plan also considers an important participation of energy crops for the prodution of biomass, the utilization of more than 800,000 Ha of land used for dry farming being foreseen in order to produce 3.35 Mtep of solid bio-fuels