8/17/2019 Potentials of Crop Residues for Commercial Energy Production in China a Geographic and Economic Analysis http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/potentials-of-crop-residues-for-commercial-energy-production-in-china-a-geographic 1/14 Potentials of crop residues for commercial energy production in China: A geographic and economic analysis Huanguang Qiu a , Laixiang Sun b,c,d, *, Xinliang Xu e , Yaqing Cai e , Junfei Bai f a School of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Ave, Beijing 100872, China b Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA c Department of Financial & Management Studies, SOAS, University of London, London WC1H 0GX, UK d International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria e Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jia 11, Datun Road, Anwai, Beijing 100101, China f College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, 17 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100083, China a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 July 2012 Received in revised form 17 February 2014 Accepted 25 March 2014 Available online 21 April 2014 Keywords: Crop residue Bioenergy GIS Relative prices China a b s t r a c t China has become increasingly dependent on the international energy market owing to the rapid growth of demand for energy. To develop renewable energy and thus strengthen energy security for the future, it is important to consider the potential of crop residues. This paper contributes to this topic by mobilizing up-to-date statistical and remote-sensing data and by carrying out a geographic and economic analysis. Its assessment shows that China’s total output of crop residues in 2010 amounted to 729 million tons, and the quantity could be used for commercial energy production is between 147 and 334 million tons, depending on the competition power of the commercial energy production relative to the traditional uses of crop residues. The analysis also shows that the distribution of crop residues in China is highly uneven. By taking into account the densities of crop residues available for energy production at the grid-cell level, the transportation cost constraints, and the economy-of-scale requirements of energy plants, this study further assesses the geographic distribution of the suitability for establishing crop residue based power plants and bioenergy plants in China. ª 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The growing scarcity of fossil energy and the high level of energy prices have stimulated the wide-reaching efforts to develop bioenergy. Starting from the early 1990s and espe- cially since 2000, the biofuel and biodiesel industry has begun to play an important role in energy supply to moderately alleviate global energy shortages [1] . However, the feedstock of currentbiofuel production consistsofmainlyseeds ofgrain * Corresponding author. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA. E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected](L. Sun). Available online at www.sciencedirect.com ScienceDirect http://www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe biomass and bioenergy 64 (2014) 110 e123 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.03.055 0961-9534/ª 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Potentials of Crop Residues for Commercial Energy Production in China a Geographic and Economic Analysis
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8/17/2019 Potentials of Crop Residues for Commercial Energy Production in China a Geographic and Economic Analysis
Huanguang Qiu a, Laixiang Sun b,c,d,*, Xinliang Xu e, Yaqing Cai e, Junfei Bai f
a School of Agricultural Economics & Rural Development, Renmin University of China, 59 Zhongguancun Ave, Beijing
100872, Chinab Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USAc Department of Financial & Management Studies, SOAS, University of London, London WC1H 0GX, UKd International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), A-2361 Laxenburg, Austriae Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jia 11, Datun Road,
Anwai, Beijing 100101, Chinaf College of Economics and Management, China Agricultural University, 17 Qinghua East Road, Haidian District,
Beijing 100083, China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 14 July 2012
Received in revised form
17 February 2014
Accepted 25 March 2014
Available online 21 April 2014
Keywords:
Crop residue
Bioenergy
GIS
Relative prices
China
a b s t r a c t
China has become increasingly dependent on the international energy market owing to the
rapid growth of demand for energy. To develop renewable energy and thus strengthen
energy security for the future, it is important to consider the potential of crop residues.
This paper contributes to this topic by mobilizing up-to-date statistical and remote-sensing
data and by carrying out a geographic and economic analysis. Its assessment shows that
China’s total output of crop residues in 2010 amounted to 729 million tons, and the
quantity could be used for commercial energy production is between 147 and 334 million
tons, depending on the competition power of the commercial energy production relative to
the traditional uses of crop residues. The analysis also shows that the distribution of crop
residues in China is highly uneven. By taking into account the densities of crop residues
available for energy production at the grid-cell level, the transportation cost constraints,
and the economy-of-scale requirements of energy plants, this study further assesses the
geographic distribution of the suitability for establishing crop residue based power plants
and bioenergy plants in China.
ª 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The growing scarcity of fossil energy and the high level of
energy prices have stimulated the wide-reaching efforts to
develop bioenergy. Starting from the early 1990s and espe-
cially since 2000, the biofuel and biodiesel industry has begun
to play an important role in energy supply to moderately
alleviate global energy shortages [1]. However, the feedstock
of current biofuel production consists of mainly seeds of grain
* Corresponding author. Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, LeFrak Hall, College Park, MD 20742, USA.E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (L. Sun).
