向发电厂供应生物量——利用联合火力发电厂的农业生物量成本模型Supplying Biomass to Power Plants A Model of the Costs of Utilizing Ag

对温室气体排放、石油价格波动以及美国依赖外国能源对国家安全的影响的担忧，推动了美国能源来源多样化的努力。生物质能是多样化能源组合的一个潜在组成部分。生物质资源除了是一种可再生资源，其生命周期温室气体排放量普遍低于化石燃料外，还具有很大的多样性。它也是目前唯一能够提供液体燃料的可再生资源。为促进生物质能的发展，已经颁布了若干国家立法，其中包括2000年的《生物质能研究和发展法》、1 2005年的《能源政策法》、2 2007年的《能源独立和安全法》、3以及2002年和2008年的《农牧法案》，在过去十年中，开展了与生物量资源可用性、生物量能源开发的环境影响和生物量转换技术有关的国家级问题。较少的研究涉及到与生物量供应的基础设施和物流以及生物量的种植、收集、运输、加工和储存的成本和制约因素有关的地方规模问题。潜在的生物质燃料用户，如发电厂和液体燃料回收站，需要这些信息，以便就投资利用生物质的设施所涉及的地点、规模、运营和其他问题作出深思熟虑的决定。

Concerns about greenhouse-gas emissions, volatile petroleum prices, and the national security implications of U.S. dependence on foreign energy sources have driven efforts to diversify sources of energy in the United States. Biomass energy is one potential component of a diversifed energy portfolio. In addition to being a renewable resource, generally with lower life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions than fossil fuels, the biomass resource base is large and diverse. It is also currently the only renewable resource capable of providing liquid fuels. Several pieces of national legislation have been enacted to stimulate the development of biomass energy, including the Biomass Research and Development Act of 2000,1 the Energy Policy Act of 2005,2 the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007,3 and the 2002 and 2008 farm bills.4 A substantial amount of research on macroscopic, national-scale questions related to biomass resource availability, the environmental implications of biomass energy development, and biomass conversion technologies has been conducted over the past decade. Less research has addressed local-scale questions related to the infrastructure and logistics of supplying biomass and the costs of and constraints on the cultivation, collection, transportation, processing, and storage of biomass. Prospective biomass fuel users, such as power plants and liquid fuel refneries, need this information in order to make considered decisions on the location, size, operation, and other issues involved in making an investment in a facility that utilizes biomass.