Prospects for increased low-grade bio-fuels use in home and commercial heating applications

Though we must eventually find viable alternatives for fossil fuels in large segments of the energy market, there are economically attractive fossil fuel alternatives today for niche markets. The easiest fossil fuels to replace are those with the highest cost and that provide the lowest-grade energy. Stationary heating with oil is one example of low quality use of a high quality fuel. Solid biomass fuels such as wood-pellets, switchgrass-pellets, and corn can displace up to 2% of the U.S. petroleum market through displacing oil used in home and commercial heating. Current technologies are inexpensive enough to enable consumers to save money by heating with solid bio-fuels instead of oil. Although these systems are currently difficult to operate, future systems can increase usability and potentially further reduce costs. Key developments for future adoption are fuel handling and ash cleaning automation as well as emissions reductions. These technologies exist in other industries, such as agriculture, but have not yet been integrated into U.S. solid bio-fuel heating systems. Solid bio-fuel heating is more effective at reducing environmental damage and increasing energy security than corn-ethanol. Net CO2 emissions from solid bio-fuel heating are 75% lower than oil heating, in contrast to the nearly equivalent CO2 emissions between corn-ethanol and gasoline.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Engineering Systems Division

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Pendray, John Robert

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ernest J. Moniz and Daniel Cohn.

• Technology and Policy Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40295

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40295