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
http: / /www.elsevier.com/locate/biombioe
b i o m a s s a n d b i o e n e r g y 6 4 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 1 1 0 e1 2 3
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biombioe.2014.03.055
0961-9534/ª 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
(mainly, Guangxi province), where majority of the grid cells
have the density of over 100 tons/km2 available for commer-
cial energy production. At the provincial level, there are fourprovinces where majority of grid cells produce more than 200
tons of crop residues per km2, including Henan (>244 t/km2),
Jilin (>231 t/km2), Jiangsu (>224 t/km2), and Guangxi (>223 t/
km2). In contrast, the density in the Loess Plateau and Tibet
Plateau is at the very low end, with an average (across those
crop-related grid cells) of 22 t/km2 and 13 t/km2, respectively.
Figs. 3 and 4 report the density distribution under Sce-
narios B and C. A comparison across Figs.2e4 indicate that the
density disparity extends significantly between provinces at
the high density end and those at the low density end. Henan
in North China, Jilin in Northeast China, Jiangsu in East China,
and Jiangxi, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan in Central China all become
more suitable for crop residue based commercial bioenergyproduction when they move from Scenario A to B and then to
C. In contrast, the potentials in the Loess Plateau and Tibet
Plateau keep very limited under all three scenarios.
As discussed in Section 2.2, the density distribution re-
ported in Figs. 2e4 allows us to further assess the spatial
distribution of suitability for constructing crop residue based
biofuel plants or power plants in different areas. In our
research we consider three radius choices of 25 km, 30 km and
50 km but pay special attention to the 25 km radius for the
following two reasons. First, it is recommended by specialists’
research [39,40], and second, it is in line with the adminis-
trative radius of most counties in the main crop production
regions, which brings administrative convenience given the
well-reported tough inter-jurisdictional competition for eco-
nomic resources across counties and provinces [41]. For the
same reason, we report the results in association with the25 km radius only. Other results are available upon request.
With the currently available technology and within the
radius of 25 km, 47,500 and 180,000 tons of crop residues are
needed for feeding a power plant of 6 MW and 25 MW,
respectively.1 In terms of crop residue based bioethanol plant,
60,000 and 300,000 tons of crop residues are needed forfeeding
an annual capacity of 10,000 and 50,000 tons of bioethanol
production, respectively.2 Fig. 5 presents the suitability dis-
tribution of bioenergy plants with different scales under Sce-
nario A. The figure shows that biofuel plants with an annual
capacity of 50,000 tons bioethanol can be built only in limited
areas of three provinces, i.e., Jilin, Henan, and Jiangsu. Power
plants of more than 25 MW are suitable in areas such asMiddle and Lower Reach of Yangtze River and a limited
number of counties in Northeast Region and scattered small
areas in Guangxi province. In contrast, power plants of 6 MW
Fig. 3 e Density distribution of crop residue resource availablefor commercial energy productionin ton/km2, underScenarioB.
1 According to Wu et al. (2009) [40], unit crop residue conversionrate of a residue-solidification enterprise of 6 MW is 1.1 t/MWh.Assuming an annual operation of 300 days, the quantity of cropresidue needed is 1.1 t/MWh 6 MW 24 300; conversion rateof a residue-solidification power plant of 25 MW is 1 t/MWhand the quantity of crop residue needed is 1.0 t/MWh 25 MW 24 300.
2 According to Song et al. (2010) [1], with the present technologyof ethanol production, unit crop residue conversion rate is 6 tons/
ton.
b i o m a s s a n d b i o e n e r g y 6 4 ( 2 0 1 4 ) 1 1 0 e1 2 3118
commercial bioenergy production could be much lower. In
terms of the potential role crop residues can play in China’s
total energysupply, we show that even in the two conservative
scenarios of A and B, there will be about 147 and 241 million
tons of crop residues available for commercial bioenergy pro-
duction, which are equivalent to about 73.5 and 120.5 million
tons of standard coal respectively, amounting to 2.5 and 3.8
percent of China’s total energy consumption in 2012.The analysis of this study highlights the importance of
considering the economic viability of a bioenergy plant in
terms of not only collectingand transporting costs but also the
competing power of the bioenergy sector over alternative uses
of crop residues, the latter of which exerts significant impact
on mobilizing crop residues for bioenergy production.
Currently, one of the R&D focuses in the bioenergy production
industry is on how to scale up pilot/demonstration plants to
industrial scales. This study suggests that the R&D efforts
should also pay more attention to networks of small-scale
crop residue-based bioenergy plants because they are more
capable of extending their feedstock bases thus are econom-
ically more viable.
Acknowledgments
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of
Newton International Fellowship of the UK and National Sci-
ence Foundation of China (71073154 and 71222302), and thank
the valuable comments of Christina Prell, Christopher P.
Mitchell (Editor) and two anonymous referees.
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