BIOMASS -- Energy from Wood,Garbage, and Agricultural Waste

Biomass is organic material which has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. Biomass fuels include wood, wood waste, straw, manure, sugar cane, and many other byproducts from a variety of agricultural processes.

When burned, the chemical energy is released as heat. If you have a fireplace, the wood you burn in it is a biomass fuel. What we now call biomass was the chief source of heating homes and other buildings for thousands of years.  In fact, biomass continues to be a major source of energy in much of the developing world.

Sugar cane, a good example of a biomass crop, is grown in many Southern states and in the Caribbean. The chief commercial product, sugar, is extracted from the cane by removing the juice; the remainder of the plant, called "bagasse", still contains the chemical energy of the sun.  As with any biomass, bagasse produces heat when burned.

 

Ethanol, another biomass fuel, is an alcohol distilled mostly from corn.  For the last twenty-five years, it has been blended with gasoline for use in cars in the USA.  Using ethanol in gasoline means we don't burn quite as much fossil fuel in our cars. 

 

People in the USA are trying to develop ways to burn more biomass and less coal and other fossil fuels.  When burned, biomass does release carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. But when biomass crops are grown, an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide is consumed through photosynthesis.

Numerous biomass electric power plants, as well as steam producing plants for industrial purposes (especially in the wood and paper products industry) are located throughout the country. 

The real environmental benefit of biomass will come when we can use large amounts of biomass to generate electricity, thereby reducing consumption of fossil fuels.  This is a photograph of biomass fuel, probably wood chips, being stored and dried for later use in a boiler.

 

Farmers are experimenting with "woody crops"  (mostly small poplar trees and switchgrass) to see if they can grow them cheaply and abundantly