I. NECESSITY AND URGENCY OF "COAL TO BIOMASS"

1. "Coal-to-Electricity and Coal-to-Gas" Faces Development Dilemma

Coal is currently the main heating energy in northern China. Under the background of smog control, "coal-to-electricity" and "coal-to-gas" as core measures for clean heating have been vigorously promoted. But after two or three years, some areas face the dilemma of "cannot afford to convert, cannot afford to use, cannot afford to subsidize." Natural gas resources mainly rely on imports, and coal-to-gas creates huge pressure on national energy security. In recent years, "coal-free zones" have seen a return to coal burning, triggering some social conflicts and carbon monoxide poisoning deaths and injuries, causing adverse effects. In rural areas, locally-sourced biomass heating should receive the highest priority for development to replace scattered coal burning in rural areas.

2. Nordic Countries Achieve Rapid Development of Biomass Heating

Following the oil crisis of the 1970s, EU countries successively began to find alternatives to petroleum, and the biomass energy industry was able to develop rapidly. In 2017, there were already 14 EU countries where biomass heating accounted for more than 10% of final energy consumption, with Latvia having the highest proportion at 33.21%. Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Denmark and Lithuania all exceeded 20%. Croatia, Austria, Romania and other countries reached about 15%. In China, however, this proportion is less than 1%.

Nordic countries such as Norway, Finland and Denmark have successively achieved a biomass-based energy structure in the heating sector. In 2016, biomass and waste fuel accounted for about two-thirds of district heating in Sweden. In Denmark, famous for wind energy development worldwide, biomass energy is three times that of wind energy in the renewable energy structure. In the heating sector, biomass ranks first at 35.5%, while natural gas accounts for 18.4%. In Finland, biomass accounts for 38.3% of heating energy consumption. In Germany, the total renewable energy heating in 2017 was 162 billion kilowatt-hours, of which 86.7% (141 billion kilowatt-hours) came from biomass. Moreover, most of Germany's biomass is used for heating, with electricity generation using biomass accounting for less than 32% of the biomass used for heating.

The development of the Nordic biomass heating industry has also driven the development of biomass heating in Western Europe, Southern Europe, and Eastern Europe. Italy, France and other countries have successively become countries with rapid development of the biomass heating industry.

In the global trend of transitioning from fossil energy to clean energy, China is already behind on the starting line for biomass energy. Considering global biomass development and domestic energy demand growth, consumption structure, foreign dependence, greenhouse gas emissions and rural economic development factors, China should attach more importance to developing biomass energy than any other country.

3. Feasibility of Biomass Energy Development

China has abundant biomass energy resources, with theoretical biomass energy resources of about 5 billion tons of standard coal. According to the strategic advisory report on renewable energy development by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the resource amount of biomass energy in China is twice that of hydropower and 3.5 times that of wind energy, and is distributed close to high-energy-consumption areas on the eastern coast. The annually developable biomass energy is equivalent to about 1.2 billion tons of standard coal, accounting for about 1/4 of the national annual total energy consumption. However, currently the biomass energy scale is relatively small and still has very large development space.

In counties, townships, and villages with resource advantages, biomass is a heating energy suitable for undertaking major responsibilities in rural areas throughout China. From an economic perspective, biomass heating is the most flexible, with stability and controllability superior to coal and natural gas. Although its heating cost is slightly higher than coal heating, it is far lower than natural gas. Currently, biomass raw material collection, storage, drying technology and clean heating process technology, equipment, and environmental protection are relatively mature, but the popularization rate of excellent products and technology is still not high. In some cities and counties, biomass heating has become the main form of heating, forming centralized heating centered on biomass thermal power plants, distributed regional heating centered on biomass boilers, and household decentralized heating centered on household biomass stoves.

The environmental protection of biomass molding fuel has been confirmed. Biomass molded fuel belongs to clean, green, low-carbon renewable energy. When burned in dedicated boilers, it only needs appropriate dust removal to reach the same flue gas and nitrogen oxide emission levels as natural gas, with sulfur dioxide emissions far lower than natural gas. On March 27, 2017, in the notice issued by the Ministry of Environmental Protection on publishing the "High Pollution Fuel Catalog," it was pointed out that standardized biomass solid molded fuel used for burning is no longer included in the high pollution category.

4. Urgency of Coal to Biomass

Agricultural and forestry waste that cannot be properly treated will cause major environmental harm. It is estimated that by 2020, the amount of agricultural waste generated in China will exceed 5 billion tons, of which straw will reach 950 million to 1.1 billion tons, and livestock and poultry manure will reach 4.1 billion tons. If these agricultural wastes are randomly discarded or discharged into the environment, it will cause serious air pollution, water pollution, and solid waste pollution. Farmers burning straw has become one of the important causes of smog. Conducting resource utilization of agricultural waste is very necessary.

II. "COAL TO BIOMASS" TECHNOLOGY ROUTE

1. Encourage Biomass Molding Fuel Factory Construction in Areas with Surplus Agricultural and Forestry Waste

Straw and other agricultural and forestry waste are both raw materials and fuel. By building biomass molding fuel factories, a large amount of agricultural and forestry residues are centrally collected, made into fuel for production and utilization, which solves the problem of agricultural and forestry waste burning polluting the environment, and also cultivates new growth points for rural economic development. Molded fuel has the advantages of high specific gravity, good quality, and large economic transportation radius. It is necessary to accelerate the development of the molded fuel industry and cultivate a cross-county and cross-region fuel logistics system.

Wooden waste disposal is a major challenge in China's modern urban management, especially the large amount of used wooden furniture and large wooden packaging materials in cities. We need to actively guide the flow of urban used furniture and large wooden objects, and wooden waste should be encouraged to return to rural areas for heating.

Most rural areas in China have independent residential houses. Based on the current economic capacity of rural areas, housing structure, technical feasibility, heating effect, etc., "fuel-adapted stoves" are the most economical and effective measure to achieve rural clean heating. When implementing biomass fuel stove heating transformation, it is necessary to cooperate with insulation measures to implement building exterior wall insulation treatment.

Biomass boilers for regional heating need a large and stable supply capacity of biomass. Therefore, a complete professional raw material collection, transportation, storage and supply system is needed to form a mature market-oriented collection and storage mode and improve the efficiency of collection, storage and transportation. Biomass boilers also have great market demand for industrial steam production and require a strong raw material guarantee system.

5. Biomass Energy for Combined Heat and Power Production Focus on Prioritizing Heating and Improving Heat-to-Power Ratio

Biomass combined heat and power production has lower requirements for fuel, with abundant fuel sources and diverse channels, possessing the advantage of lower fuel costs. In combined heat and power scheme selection, heating can be prioritized to improve the heat-to-power ratio.