Assessment of forest
biomass for use as energy. GIS-based analysis of geographical availability and
locations of wood-fired power plants in Portugal
This study looks at the use of wood-fire power plants in
Portugal. Portugal established a policy
to increase the amount of renewable energy that the country used to 45% of the
total supply by 2010. The researchers
used GIS to determine if the country had enough forest biomass to achieve their
goals. While Portugal already has a
large hydroelectric energy production, they wanted to increase the amount of
renewable energy. As odd as it sounds,
using wood-fired power plants is classified under renewable energy. Portugal hopefully will continue to use wood
biomass in a sustainable fashion.
The researches based their study on three steps; they assessed
Portugal’s forest biomass resource potential; they assessed the spatial distribution
of the biomass; and they evaluated the suitability of the current and proposed
wood-fire power plants.
The GIS was utilized in calculating the usable forest
biomass. Data was collected on the
forest coverage of Portugal (approximately 3.4 million hectares) and these
forests were further reduced to what would be usable by the power plants. The researchers then put the locations of the
power plants and any other places that actively used wood in order to determine
if the power plant would be able to function without interrupting current wood
biomass usages. Using all the data on
forests and power plant locations, an analysis was performed to determine the
optimal amount of energy each plant could produce working in the best
conditions.
The study concluded that even
at theoretical, optimal levels, the power plants could not provide enough
energy for the areas they were being placed in unless the power plants were
equipped with cogeneration or CHP (which would improve efficiency) or area
used a fossil fuel to supplement energy production. Since all of these power plants will have CHP, the country should be capable of achieving their goal of 45% renewable energy. More studies were planned to follow this one to gather more information by the same authors.
Source:
Viana, H., Cohen, W. B., Lopes, D., Aranha, J. (2010). Assessment of forest
biomass for use as energy. GIS-based analysis of geographical availability and
locations of wood-fired power plants in Portugal. Applied Energy. 87, 2551-2560. From http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261910000383
My concern with this assessment is that it seems to only take into account the potential for energy and not the potential for ruining the livelihood of the creatures and humans who live in that area. While this may have been solely focused on Portugal, I hope that this data is not used as truth for all regions. I highly recommend reading "Conservation Refugees". Although the book is not directly related to biomass, there are many intersecting issues.
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