Development Potentials and Policy Options of Biomass in China

Abstract

Biomass, one of the most important renewable energies, is playing and will continue to play an important role in the future energy structure of the world. This article aims to analyze the position and role, assess the resource availability, discuss the geographic distribution, market scale and industry development, and present the policy options of biomass in China. The resource availability and geographical distribution of biomass byproducts are assessed in terms of crop residues, manure, forest and wood biomass byproducts, municipal waste and wastewater. The position of biomass use for power generation is just next to hydropower among types of renewable energy in China. The potential quantity of all biomass byproducts energy in 2004 is 3511 Mtce (Mtce is the abbreviation of million tons of coal equivalents and 1 Mtce is equal to10⁶ tce.), while the acquirable quantity is 460 Mtce. Biomass energy plays a critical role in rural regions of China. The geographical distribution and quantity of biomass byproducts resources depends mainly on the relationship between ecological zones and climate conditions. Our estimation shows that the total quantity of crop residues, manure, forest and wood biomass byproducts, municipal waste and wastewater resources are 728, 3926, 2175, 155 and 48240 Mt (million tons), respectively. Crop residues come mainly from the provinces of Henan, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Jilin and Sichuan. All manure is mainly located in the provinces of Henan, Shandong, Sichuan, Hebei and Hunan. Forest and wood biomass byproducts are mainly produced in the provinces or autonomous regions of Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia, while most of municipal waste mainly comes from Guangdong, Shandong, Heilongjiang, Hubei and Jiangsu. Most of wastewater is largely discharged from advanced provinces like Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong and Henan. Biomass byproducts’ energy distribution also varies from province to province in China. Based on the analysis of the market scale and industry development, the article argues that China’s biomass energy industry is still at a very early stage of development and that Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) might be the best policy option for China to promote its development of biomass energy. A successful enforcement of FIT in China needs some policy combination of special capital subsidies, R&D funding, tax incentives and pricing.

Appendix A

A variety of biomass byproducts resources and available reserves estimation methods and parameters (see Tables 6, 7, 8, 9):

• straw and crop residue: $CR = \sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {Qc_{i} } .r_{i}$ CR: straw-type resources, Qc _i : i-type of output of crop, c _i : i crop of RPR (Residue to Product Ratio, RPR).

• manure: $D = \sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {Qd_{i} } .d_{i} .m_{i} = \sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {Qd_{i} } .M_{i}$ D: the quantity of animal manure, Qd _i : i category of the number of livestock and poultry, d _i : i category of livestock and poultry manure production, m _i i-type of livestock and poultry feeding cycle, M _i : i-type animal in the whole husbandry cycle of manure emissions.

• forest and wood biomass byproducts: $FR = \sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {Qf_{i} } .r_{i}$, FR: forest biomass byproducts resources in kind, Qf _i : i-type forest resources, r _i : the conversion factor.

• urban rubbish and wastewater: $WW = Qw.r_{1} .r_{2}$, WW: the volume of biogas generated by wastewater,Qw: total amount of wastewater, r ₁: the average levels of COD in wastewater, r ₂: COD units have a capacity of CH₄ r ₁: According to ‘China Environmental Statistics Annual Report’ calculate; r ₂ take 0.907 m³/kg (Milbrandt 2005).

Table 6 Residue to Product Ratio (RPR) of various crops (c _i )

Table 7 Total amounts of livestock and poultry manure produced during feeding period (M _i ) (unit: kg)

Table 8 Some parameters for the estimation of biomass byproducts from firewood and forest residues

Table 9 Standard conversion coefficient of different types of biomass byproducts (η _i ) (unit: biogas kgce/m³, others kgce/kg)

Equivalent to the amount of standard energy: straw potential energy resource $ECR = \sum\nolimits_{i = 1}^{n} {Qc_{i} } .r_{i} .\eta_{i}$, η _i : i-type standard biological factor. Calculation methods for ED, EFR, ESW and EWW are the same as ECR.