Bioenergy Plantation
and Pellet Mill
BIOMASS AND BIOENERGY
Biomass is biological material derived from living or recently living organisms. In the context of biomass for energy this is often used to mean plant based material, but biomass can equally apply to both animal and vegetable derived material. With the global campaign to combat climate change, countries are now looking for alternative sources of energy to minimize green house gas (GHG) emissions. Aside from being carbon neutral, the use of biomass for energy reduces dependency on the consumption of fossil fuel; hence, contributing to energy security and climate change mitigation.
In many regards, biomass can be considered a form of stored solar energy, since plants use this energy to capture CO2 and water through photosynthesis. Moreover, it is a non-fossil fuel, neutral from the point of view of the carbon cycle (natural cycle of the carbon between the earth and the air).
Plant-based Biomass is a renewable, low carbon fuel that is already widely available in many parts of the world. Its production and use also brings additional environmental and social benefits. Correctly managed, biomass is a sustainable fuel that can deliver a significant reduction in net carbon emissions when compared with fossil fuels, and can then offer a wide range of benefits.
BIOMASS PELLETS
Pellets are a solid fuel produced from various types of biomass. They are produced by a simple and cheap process of milling, drying and compacting which requires small amounts of energy. Wood pellets are the largest traded solid biomass commodity used specifically for energy purposes. Wood pellets are considered carbon neutral, and therefore do not contribute to Climate Change which is having such a substantial impact on the planet’s fragile environment.
PELLET MARKETS AND DEMAND
The EU is the world’s largest wood pellets market, with a consumption of about 14.3 MMT (Million Metric Tons) of pellets in 2012. The European Commission (EC) expects heat and power production from biomass to play an important role in meeting the 20 percent target for renewable use by 2020 and in the future reduction of CO2 emissions in Europe.
Driven by the EC mandates and Member State incentives, the demand is expected to expand further to about 17 MMT in 2014. Consumption forecasts for 2020 range from 35 MMT for Western Europe (Pöyry) to 50 – 80 MMT for the total EU (AEBIOM).
Both domestic production of pellets within Europe and imports have increased in recent years. In 2006, the E.U. produced approximately 3.52 million metric tons of wood pellets. Production is expected to reach 10.15 million metric tons this year, and increase to 10.3 million metric tons in 2014. Imports measured only 800,000 metric tons in 2006, but are projected to grow to 6 million metric tons this year and 7 million metric tons next year.
Consumption has also grown rapidly, from 4.606 million metric tons in 2006 to 14.3 million metric tons last year. In 2013, the EU is expected to consume 16 million metric tons of wood pellets, with consumption growing to 17.1 million metric tons next year.
The U.K. is currently Europe’s largest consumer of pellets, with 4.54 million metric tons of demand expected this year. Denmark and the Netherlands round out the top three consumers, with 2.5 million metric tons and 2 million metric tons of consumption expected this year, respectively. Sweden, Germany and Belgium also consume large volumes of pellets.
The European wood pellet market alone will be roughly $7 billion a year by 2020 . According to Poyry Management Consulting, a 50 Mt gap will open between global supply and demand for pellets by 2020. Western European demand will triple, from 11 Mt per year in 2010 to 35 Mt per year by 2020. For perspective, North American wood pellet production capacity was just 4.2 Mt in 2008 according to the U.S. Forest Service and North American pellet exports were just over 2 Mt in 2011.
OUR BIOENERGY PLANTATION
We offer new professionally managed dedicated short rotation bioenergy crop & other tropical tree plantations. We facilitate forestry/agriculture investment in a flexible way. We source land and provide a complete management service including land preparation, irrigation, planting and full care of the plantation through to cropping, harvest and milling and selling the end products.
The planned 6000 acres bioenergy plantations and pellet mill project in the Central America is carefully designed to provide maximum financial returns under a safe investment structure that is projected to generate at the minimum above market returns in 10 years .
The project is being developed by top experts using unique select yielding short rotation forestry crops and sustainable practices and is designed to deliver environmental benefits, store Carbon and alleviate poverty in the local communities. Main components of the project are:
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Grow short rotation high yielding tropical bioenergy crops
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Establish a pellet production line and eventually upgrade it to torrefied pellet system
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Sell the pellets to EU (UK & BENELUX) countries on long term contract basis
" Even when the wind stops blowing and the sun sets, biomass keeps working and thus offering compelling proposition above the wind and solar energy."
Video Courtesy: Drax Power, UK
SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainably managed bioenergy plantations, which provide positive economic, social and environmental benefits, are scarce. For these reasons new plantations are required on a large scale to produce renewable feedstock for economic development, poverty alleviation and to decrease pressure on natural forests. Plantations that employ best management practices can be ten to twenty times more efficient in terms of production, when compared to natural forests.
Using biomass to generate heat and power can reduce GHG emissions significantly, if production and logistics are managed responsibly. In the EU’s latest report on biomass, some of the most commonly-used biomass supply chains are estimated to reduce emissions by between 55 and 98 percent, compared with the fossil fuel mix used in the EU today even when emissions from long-distance transportation are included. As long as the harvested volumes never exceed the total annual growth of biomass in the forest or plantation, carbon sequestration is, for all practical purposes, continuous, regardless of the growth rate or age of the trees. Bioenergy Plantations—that is, tracts of land managed for harvesting fast-growing short rotation trees, raise the same main environmental issues similar to those encountered in intensive agriculture crop farming. Several governments and organizations, including the Dutch, UK, and German governments, have already developed sustainability criteria specifically for biomass used for energy. The European Committee for Standardization has also prepared guidelines. Forest products can be certified as sustainable by organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Companies and private forest owners can choose to certify their forest management or the entire production chain from forest to finished product. To gain certification, applicants need to show that they comply with social, cultural, environmental, and economic criteria, through an audit. Currently, FSC is the certification system that enjoys the broadest support from NGOs and companies.
Video Courtesy: Drax Power, UK
