1. Introduction
In order to solve the environmental problem, decarbonisation has received worldwide
attention. In particular, hydrogen energy, which is produced from renewable energy
resources of wind power, hydropower, photovoltaic, solar thermal power, geothermal
power and biomass, is the most promising. The fuels from biomass feedstock would be
electricity and/or thermal energy through typical incineration system (e.g. gas-engine or
gas-turbine), or the secondary energy of hydrogen, methanol and/or dimethyl-ether (DME),
which are so-called "biomass to liquid" fuels (BTL).
Actually, the biomass energy system is one of the environmentally friendly energy systems
which will contribute to the global warming protection. However, there would be somewhat
problems at the time when the eco-friendly systems will be promoted to the target area. For
instance, it is known well that the resource might cause competition with the biomass as
food. Also, even if there are abundant material sources, the products through the system
would be costly in comparison to the conventional one due to the characteristics of low
energy density.
According to the recent interviews, the cost problem is extremely significant and the market
abilities of products are important from the viewpoint of the sustainable business
management, too. When we consider the promotion of eco-friendly system, the operational
condition on the eco-business, the technological barriers and the environmental contribution
effect have to be absolutely estimated before we decide to execute the project or not. That is,
we need to create the suitable energy paths and the business model.
In our previous studies, we focused on the biomass gasification system whose scale is not
conventional scale in the chemical industrial sector, and we concluded that the
comprehensive arguments including the application example through the system were
required. This means that the suitable plant scale is necessary due to the low energy density
of biomass feedstock. On the promotion of new technology, the public support due to
central or local government at the earlier stage, and the good business scheme based on the
emission trading or the increased awareness of willingness to pay for eco-products would
be required in order to operate the plant operation business, too.
Thus, in this section, we propose the several energy paths on the biomass utilization from
the viewpoints of “energy”, “environment” and “economy”. Especially, we consider the
biomass energy system due to the Blue-Tower process which will be able to produce
electricity and thermal energy by the co-generation unit (ex. gas-engine, gas-turbine or fuel
cell), to purify Bio-H2 through PSA (pressure swing adsorption) unit.