Bioenergy potential from agriculture residues for energy generation in Egypt

Recently, biomass represents about 14% of primary energy consumption and expected to provide 50% of world total primary energy consumption by 2050. This paper clarifies an appraisal of the possibilities available in Egypt to become one of the countries of the production of bioenergy, especially from the crop remnants of agriculture production. Egypt annually produces a large amount of biomass of up to 40 million tons. Unfortunately, instead of the possibility of exploiting these wastes to contribute to the energy sector and economic growth, about 52% of these wastes are disposed of by direct burning, which may cause many environmental problems. The only widespread form of biomass use in Egypt is biogas used in rural areas. In addition, the potential theoretical energy from the most important crop residues available in Egypt is evaluated according to previous studies. It is found that energy of 189.76 PJ/year can be produced from dry crop residues of 12.5 million tons/year. For livestock residues, specifically cattle manure, it is estimated in this study that the potential biogas in Egypt of 7.2 million head of cattle is 53.2 million m3 / day with a total potential energy of 699 TJ per year. However, the potential of bioenergy depends largely on the availability, geographical distribution and accessibility of the actual waste. The most likely areas for these potentials are Middle Delta and Upper Egypt. This could potentially develop a long-term strategy for the smart use of vital waste available for bioenergy production to be economically profitable and sustainable.