Bioenergy: Wind and Solar's Less Glamorous Sibling?

Without very much publicity or fanfare at all, it seems that a new range of fuels are sprouting beneath our feet. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) predicts that bioenergy consumption could more than double to 15% of the UK’s energy supply in 2050 (CCC, 2018), and BP is raising the bar for large energy companies by planning to increase its bioenergy production nearly five-fold this decade alone (Doyle, 2020). Clearly bioenergy is set to be a major feature of the energy system of the future, but nevertheless, it doesn’t seem to awaken the same enthusiasm amongst green-minded members of the public as solar and wind do. In the US, bioenergy is often left off of opinion polls about renewables (Fernando, 2013) and in general we don’t see it on fancy PR infographics such as this one publicising renewables as much as we see solar and wind, indicating a difference in attitude. Are we deliberately having our attention shifted away from this soon-to-be giant of a sector? Does bioenergy hold as much potential as these other sources of clean energy, or is there a less photogenic side to it?

Let us begin with the problems. Every proposed solution to the future energy question has a host of issues and it turns out that, unfortunately, bioenergy is far from an exception. Let us examine them in detail.

Can't See the Wood for the People

Unlike energy sources such as offshore wind power, that don't necessarily consume valuable space, energy from trees and crops at scale almost necessarily becomes a problem the more people you have to feed, and the more land becomes uninhabitable due to rising sea levels, soil erosion and other challenges our food-producing land is set to face in the years to come. 

Producing bioenergy (we shall exclude the promising research into biofuels from algae that could be grown in lower-footprint operations) consumes land, and lots of it. While the most optimistic energy yield per year for a square metre of land with bioenergy is about 1 W/m^2, with solar we can get up to almost 14 W/m^2. What's more, this is mitigated by the fact that solar panels can be used within developed land, for example on rooftops and car parks (check out Solar Roadways), whereas bionergy requires dedicated farmland (Wysession, 2016).

As the population grows and sea levels rise to cover more and more of our land, the optimal use of that land is going to matter like never before. 

Just as an extreme example, if we tried to supply all of the US energy demand (about 3 TW) with biofuels, it would consume so much land that they'd have to import all of their food. World food prices would soar. In fact, growth of bioenergy production in the US has already rendered corn so expensive now that Mexicans, who count the food as a staple of their cuisine, can no longer afford it. Solar on the other hand, could power the whole US within 256 km^2, just under 3% of the total 9147590 km^2 owned by the US! (Wysession, 2016).

In a world where people could increasingly resort to fighting over land, water and other natural resources, this tremendous gap simply cannot be ignored. 

It is all the more worrying, then, that agriculture (and by consequence, bioenergy) will become increasingly resource-intensive as the decades continue. 

Seeds of Doubt

In natural ecosystems, resources such as minerals and carbon are kept in balance by restorative cycles. For example, nitrogen, a key element for plant health and productivity, is removed from the soil when plants assimilate it and are eaten by animals, and is returned to the soil when animals die or release their waste onto the soil (in addition to the key role of nitrogen-fixing microorganisms). However, to meet the huge demands on agriculture we create today, these systems simply can't keep up, and we are forced to add fertilisers to the land. These fertilisers take energy to produce, part of the explanation for our low figure of 1W of bioenergy per m^2. 

Unfortunately, though, the costs of using more fertilisers - were we to rely on bioenergy on a much larger scale - do not stop there. Fertiliser use can pollute natural waterways via a process called eutrophication, leading to large dead-zones where only algae survive. Yet another harsh reality stares us in the face in that fertilisers on farmland can release N2O (a greenhouse gas with 298 times the warming power of CO2) into the air, damaging the potential of this energy source to provide a solution to global warming! (IPCC, 2018).

In addition to fertilisers, the production of plants for bioenergy consumes water. With the change in rain patterns from climate change and the rise in demand for water from population growth, South Africa, the US, China, a large proportion of the Asia-Pacific region (3w Market Reports, 2020), and the Middle East and North Africa (World Bank Group, 2017) will all become increasingly dependant on water desalination. This process consumes large amounts of electric power to process salt water into fresh water. 

We are thus met with another problem. If we seek to produce energy to meet our needs with biofuels, it is not exactly helpful that we need to add so much energy. 

