Renewable Energy in Industrial Applications – an ... - Unido

RENEWABLE ENERGY IN INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS
Competition for biomass among
different sectors
Iron and steel
Iron production requires the combustion of
carbon-containing fuels to produce carbon
monoxide which is reacted with ferrous oxide to
produce iron and CO2. Historically, iron was
produced using charcoal exclusively as fuel. At
the beginning of the 18th century, charcoal
started to be substituted by coke. Coke is now
by far the dominant fuel in iron and steel
making, with at least 10 Gt of coke being
consumed per tonne of steel produced. Even so,
significant amounts of pig iron are still
successfully produced using charcoal.
The use of electrochemical processes to produce
iron ore, known as electrowinning, is currently in
an early R&D phase. Aluminum is produced
entirely by electrowinning and the approach is
also used in the production of lead, copper, gold,
silver, zinc, chromium, cobalt, manganese, and
the rare-earth and alkali metals. Electorwinning
offers the possibility to produce iron without the
use of carbonaceous fuels. If a technological
breakthrough were to make the production of
iron by electrowinning feasible, and if in future
there were large quantities of low cost, low
carbon electricity available, this would offer a
route to the production of iron and steel with
significantly reduced carbon emissions.
Petrochemical feedstocks
Carbon is also needed for the production of
materials in the petrochemical sector, where it
comprises around 75% of the total feedstock.
The main alternative feedstock to fossil fuels in
the petrochemical sector is likely to be biomass.
But waste products, such as recycled plastics,
can also substitute for some fossil fuel feedstock.
Alternatively, organic materials such as cellulose
fibers, coconut fibers, starch plastics, fibre
boards and paper foams can be produced which
can directly substitute for petrochemical products
in end use applications, as described in Annex 3.
It is also possible to produce textile materials
(mainly viscose and acetate) from wood pulp and
as by-products from cotton processing.
Transportation
The transport sector is likely to be a significant
competitor for any available biomass resource. If
by 2050 biofuels are still the main option to
displace fossil fuels from the transport sector, the
availability of biomass for the industrial sector
may be extremely limited. This would increase
the attractiveness of other, non-biomass,
renewable energy sources and of the further
electrification of many industrial sectors. But at
the same time, if biofuels increasingly replace
petroleum fuels, this may free up large amounts
of refinery-produced naphtha at low cost. In
these circumstances, shifting away from naphtha
as a petrochemical feedstock to alternative
feedstocks or processes will be very difficult to
achieve.
B. BIOMASS PROCESS HEAT
Regional and sectoral discussion
Biomass is the most widely used renewable
energy source both generally and in industry.
Biomass availability and use is strongly
dependent on regional conditions.
Although biomass provides 8% of industry's final
energy, in some regions there is almost no
biomass use in any industrial sector. In regions
such as Latin America and Africa, by contrast,
biomass contributes around 30% of industry's
final energy (IEA statistics). Wide differences in
use are also observed among different industrial
sectors.
Biomass is used to a significant degree for
industrial heat in the food and tobacco, paper,
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