Prof. Ph.D Wieslaw Ciechanowicz
Prof. Ph.D Wiesław Ciechanowicz was born in Warsaw in 1926. He was graduated from Mechanical Faculty of Gdańsk (Dantzig) University in 1952 with a master of science degree. During 1950-58 he was designer of cranes, steam turbine regulators and jet propulsion engine regulators. In the years 1956-58 he was attending the control theory postgraduate study organised by Polish Academy of Sciences. From 1958 to 1976 he was a scientific worker of Institute of Nuclear Research at Owierk near Warsaw. In 1960 at this Institute he received a degree of technical science doctor (Ph.D). The title of his doctoral thesis was "Simulation of the thermal diffusion and heat flow equations". In 1977 he obtained his next scientific degree, namely hability doctor. The subject of the habilitation thesis was "The problems of nuclear power plants control". In 1994 he received the scientific title of professor of technical sciences. From 1977 till now he has been working at the Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences. Among his research interests are the expansion strategy problems of the energy, environment and economy problems, and also sustainable expansion of regions with the majority of rural areas.
He was staying twice at Institute for Atomenergi, Kjeller, Norway: in the years 1962-63 as a fellow of International Atomic Energy and in 1967-68 he was granted a fellowship from Royal Norwegian Scientific Society. In 1981 and 1990 his three month study visits in Germany was financed by DAAD.
He is an author of 110 scientific publications {among others 7 articles, together 65 pages, published in Nuclear Sciences and Engineering, a Journal of American Nuclear Society}, and five monographs. The titles of these monographs are: "Statistical noise identification and filtration", "Expansion problems of fuel-energy systems", "Coal and other energy source in the future", "Energy, Environment and Economy", "Bioenergy versus Nuclear Energy".
He was co-worker and leader of the following computer systems: "Computer system of energy sector expansion and environment", "Simulation computer system of cement-lime industry including influence on environment", "Computer simulation of the sustainable development of the agricultural sector in Poland". At present he is co-ordinating the establishing of the consortium "Bioenergy for rural development in Poland".
Betreffende Publikation Warschau 22.09.2003
Prof. dr hab. inż. W. Ciechanowicz
Systems Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences
President of Consortium of
“Bioenergy for Rural Area Development”
Research Programme Outline of
the Consortium “Bioenergy for Rural Area Development”
There are two requirements for the future civilisation development: to preserve the earth climate for the next generations and to eliminate the carcinogenic impact on the human health caused by the emission of non-burned carbon oxide and hydrocarbons by internal combustion engines. These problems, as system research issues, are basis of the programme outline of the Consortium “Bioenergy for Rural Area Development”
Introduction
Till now the fossil fuel supply has been determined by market. Lignocellulose biomass, to become the global energy carrier to the end of XXI century, is not determined by market. It results from the need to preserve the world climate for the future generations according to the recommendations of Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC).
The second impulse influencing the fossil fuel elimination is the necessity to decrease the carcinogenic impact on the human health, particularly emission of non-burned carbon oxide and hydrocarbons by internal combustion engines, particularly in the urban agglomerations. It is projected that the number of vehicles world wide will increase from 600 million today to 1 milliard by the year 2015. It is predicted that in this time 8 million people will die because of the mentioned reasons. Then the problem arises to replace the internal combustion engine by the generator to be the neutral with respect to human health and environment.
The breakthrough moment in the execution of the IPCC recommendations as well USA Congress Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 was in 1999 when the world automobile system, the second world capital holder, has perceived to be threaten, according to the US Energy Information Administration estimates, that world wide oil demand will increase by 60 % by the year 2020. By some estimates, the growth of oil production will begin to taper off by 2010, particularly from non OPEC fields. Since production will be outstripped by the growth in demand, oil price shocks and resulting economic recession may be on the horizon. One should mentioned that the automobile system, which incorporate not only car producers, has become the main factor of the industrial era civilisation development.
What are the consequences - from the system research point of view - that renewable energy source would be introduced in the global scale?Since the 2060 the world energy demand in the coal equivalence would be 21 Gt/year. The contribution of the renewable energy sources and river energy would be equivalent to 2.5 Gt of coal/year. That means the biomass demand would account approximately 18 Gt of coal equivalence /year.
The total world area land accounts 13560 millions ha. If we cultivate lignocellulose biomass with yield of 2.5 tons of dry matter per ha per year, we would need the land for cultivation 7000 millions ha, that means almost 50 % of world land. 2.5 tons of dry matter per ha per year means biomass cultivation in natural way and no system research problem would arise.
But if we cultivate the biomass with the yield of 30 tons of dry matter per year and per ha, and replace the conventional energy generators by fuel cells with twice higher efficiencies, then we will need only 2. 2 % of the world land to satisfy the future world energy demand.
However, to reach this goal we need on the world scale approximately 300 milliards tons of water per year. Let us remember that without water accessibility of appropriate quality, volume and timeliness, a modern economic and social structure could not function.
For high effective lignocellulose biomas cultivation in the world scale, only available water would be that which runs through the rivers to the see, and which is the consequence of water transpired by soil and plant surfaces plus some evaporation from water surfaces. The quantity of this water counts 42000 milliards tons per year in the world scale. That means we need water retention system, which would create the water resources for the civilisation development.
Nevertheless, the problem arises how to decrease the water demand in the world scale? There is a possibility to utilise biological, municipal and industrial waste for energy production. This would enable us not only to decrease water demand but also to decrease substantially the land demand for the biomass cultivation.
