BioFuels Journal

Urbana—Representatives from academia, government, industry, and the private sector have joined together to form the Illinois Biomass Working Group (IBWG), a coalition organized to study near-term uses for biomass in Illinois.

Ted Funk, an Extension specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Illinois, is one of the founding members of the group.

“Everyone is talking about liquid biofuels,” said Funk.

“Can we grow biomass on the farm and put it in your car tank? Yes, we know it’s possible, and we’re getting closer to that day, but we’re still sometime away from it.

"My fear is that we’ll have a bio-refinery system built, based on what we’re learning about turning cellulosic materials into liquid product, but we won’t know how to get huge quantities of biomass to those refineries.

“We felt there was a need to pull people together and talk about what we could do near-term to use biomass,” Funk continued.

“What are the markets today that could accept large quantities of biomass if the price was right,” he asked, “and how do we go about getting those supply chains put together?”

To answer those questions, Funk and others, including Hans Blaschek and Natalie Bosecker from the Center for Advanced BioEnergy Research at Illinois, and Fred Iutzi from the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs at Western Illinois University, organized a conference to analyze three markets they felt were currently open to the use of biomass for heat and power.

“We know we can pelletize many types of biomass, such as Miscanthus and switchgrass, to burn in a pellet stove,” said Funk.

”There are a dozen manufacturers of pellet stoves out there, and we’ve talked with a manufacturer in Christian County who has converted a shelled-corn furnace to burn wood and grass pellets.

"So we know we have local people interested in a community-scale industry for using biomass in residential and small commercial heating appliances.”

Funk believes there is a market for this when you consider using pellets to replace liquid propane (LP) gas.

“The price of LP is expensive, but it’s what so many people use for heat out in the countryside.

"We think we can produce grass and other kinds of pellets for around $200 per ton, so the economics look pretty favorable compared to recent prices for LP gas.”

Funk said a second market for biomass could be to replace some of the coal used in industrial boilers.

“Coal in and of itself is really cheap,” Funk acknowledged, “less than five dollars per million BTUs of heat.

"Biomass is going to cost around eight or nine dollars per million BTUs.

"So if you’re trying to compete head-to-head on an energy basis with coal, you can’t do it.

“However,” Funk continued, “there are always new emissions regulations and other things coming up that change the landscape when it comes to burning coal.

"It’s going to make burning coal more expensive and people are looking for ways and reasons to replace some of the coal with biomass material.”

Funk used the example of a small coal-fired power plant in western Illinois, built in the late ‘60’s, whose emission scrubbing technology is getting dated.

“EPA has told them if they don’t change over to biomass, they’ll be shut down by January 1 of 2013,” he said.

“They could scrap the plant, but what if there’s the possibility of collecting, in an economical fashion, enough biomass in a 30-mile radius to supply this presently coal-fired power plant?”

Funk said because of the amount of coal burned in the state, this market has huge potential.

“According to the Energy Information Administration, Illinois uses well over 50 million tons of coal per year producing electricity and heat.

"Even if we replaced only 10 percent of the coal burned, that would use a large quantity of biomass and automatically create biomass supply chains in order to get the product to market.”

A third market for biomass is gasification, said Funk.

“Eastern Illinois University is in the process of decommissioning their coal-fired steam plant, and replacing it with a pair of gasifiers that are designed to burn wood chips that will be sourced from out-of-state.

"That’s an interesting scenario, because in the long-term, I’d like to think they could get nearby biomass to burn in their gasifiers.

"There are other gasifier projects around the state,” he noted, “but this one got our attention because although it’s not a huge energy provider, it’s certainly a great example of a campus-scale energy plant that could use local biomass if we could get the supply chain built and bring in the right kind of material.”

Funk said, “The IBWG has been an excellent way to get the right people in the room and start talking about possibilities.

"We feel that the main function of the IBWG is to identify supply chains and put things together,” he concluded, “so that when the bio-refinery system is here, the supply chains will be here as well.”

For more information on the IBWG, go to http://www.illinoisbiomass.org/, or call 217-333-9313.

See Related Websites/Articles:

• IBWG

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