Not Carbon Neutral

There are growing fears around bioenergy's carbon neutrality. Obviously if this technology causes a net increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, it is not a green technology. The ideal application of biofuels is where they are produced by plants which draw their carbon directly from the same atmosphere into which the biofuel combustion-products are released, closing the loop. 

The worry arises when we consider the fact that bioenergy isn't produced at the point of consumption and needs extensive work to harvest, dry, and transport it to the next stage in the value chain. For example, Drax, the largest producer of electricity from wood pellets in the UK, receive these wood pellets from forests in the US. The fuel is transported by ship, consuming a huge amount of energy in the process. Until all of these technologies are decarbonised completely, and this is easier said than done, bioenergy might not reach carbon neutrality.

So now we might see why there is not so much excitement around bioenergy as there is for solar, wind, hydro and the like. But still, the fact is that bioenergy is growing and we are forecasted to become only more reliant on it with the passage of time. Is this a mistake? Will we suffer the consequences? 

I don't think so. Bioenergy doesn't look like a good candidate as a basal energy source to power our civilisation, but there are specific applications where it is set to be essential. 

Rethinking Our Chemicals

The areas in which bioenergy really impresses are exactly those areas where mainstream renewables can't help us. The developed world has been reliant on fossil fuels for so long, we've constructed a vast variety of applications for these resources that electricity alone cannot always necessarily replace. Even if they are inefficient to produce, as long as we have enough renewable energy, a world without fossil fuels would be a world where it is nevertheless worthwhile to produce bioenergy. 

• Transport Fuels: The needs of the shipping and aviation sectors are hard to meet with electricity in a number of ways but it all comes back to energy density. Carrying enough mass of electric batteries in planes and ships consumes weight and space allowances that render them crippling to these forms of transport. In addition, the thrust generated in a planes' jet engine is not comparable to that of an electric propeller. Commercial flights rely on this power. Bioenergy is a potential candidate to replace jet fuel in future aviation industries. (National Grid, 2019).

• Chemical Feedstocks: The chemical industry has grown to rely on petrochemicals as a feedstock. It provides molecules which serve as a carbon chain for processing into other organic chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals and, critically, plastics. Chemical plants such as SABIC are already using biofuels to replace this unsustainable resource. 

• Negative Emissions: Some industries are simply not ready to decarbonise yet, such as the cement industry. One way to deal with this is to offset these emissions with afforestation - planting trees to absorb the emissions. However, operations like these cost money. Afforestation could create entire new value chains, though, if the resulting biomass is used as an energy source, but obviously this releases the emissions again. 
  The real potential of this idea is when bioenergy is combined with Carbon Capture and Storage. Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) can lead to the negative emissions we are searching for whilst also acting as an energy source. It is easier to apply CCUS to energy plants than to more diffuse emissions-sources such as soil degradation and melting permafrost. 

Conclusion

Bioenergy is not as clean and attractive as the other members of the renewables family, but we will be needing it for a wide range of applications. These applications are mostly failures in the versatility of other renewables, and where specific chemicals are needed. 

Some countries may even have enough rain that they can grow biofuels very efficiently. They will have an advantage in this area which could be useful in trade. 

I ask that you forgive me for this image, (we are engineers, not waiters!) but my favourite potential method of using bioenergy is in anaerobic digestion of faecal sludge. Humans strip huge quantities of nutrients from the soil in producing and harvesting our food, and we flush them out to sea every agricultural year. Soil depletion is a frighteningly imminent threat. If we don't want to use artificial fertilisers and risk polluting the natural environment, we should be excited about a technology that recycles the nutrients in a way that mimics natural returning of nutrients to the soil by animals.
We can use bacteria to convert our sewage sludge into biogas, a valuable, zero carbon, transportable and energy-dense fuel. The residues they leave behind can be processed into dry fertilisers to allow us to grow the food we need. 

I think the reason bioenergy is not as celebrated as the other renewables is because its applications are more specific and less aesthetic. But make no mistake, bioenergy is going to change our world, fancy infographics or not!

