Technical support of the US DOE biomass power program to the development of biomass-to-electricity technologies
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
Biomass power represents a viable source of electricity as evidenced by the 6600 MW of installed capacity. However, expansion of the industry is limited by its low energy conversion efficiency and high cost of electricity when compared to alternative electricity generation sources such as natural gas. In addition, biomass feedstocks are generally limited to clean woody residues because of operational problems encountered in firing residues containing high levels of contaminants such as potassium. The USDOE Biomass Power Program is devoting the majority of its research and development resources to supporting efforts to develop and commercialize advanced technologies with improved energy conversion efficiencies and lower costs of electricity. The primary technology being developed is gasification, for use in gasification/combined cycle and in gasification/fuel cell generating systems. Technical areas being addressed include hot-gas cleanup to remove alkali and condensable tars, development/demonstration of novel feeding systems specific to biomass, and scale up of processing units to the engineering development scale. Work is also being performed to define and quantify the properties of biomass impacting system operability, primarily for combustion systems. The goal of this effort is to develop boiler correlations, feed mixture correlations, and additives which will permit more widespread use of problematic fuels in biomass systems. This paper will present an overview of USDOE developmental efforts, with an emphasis on the technical basis for development.
- OSTI ID:
- 214710
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-950801-; TRN: 96:000922-0181
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 210. national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), Chicago, IL (United States), 20-25 Aug 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of 210th ACS national meeting. Part 1 and 2; PB: 1866 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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