JOURNAL HIGHLIGHTS BY RAQUEL ENCISO SERRADILLA
Canada has the potential to produce around 2.66m t (Mt) of green hydrogen/year by utilising its existing biomass and waste resources, including urban waste, animal byproducts, forestry products and residue, crop residue, and purpose-grown energy crops, primarily through gasification and incineration processes, according to a new study.
The increasing consumption of fossil fuels has led to significant rises in CO2 emissions, contributing to detrimental effects on the Earth’s atmosphere. Green hydrogen, produced from renewable resources like biomass, offers a potential path forward especially as an energy source for some otherwise hard-to-decarbonise industries. The research, published in Energy Science & Engineering, seeks to provide an insight for policy- makers looking to use renewable energy as part of their strategies to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
Biomass refers to organic matter that can be used as an energy source, such as agricultural residue, organic waste, or forestry byproducts. Renewable energy sources obtained from biomass can support the need for new sources of energy while also providing an efficient means of managing waste materials, the researchers from Ontario Tech University noted.
The study highlights two main methods for producing green hydrogen from biomass: gasification and incineration. Gasification heats biomass in low-oxygen conditions to create syngas, which is further processed to extract hydrogen, achieving thermal efficiency of 60-70%.
Alternatively, incineration burns biomass to generate electricity, which powers electrolysers for hydrogen production, with a lower efficiency of 14.9%. Together, these methods can provide hydrogen for diverse applications.
‘Biomass-derived hydrogen, produced through gasification and incineration, leverages renewable feedstocks that inherently sequester carbon during their growth phases, partially offsetting emissions during conversion. By contrast, fossil fuel-based hydrogen production, such as steam methane reforming, is characterised by significant carbon dioxide emissions due to the combustion of natural gas and the release of process CO₂,’ the researchers said.
The study calculated that producing the same amount of hydrogen (2.66 Mt) using fossil fuel-based methods would generate substantial additional CO2: 59.27 Mt from natural gas, 141.72 Mt from coal and 151.26 Mt from petroleum.
Canada’s biomass resources offer substantial potential for green hydrogen production, with 200 Mt accessible annually. Forestry products lead the list of potential feedstocks, making up 41.9% of total biomass, followed by energy crops at 26%, crop residue at 20.8%, livestock waste at 9.4%, and urban waste at 2.3%.
The researchers noted there are still obstacles to green hydrogen production – like high costs, transport issues, greenhouse gas emissions, and system inefficiencies, but said that utilising Canada’s widespread biomass resources and developing hydrogen hubs and networks throughout the region could position the country as a leader in this field.
‘Biomass energy is widely recognised as an extremely promising renewable resource for the production of clean fuel, more notably hydrogen. Because Canada possesses a substantial potential for biomass energy, the country will be able to make the switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources more easily than other countries with access to less renewable resource variety,’ the researchers emphasised.
A Comprehensive Study on Canada’s Green Hydrogen Production Potential Using Biomass and Waste
G. Kubilay Karayel, Ibrahim Dincer
Energy Science & Engineering
DOI 10.1002/ese3.2092
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