11.1

Biomass Demand in the United States

There will be a sharp increase in biomass demand over the next several years in the United States. Biomass has emerged as the top candidate in renewable energies. The expected further increase in global biomass demand cannot be ignored. Biomass from trees and woody plants forms the source for over 8% of the world’s total energy mix. At the end of September 2011, 467 wood bioenergy projects were operating in the United States.

Based on the number of new or planned wood energy facilities, I expect to see a significant growth in wood demand between 2011 and 2015. In the United States, wood demand from pellet plants, wood energy plants, and cellulosic biofuel pro­jects could increase by almost 100 million tonnes annually. Still, the degree and main source of the demand will vary between regions in the United States.

About half of the new demand is projected to occur in the southern regions of the United States as a result of both pellet and energy production. For instance, the largest utility of Europe, RWE in Germany (www. rwe. com), is transforming itself into a supplier of renewable energy and in July 2011 the company opened the largest woodpellet production plant in the world in the state of Georgia with an annual pellet capacity of 750 000 tonnes. All the pellets are shipped to its own boilers in Europe. Thus, the biggest demand increase in the United States is expected to come from woodpellets being exported to Europe.

The prospective pellet demand from Europe is so much more promising than domestic demand due to the fast expansion it is currently seeing, and the fact that European countries are more established in terms of feed-in tariffs and carbon markets. As a result, wood demand is predicted to see an increase of as much as 80 million green tonnes across Europe from 2007 to 2015. Much of that growth is going to happen in the United Kingdom, which will not be able to meet its own projected need.

All of the utilities in Europe are planning to use 1.5-2 million tonnes of woodpellets by 2014-2015. Already today they import the largest portion from woodpellet plants in Canada and the United States.

Second Generation Biofuels and Biomass: Essential Guide for Investors, Scientists and Decision Makers, First Edition. Roland A. Jansen. r 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Published 2013 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

The southern United States has a sustainable and steady supply of timber, and the climate allows year-round harvesting, unlike northern regions that have to deal with wet weather slow downs. It also has fast timber rotation and a close proximity to Atlantic ports, which gives it a competitive advantage over areas such as Oregon or British Columbia that have to transport products down the west coast and through the Panama Canal to export to Europe.

Within the United States, the northeast has the largest biomass demand due to electricity generation. Almost half of the new and announced electricity generating projects are in the north. It is already the major use of wood for bioenergy in the region. In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Ohio, wood is one of the most important renewable sources of electricity.

The biggest obstacle to expand the use of woody biomass is ignorance of the general public and environmentalists, who do not want to see any tree cut. Most people do not understand that a forest also needs to be cultivated, and trees need to be pruned and sometimes chopped to make way for new trees. A forest without care starts to rot, the quality of the trees goes down, and general decay will set in.

11.2

14.1

Dependency on Fossil Fuels

Africa has a large opportunity to transform itself to a low-carbon continent. It is entirely possible to lift Africa out of energy poverty, but it will need substantial financial and technological support for it to become a low-emission leader. I want to make the case for a low-carbon Africa that is able to produce renewable and sus­tainable energy to millions of energy-poor people across the continent, and export the surplus to continents regions such as Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

Africa depends greatly on imported fossil fuels. Unfortunately, many African countries cannot afford to pay for their ever-increasing energy needs. Even Nigeria, the region’s largest exporter of crude oil, has to import refined fuels. Africa consumes far more energy for every dollar of gross domestic product than any other continent. This means Africa has currently the highest energy intensity in the world.

Africa very much depends on imports of oil and coal, and it burns massive amounts ofwoodfuel. With all its natural resources and waste that is not converted into bioenergy, the potential for renewable energy across the continent is enor­mous and can unlock economic growth. Next to biofuels and biomass, the main focus of this book, the possibilities for geothermal, small-scale hydro, solar, wind, and tidal wave energy are also substantial.

So far, however, sub-Saharan Africa has received relatively little funding from global climate finance sources or the carbon market, and is mainly relies on investments from China, public companies, and private equity initiatives.

The support that developed countries have offered for all climate change actions for all developing countries is regrettably inadequate. At the Climate Conference in Copenhagen in 2010 an annual support of just $10 billion per year up until 2012 was agreed, with a long-term finance commitment of $100 billion per year by 2020. The conference decided to establish a so-called "Green Climate Fund” and the final version has been presented at the climate conference in Durban in November 2011. However, the committee members of the Green Climate Fund did not agree on all the terms, so the launch of this promising initiative has been postponed. Germany is trying to attract to the city of Bonn funds and agencies of the United

Second Generation Biofuels and Biomass: Essential Guide for Investors, Scientists and Decision Makers, First Edition. Roland A. Jansen. r 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Published 2013 by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.

Nations and would welcome the Green Climate Fund to Bonn as a basis of its operation. A decision by the board will be taken in December 2012.

Africa should get its fair share of funds from the European Union and the United States to realize its low-carbon development potential. I wish the European Union would support Africa with €100 billion instead of supporting the Greek politicians, who have been cooking the books for years.

Statistics compiled by the International Energy Agency (IEA) clearly highlight the region as a global hotspot for energy poverty: just 30.5% of the population have access to electricity, leaving an estimated 585.2 million without (www. iea. org/weo/ docs/weo2010/weo2010_poverty. pdf).

The IEA estimates that when South Africa is excluded, annual residential electricity consumption in sub-Saharan Africa is the same as electricity con­sumption in New York State. That is to say, the 19.5 million people in New York consume the same amount of electricity, as is shared between the 791 million people of sub-Saharan Africa.

14.2