Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply - Embrapa

• The growing energy demand and the recent trend toward the use of energy
biomass will be driven by the developing countries, whose new energy demand
will attain 5 TW over the next 40 years. It is unimaginable that fossil sources could
meet such demand because of the huge environmental impact, growing financial
costs and depletion of petroleum reserves.
• The environmental costs will gradually be incorporated into the price of
fossil fuels as a result of the punitive taxes (pollution tax) imposed, which will
progressively make them more expensive; this will further worsened by the natural
prices increases caused by petroleum reserves depletion.
• Public and private investments in the development of innovations that
ensure the viability of renewable and sustainable sources of energy (with emphasis
on the use of biomass) are growing exponentially.
• There is also a growing number of international investors interested in
long-term contract for the supply of biofuels, especially alcohol and, to a lesser
extent, biodiesel and other biomass products.
• Energy will become an important component of agricultural and agroindustrial
production costs, making cogeneration progressively attractive.
Table 4 lists the cost of electric power generation from different sources, by
country in Western Europe, and shows that bioenergy is beginning to compete
with coal and gas.
Table 4. Electric power generation costs in Europe for diverse primary sources
(Eurocents/kWh – 1990 prices).
Country
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
England
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
Coal
3.6
3.2
3.6
3.2
3.2
3.2
3.5
3.2
3.2
3.6
3.2
3.6
3.6
3.2
Combine
cycle gas
3.4
2.8
2.9
2.6
3.2
3.5
3.5
3.2
3.4
2.6
3.4
3.5
3.3
2.6
Bioenergy
55
3.6
3.7
3.9
3.9
4.0
4.3
4.0
4.5
4.0
4.0
4.3
4.3
3.4
3.8
Source: AEN/NEA – IEA – Projected costs of generating electricity.
Wind
7.2
7.2
6.7
7.2
7.2
6.8
7.2
7.2
7.2
7.2
7.2
7.1
7.2
7.2
Solar
64.0
64.0
85.3
85.3
51.2
64.0
51.2
85.3
51.2
64.0
51.2
51.2
85.3
64.0
Nuclear
5.9
4.0
5.9
3.8
3.4
5.1l
4.6
4.7
5.0
5.1
5.9
4.7
4.7
4.3