Waste biomass contributes a substantial amount of energy to primary demand in the United States (see Table 2.9). The energy consumption pattern is similar in many other industrialized countries. The energy potentials and availabilities discussed here for the United States are summarized in Table 5.6. It is evident that additional contributions to primary energy demand can be realized. At least 4 EJ/year of incremental energy usage appears to be feasible based on the energy potential and available energy estimates. This is equivalent to displacing about 1.9 million BOE/day in oil consumption. At a market price

TABLE 5.6 Energy Potentials and Availabilities from Waste Biomass in United States

“The energy potentials of agricultural crops have been adjusted to take adverse soil impacts into account (Table 5.5).

of $20/bbl, this corresponds to about $13.61 billion/year in avoided cost for imported oil.

The new, incremental energy contributions that can be obtained from waste biomass will depend on future government policies, on the rates of fossil fuel depletion, and on extrinsic and intrinsic economic factors, as well as the availability of specific residues in areas where they can be collected and utilized. Environmental regulations will affect how the producers dispose of waste biomass and whether energy applications can be justified. Extrinsic economic factors include the costs of competitive energy resources, the costs of existing disposal methods, the costs of any mandated disposal methods, and in some cases, the markets for recyclables. The intrinsic economic factors include the costs of collection and transport of the waste biomass to end-use site or market, and conversion costs to energy or fuel. All of these factors should be examined in some detail to evaluate the development of incremental energy contributions from waste biomass.

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