Biomass Wastes: An Energy Option for Baja California, México

Cotton and wheat crops are essential part of the Baja California agricultural production. Such crops generate waste biomass after each harvest cycle, which is almost fully openly burned in order to clear land for the next cycle. Thus in the agricultural 2011 cycle, 542,000 tonnes of straw were generated from wheat in the Mexicali Valley. In addition, the residue from the cotton consisting of stalks exceeded 143,000 tonnes. All these residues are a source of energy that is discarded annually equivalent to 10.19 PJ. Therefore, in addition to determining the biomass potential available in the state from such wastes, the aim of this paper is to propose options for the use of the energy contained in the waste biomass considering the characteristics of raw material available and existing technologies. The results show that there is the potential to generate electricity with a system of 105 MW of installed capacity, and also obtain annually 6.4 million liters of biodiesel. Obtaining this biofuel is by a transesterification reaction of waste vegetable oils, considering an average efficiency of 80% conversion, based on experimental results obtained with mixtures from Mexicali.