References

Committee on Climate Change, 2018. Biomass in a low-carbon economy. [Online]. Available from: https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/biomass-in-a-low-carbon-economy/

Doyle. A, 2020. BP reveals strategy to reach net zero. [Online]. The Chemical Engineer. Available from: https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/bp-reveals-strategy-to-reach-net-zero/

Fernando. R, 2013. Public attitudes to biomass cofiring. [Online]. IEA Clean Coal Centre. Available from: https://usea.org/sites/default/files/012013_Public%20attitudes%20to%20biomass%20cofiring_ccc214.pdf

IPCC, 2018. SPECIAL REPORT: GLOBAL WARMING OF 1.5 ºC. [Online] Chapter 2. Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/

National Grid, 2019. 2019 Future Energy Scenarios. [Online]. Available from: https://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/gas-transmission/insight-and-innovation/future-energy-scenarios-fes

World Bank Group, 2017. Beyond Scarcity: Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa. [Online]. Available from: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/water/publication/beyond-scarcity-water-security-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa

3w Market News Reports, 2020. DESALINATION SYSTEM MARKET 2020-2024. [Online]. Available from: https://3wnews.org/uncategorised/2869144/desalination-system-market-2020-2024-latest-industry-updates-projections-consumption-analysis-investment-cost-profits-data-forecast-to-2024/

Wysession. M. E, 2016. The Science of Energy. [Online] The Great Courses and Audible. Available from: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/The-Science-of-Energy-Audiobook/

What is the best thing for an engineer to go into to help fight climate change?

For my first post, I thought it would be helpful to consider this question, possibly my favourite question. This question invites us to cast our attention across all the aspects of the monstrosity that is the problem of climate change, and all the opportunities that engineers have to make a difference towards solving it. What is the most useful thing we can do with our careers? Though many if not all of the possible answers, I suspect, will be of interest to any motivated individual.

First of all, it’s important to explain my approach to this question. We know that the pursuit of a world that maintains warming below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels requires changes to just about every aspect of human civilisation. Even though the goal can be summarised simply: maintain the natural balance of greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere to maintain the natural temperature range on which the biosphere depends - achieving this will require attention in countless areas. These include:

·       Agriculture: According to Eco Watch (2019), agricultural emissions account for 11% of GHG emissions worldwide. The principal source of agricultural emissions (40%) is from methane produced by the digestive systems of ruminant animals such as cows and sheep.

o   Agriculture also contributes to atmospheric GHG imbalance by incentivising deforestation. This means the destruction of the planet’s main natural carbon sinks. This is perpetuated by the demand for 4 commodities: beef, soy, palm oil and wood (Figueres and Rivett-Carnac, 2020). So agriculture is inextricably linked to deforestation too.

·       Textile Production: The fashion industry produces 10% of the world’s carbon emissions (McFall-Johnsen, 2019). This is likely due to its long, complex value chains with many energy-intensive stages.

·       Power Generation: As we know, burning fossil fuels to produce electrical power releases GHGs. Supplying reliable, affordable and equitable power to all is not simple without these fuels.

…To name only 3 examples. So clearly, when we ask ourselves: “how can I best help to stop climate change”, there will not be one, simple answer. Therefore, I have chosen to present 4 ways to break this question down into the knowledge we would like to have to make answering this question easier.

1.    Which area or process is proving the hardest to decarbonise? That is where I am most needed.

Some carbon-intensive technologies have proven easy to replace in developed economies, and replacing them has been quick and total. For example, in western countries, it is no longer easy to find filament light bulbs. They are just too energy inefficient!

Similarly, with determination and innovation, huge leaps in decarbonisation can be made. For example, the UK has all but removed coal from its power generation mix, and in 2019 in the third quarter, renewables produced more power that fossil fuels for the first time (Carbon Brief, 2019).

But there is always the hard part: the figurative “final 20%”. The areas that remain until last because they are the most difficult. Taking the UK power grid, this is the reliability issue for the power supply. What happens when there is no sun or wind and the power demand peaks? At present, this scenario is dealt with by increasing the output from natural gas power plants (Carbon Brief, 2019).

For our example, someone in the UK might decide that they want to work on that final 20%. Energy storage, smart grids and Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) have all been suggested as ways to deal with that. Jobs in businesses providing these services will hopefully become more common in the short term. In fact, when I spoke one-to-one with a head engineer in the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), he gave me his personal opinion explaining that artificial intelligence and IoT technologies will be the biggest source of jobs for engineers concerned about climate change in the next few decades.