It is known that only 40 % of the world’s accessible water is presently allocated for human purposes. It is to be increased to 80 % by 2025, because of anticipated pollution loading in rivers and their requirement for dilution. That means we need the sewage and waste treatments.
In order to preserve the earth climate for the next generation, taking into account the global modern bioenergy system, we would deal with the following system research topics:
• resources:
- land cultivated,
- water,
- wastes,
• way of activity:
- genetic engineering,
- sewage and waste treatment to produce methane,
- chemical conversion of lignocellulose to methanol,
- microbiological conversion of lignocellulose to ethanol and methanol,
- molecular biology to replace plastics by organic material, and
• technologies
- fuel cells.
What are the consequences - from the system research point of view - of the necessity to decrease the carcinogenic impact on the human health, particularly in urban agglomerations?
It is necessary:
- to replace the internal combustion engine by generator to be neutral with respect human health, and
- to find sources being the “fuel” for this generator.
It is well known that the Polymeric Fuel Cell is the proper solution to be the engine of all city buses, and hydrogen as a fuel for this engine.
There is a question which renewable energy sources for hydrogen production will be economically acceptable. It is well known that they should be located very close to an urban agglomeration with public transport. Only these primary energy carriers could be applied for hydrogen production if the transport of these carriers to the agglomeration is to be economically accepted. That is not the case for the biomass production.
It seems that only wind energy and river energy together with electrolytic decomposition of water could be taken into account, and coal as a primary energy carrier. In summary, the best solution to decrease the carcinogenic impact on the human health in urban agglomerations in the future would be: - wind and river energy as renewable energy sources,
- chemical and microbiological conversion of coal to hydrogen.
The research issues of the Consortium Programme concerning the preservation of world climate for the future generations are as follows:
1. small scale gasification process to produce syngas for methanol production to be economically viable.
2. high effective lignocellulose biomass cultivation,
3. microbiological conversion of lignocelulose to ethanol and then to methanol,
4. anaerobic digestion of wide spectrum of biological waste water and solid waste capable of providing methane to the integrated fuel cell power plant,
5. biological and industrial waste treatment by utilising an anaerobic digestion process,
6. technology of liquefying home waste to glucose and then to find bacteria, which could convert glucose to hydrogen to be utilised in residential sector. Ad 1:
The first condition of reaching this goal is to have the high productivity of willow per ha per year. We are very close in Poland to achieve this requirement on average class of soil.
The second condition is to have dried biomass to have less then 20 % moisture content. We have elaborated in Poland a very cheap technology, which enable us to get 15 % moisture content.
The third condition is to avoid high temperature processes, above 600 0C, because of the decomposition of steam into hydrogen and oxygen. We are going to avoid this obstacle by utilising pyrolysis process at 350 0C, in which biomass is separated into violates and charcoal by low temperature pyrolysis. Violates are combusted at the air to produce heat, which is supplied to charcoal gasification process. In this way it is possible to reduce impurities and to make cheaper plants.
Ad 3:
At the present time we are very close in Poland to convert microbiologically lignocelulose to ethanol. This technology is the important step to convert microbiologically lignocelulose to methanol.
The research issues of the Consortium programme concerning the necessity to decrease the carciogenic impact on the human health are as follows
7. chemical conversion of coal to hydrogen,
8. microbiological conversion of coal to hydrogen. Ad 7:
The output of the conversion of coal be hydrogen and carbon dioxide. There are two possibilities to utilise the carbon dioxide. One of them is to produce methanol by radiolytic decomposition of CO2 into CO and O2 and electrolytic decomposition of H2O by utilisation of high energy neutrons to be produced by fusion synthesis reactor of mirror type.
The research institutions taking part in Consortium Research Programme “Bioenergy for Rural development”
1. Systems Research Institute of Polish Academy of Sciences,2 Warmian Masurian University, as the leading institution in:
- the high productivity of willow biomass.
- the chemical conversion of lignocellulose biomass to methanol as well as to low caloric gas.
3. Agriculture Academy of Lublin, as the leading institution in:
- the microbiological conversion of lignocellulose biomass to ethanol and methanol.
- the high productivity of energetic grasses – Sida hermaphodita Rusby.
4. Institute of Agriculture Sciences, Zamosc, as the leading institution in the high productivity of Miscanthus Sinensis Gigantens.
5. Institute of Plant Genetics, Polish Academy of Sciences,6. Environment Protection Institute of Bialystok, as the leading institution in an anaerobic digestion of wide spectrum of biological wastes, waste water and solid waste capable of providing methane to the integrated fuel cell power plant, 7. Institute of Energetic Machinery and Systems, Gliwice, System Research Institute, Polish Academy of Sciences, as the leading institutions in the fuel cell applications to the integrated energy systems, including also busses driven be fuel cells.
8. Warsaw School of Information Technology,
9. Electrotechnical Institute, Gdańsk,
10. Technical University of Gdańsk11. Environment Protection Institute of Warsaw,12. Southern Illionois University Carbondale, Coal Research Centre and Department of Mechanical Engineering. Topics of cooperation: - conversion of coal, sludge and woody biomass to hydrogen being the fuel for city bus transport.
Moreover:
13. Ladensverband Baden – Wurttenmberg / Bayern Der Polnischen Ingenieure und Techniker in Deutschland E.V.