A Reality Check on Renewable Energy from Biomass

Today's congressional proposals to mandate the use of renewables have won significant public support because renewables are widely viewed as environmentally benign and largely "free." As the following facts and observations illustrate, reality is more sobering.

NGSA has collected these statements from a wide variety of studies and reports to help Congress and the public more clearly understand the costs and the risks of using renewables. While these reports have not been endorsed or sponsored by NGSA, they illustrate a broad base of concern about mandated use of renewable fuels.

Cost

The Energy Information Administration estimates current biomass generation costs at 6.1 cents per kilowatt hour, or almost twice the cost of gas combined-cycle generation.⁸

Minnesota Power found a 300 percent fuel-cost difference between projects that harvest existing forest and projects that use energy fuel crops.²

Turning biomass into liquid fuels, as in ethanol production from corn, results in a net energy loss. Twice as much energy is consumed to produce a gallon of ethanol as is retrieved from burning the ethanol.¹

About 80 percent of today's biomass power production comes from wood and lumber industry residues.² Because policies to encourage using waste to generate electricity have been in place for several decades, many analysts assume that additional appropriate waste would be inadequate for significantly increased use of biomass and that "fiber farms" or energy crops would be required.

Burning mixed agricultural waste for biomass power production may raise costs when machinery must accommodate widely differing types of biomass--both wood chips and grapevine prunings, for instance.⁶

It is impractical to transport large quantities of biomass over long distances, in part because the (waste) moisture content of the fuel can equal 50 percent of its weight or more. The fuel used in transport can easily exceed the energy obtained from burning or converting biomass. Generally, biomass is transported no more than 50 miles to avoid this cost problem.⁶

Open storage piles for biomass expose the fuel to moisture absorption. Additional fuel is then required to dry the biomass before burning, adding to costs.⁶

Enclosed biomass storage piles can present fire risks if fuels are not adequately dried before storage (This is a common problem common on farms, where inadequately dried hay can ignite and burn down the barn.)

"The high costs can be attributed to the ash deposits which form when biomass materials are burned and which can quickly foul the boilers. Corrective action requires significant downtime and labor intensive cleaning. For instance, when straw is burned, a glassy, gray deposit forms and sticks to the interior surfaces of the boilers."¹¹

Land Use

It would take 60 percent of the landmass of the United States to fill our energy needs through biomass. However, only about 4 percent of U.S. landmass is currently unused for food, forestry, federal preserves, and habitation.^1&7

Biomass to generate all of the nation's electricity needs would take more than the total amount of U.S. cropland.^2&7

Cropland, even if unused, is frequently unsuited to biomass sites, as sites require, in addition to adequate and unused cropland, access to water for steam production, access to the electricity grid, and high quality air that will not fall into one of the many Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) non-attainment categories when the additional emissions-producing burning takes place.²

Even if all the corn grown in the U.S. today were turned into ethanol, it would not be enough to fuel all the cars in the country--a use that consumes only one-third of U.S. energy.⁶

Ethanol production competes with the use of corn as a feedgrain. The president of the Texas Cattle Feeders Association has estimated that higher corn prices have increased feeding costs by $14 to $28 per head.⁶

Subsidies

Federal ethanol subsidies total 54 cents per gallon.⁶

Ethanol-blended gasoline is exempt from 30 percent of the taxes imposed on gasoline without ethanol. This exemption costs the Highway Trust Fund about $6 billion annually.⁶

While annual ethanol subsidies total $1 billion, only about 30 percent of this goes to the corn-growing farmers.⁶

Some states pay subsidies to ethanol producers of up to 20 cents per gallon.⁶

Energy Security

As a result of weather conditions, ethanol, which is produced from corn, is subject to unstable prices.⁶

Ethanol uses about twice as much energy to produce as is derived from the product. ² In contrast, the energy used in gasoline production is only 12 to 15 percent of the energy yield.⁶

Environment

Burning biomass produces more air pollution than burning natural gas.¹

Biomass combustion releases more than 100 different chemical pollutants, including 14 carcinogens, four co-carcinogens, sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and aldehydes.¹

References

¹ Pimentel et al., "Renewable Energy: Economic and Environmental Issues," BioScience, Sept. 1994.

² Resource Data International, "Energy Choices in a Competitive Era: The Role of Renewable and Traditional Energy Resources in America's Electric Generation Mix," April 1995, released by the Center for Energy and Economic Development (an arm of the coal industry). Available at <http://www.conx.com/ceed/elecgenmix/default.html>.

³ Center for Energy and Economic Development, response to the National Renewables Energy Laboratory's comments on Resource Data International's "Energy Choices in a Competitive Era: The Role of Renewable and Traditional Energy Resources in America's Electric Generation Mix," November 1995. Available at <http://www.conx.com/ceed/elecgenmix/default.html>.

⁴ Robert L. Bradley, Jr., "Renewable Energy -- Why Renewable Energy Is Not Cheap and Not Green," released by the National Center for Policy Analysis, Summer 1997. Available at <http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa/studies/renew/renew.html>.

⁵ National Petroleum Council, The Potential for Natural Gas in the United States, (report to the Secretary of Energy), December 1992.

⁶ National Center for Policy Analysis, materials related to the 1997-98 national high school debate on renewables policy, Summer 1997. Available at <http://www.public-policy.org/~ncpa>.

⁷ Statistical Abstract of the United States 1993, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1993.

⁸ Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, Annual

Energy Outlook 1997. Available at http://www.eia.doe.gov/fueloverview.html#forecasts.

⁹ Charles Bragg, "Conservation Notes," Newsletter of the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, December 1995. Available at http://www.audubon.org/chapter/ca/santamonicabay/V19N4.HTM#conservation.

¹⁰ Keith Axelson, "Do the Blades Go Deasil...or Widdershins...or Does It Really Make Any Difference?" Newsletter of the Santa Monica Bay Audubon Society, May 1995. Available at <http://www.audubon.org/chapter/ca/santamonicabay/v18n8.htm#Do The Blades>.

¹¹ Herbert Inhaber, "Energy Conservation is a Waste," Wall Street Journal, July 28, 1997.

¹² Public Citizen, "State-By-State Survey Shows Renewable Energy Use Expanding Rapidly," April 18, 1995. Available at <http://www.citizen.org/CMEP/renewables/renproj.html>.

This page was last updated August 31, 1997.