This is certainly my favourite way of answering our central question of what we can do as engineers to help fight climate change. Advances in the areas mentioned above are really crucial. Everyone is counting on them as they are bringing solutions where none currently exist! Being part of breakthroughs like these are iconised in movies like “Interstellar”. They are every engineer’s dream.

2.    Where do my skills lie?

It’s helpful to think where you would be able to contribute the best. It is not unreasonable to try to find opportunities which you are the best suited to take.

Not only that, but there are many areas where skilled personnel are actually in short supply. For example, in the UK, there is a shortage of electrochemical engineers, who could be important for clean water treatment in the future (Bullen, 2020). If you have skills that will be needed in the changes to come, that can serve as an obvious signpost towards a job filled with important contributions.

3.    Which area or process is driving climate change the most? I will put my efforts into working on that.

For example, in Israel in 2015, the sector with the greatest emissions was Industrial Processes, within which the biggest source of emissions was “Consumption of Halocarbons and SF6” (UNFCC, 2015). I was not able to find out exactly what this meant, but these chemicals are potent GHGs and their release would likely have a large impact on emissions recordings.

So, someone in Israel might think about researching where these chemicals are most used and for what purpose. It is likely that causing changes in industrial consumption patterns would need to come from the government level. Many engineers find fulfilling careers in government bodies such as the Environment Agency in the UK, where expertise is needed to properly understand the regulated parties.

It is also noteworthy that the government can only mandate use of technologies and techniques that exist, and as such government-instigated changes require a healthy R&D sector. I am particularly inspired by the breakthrough in Bio-Energy Carbon Capture and Storage technology that emerged from my university in Leeds. Check it out here. But R&D can also be a day-job within a company.

There are also a huge range of emissions sources that are not easy to decarbonise at all. For example, long-range aviation. Developments in this field will likely be very exciting and crucial (Committee on Climate Change, 2019).

 

4.    Finally: What do I love?

I hope by now I’ve convinced you that this problem is COMPLICATED and its reach is unfathomable. There are so many different ways to approach it and none of them are “more correct” than any other way. It will essentially take effort from everyone on the planet. What that leaves is the decision in each of our hands. Whatever your passion is, you are needed. You do not need even need to be wearing a hard-hat. Influencing others to take notice and change their consumption patterns and behaviour through music, for example, can also be extremely impactful.

I mentioned a head engineer in BEIS above. Before he mentioned to me that he thinks the biggest green career opportunities for engineers will be in IoT and other hi-tech, he caveated insistently that WHATEVER I chose to go into, I could make an enormous impact.

Howard Thurman put it the best: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

A Closing Thought

Putting my engineering hard-hat on, though, and putting inspirational quotes aside - I cannot deny that I have noticed a pattern.

I’d like to argue that there seems to be a common thread through all of the most high-profile breakthroughs in decarbonisation that I’ve seen in the UK.

We know that businesses can’t create game-changing inventions without investment and a market waiting for them. For example, no-one will want to buy a sulphur-scrubbing unit for their coal plant until the government has required every coal-fired power plant to do so. Otherwise they won’t be competitive against their less environmentalist competitors.

The chicken-and-egg problem extends in the other direction, too. Any attempt to pass new legislation based on shaky probabilities and untested technologies will not go down well for any democratic, accountable government. For bold and progressive policies to be accepted, the technologies they rely upon need to be developed and proven by experts in the field.

Therefore, I would like to suggest that the biggest opportunity to make a difference is right at the interface between the public and private sector.

Many jobs like this exist. I was lucky enough on my internship in BEIS this year to sit-in on an important board meeting discussing funding for projects in home energy efficiency. They were discussing huge cash prizes for anyone who could demonstrate a design for a home energy efficiency rating at a certain level. If you read The Entrepreneurial State by Mariana Mazzucato (do this), you will see how the government has always been at the forefront of spectacular changes through schemes just like this one.

Conversely, careers at the interface between government and the private sector exist in the form of trade associations such as the Renewable Energy Association in the UK. Working in bodies like these gives you the potential to acquire and use intimate industry knowledge to inform and influence the government. This can nudge them to prioritise and act with the real expertise of consensa of seasoned industry experts behind their reasoning. This is the kind of job I personally see myself pursuing long-term.

