The Future of Biofuels: Bio-methane for Energy Production and Transportation

• 作 者: WolfgangBauer;
• 机 构: Michigan State University USA
• 出 处: BIT`s 2nd Low Carbon Earth Summit-2012 2012第二届低碳科技大会
• 发表日期: 2012年期

　　We discuss the production of methane through anaerobic digestion of energy crops, in particular corn, and compare it to the production of ethanol.We find clear advantages of our process over ethanol production, which should lead to a reexamination of all bio-ethanol production effort.Our process is able to produce 3.8 times more transportation fuel from the same area than conventional bio-ethanol production.Even more advantageous in terms of net energy ratio is the conversion of our biogas to electricity and co-generated heat, where we find values of 8.0 in terms of electricity alone and 16.9 for electricity and co-generated heat.A greenhouse gas analysis of our energy conversion process shows that we only produce 12 g of CO2 per kWh of generated electricity, and that our overall process results in a net mitigation of total greenhouse gases.Our total solar conversion efficiency to electricity is 0.6%, and 1.2% including the co-generated heat.