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Wheat Agricultural Residences for Bioenergy Generation in Morocco

Abstract:

Morocco is one of the important producers of wheat in Africa, in which this crop is the first agricultural product in the country. In spite of obtaining a huge quantity of wheat residues in the Moroccan agriculture sector, a small portion of this great bioenergy resource is reused for energy generation in the country. This is a big challenge for Morocco because its energy sector highly depends on costly fossil fuel imports. Furthermore, the country has to decrease harmful gases emission based on the Paris and Kyoto agreements. Regarding the importance of rainfall amount and water resources available for this agricultural product that is the main feedstock of Moroccan food, the use of wheat biomass to produce energy will remove high pressure from both the national energy and agriculture sectors. Besides that, the problems related to crop residue removal are reduced by using wheat biomass. Also, the use of wheat residues for energy generation pushes farmers to prevent the open firing of wheat straws and unnecessary air pollutants release. Thus, the present paper, for the first time, calculates possible energy production from wheat straws and root biomasses in Morocco, aiming to provide useful information for Morocco's energy sector.