Whatever you choose, I commend and applaud you. We are a talented generation who really cares, and I hope to know about as many of your breakthroughs as possible. Please Gd, we should be blessed with iron determination and abundant success in our endeavours to create a happy and prosperous future for humanity, and preserve the natural beauty of the gift that is our planet.

References

Bullen, C. 2020. ELECTROCHEMICAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION - WHAT IS THE FUTURE? Power and Water. See https://www.powerandwater.com/news/2020-07-10-electrochemical-engineering-education-what-is-the-future

 

Carbon Brief. In the third quarter of 2019, the UK’s windfarms, solar panels, biomass and hydro plants generated more electricity than the combined output from power stations fired by coal, oil and gas, Carbon Brief analysis reveals. See https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-uk-renewables-generate-more-electricity-than-fossil-fuels-for-first-time#:~:text=In%20the%20third%20quarter%20of,biomass%20and%206%25%20from%20solar.

 

Committee on Climate Change. 2019. Letter: International aviation and shipping and net zero. See https://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/letter-international-aviation-and-shipping/

 

Eco Watch, 2019. 5 Questions About Agricultural Emissions Answered. See https://www.ecowatch.com/agricultural-emissions-2639558750.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1

 

Figueres, C. Rivett-Carnac, T. 2020 The Future We Choose. Manilla Press.

 

McFall-Johnsen, M. 2019. The fashion industry emits more carbon than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Business Insider. See https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fast-fashion-environmental-impact-pollution-emissions-waste-water-2019-10

 

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC). 2015. Emissions Summary for Israel. See https://di.unfccc.int/ghg_profiles/nonAnnexOne/ISR/ISR_ghg_profile.pdf

Welcome to the Lights-On Renewables Blog

Welcome to everyone. How are you? How are you getting on with things? I know this is a hard time for everyone.

I’m excited to be writing this blog for you. One silver-lining to the pandemic we are experiencing is the effect it has had on how we view the economy and what is possible. We have seen energy consumption plummet and many of our energy-intensive processes have slowed¹. As put by a group of current and former central bankers,

 “This crisis offers us a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to rebuild our economy in order to withstand the next shock coming our way: climate breakdown. Unless we act now, the climate crisis will be tomorrow’s central scenario and, unlike Covid-19, no one will be able to self-isolate from it.”²

  The situation is not only destruction and devastation, it is also a great time to be looking at our topic: renewable, sustainable technologies that “keep the lights on”. And by that I mean that they have to meet our needs.

This blog is intended for anyone with an interest in renewable energy and sustainability, although I hope to write a high proportion of posts targeted at scientists, engineers and other technically-informed individuals. 

I once spoke with a scientist developing a new farming method called agro-forestry (it’s very cool, check it out). I found his email address and contacted him. I wanted to know: can this method meet our populations’ food demands whilst leaving all the space we need for housing, industry, rewilding etc. So I asked him “what is agro-forestry’s productivity in, say, kg/hectare/yr compared with conventional methods”. He responded that I was asking the wrong question because his method was much more sustainable.

We will hopefully not get distracted by idealism in this blog. We will take the approach that a solution has only been reached once a technology meets all the requirements and reaches economic viability. Otherwise, it will not be an instrument for reducing emissions.

Whilst, I admit, most of my knowledge on this matter was gained in the UK, I am really mostly occupied with how Israel, where I live from 2021, will decarbonise. That being said, I like to anchor my thoughts in the ways of thinking that are applicable to all countries, and from there to focus on Israel. So, I will prefer to speak in more general terms.

Another aspect of the lights-on nature of this blog is that I believe that Israel is destined to be a “light unto the nations”. Israel is a breeding ground for ambition, passion and innovation and we can demonstrate to the world how important protecting the natural environment, and the future of humanity, is. May we merit to see Israel quickly transform into a clean and sustainable economic superpower, and show the world our enormous capabilities for the betterment of the whole world.

References:

1.        Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/ee88c064-2fac-4a08-aad5-59188210167b
2.   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/05/world-climate-breakdown-pandemic