Biomass resources and costs: Assessment in different EU countries

Abstract The objective of the CHRISGAS Project in the field of biomass resources was to make an assessment of the biomass resources and costs available for raw materials procurement for future biomass CHRISGAS technology hydrogen plants in different EU countries, as well as to investigate possible locations for the erection of CHRISGAS plants. The assessment work included 11 European countries (comprising 77% of the EU territory) and Norway. A specific assessment methodology has been developed and applied for this purpose obtaining a total estimate of 365 Tg y−1 of potential forest and agricultural residues, and after the application of different technical and environmental restrictions, the available resources are calculated to be 205 Tg y−1 (56% of the estimated potential). The highest harvesting costs have been calculated for Italy (33.2 and 74.0 € Mg−1, respectively, for agricultural and forest residues) and the lowest ones were obtained in Portugal (21.4 and 27.4 € Mg−1). In Northern and Central European countries the highest biomass collection costs have been determined for Norway, 37.6 and 27.8 € Mg−1; and the lowest for Poland, 15.6 and 11.5 € Mg−1, for agricultural and forest residues, respectively. Based on the developed methodology, a GIS tool (BIORAISE) for the assessment of the cited biomasses and costs in Southern EU countries was created and placed in Internet. The innovation and scientific relevance of this work is the development of a comprehensive and harmonized methodology for agricultural and forestry resources assessment in different EU countries as well as the implementation of a GIS tool that permits an easy extraction of data on quantity and cost of biomass resources in five Southern EU countries.