Biomass Energy

 What Is Biomass?

Biomass energy is a type of renewable energy provided by fuel made from biological sources - not fossil fuels like oil and coal. The goal of this article is to answer the question what is biomass and to provide basic, introductory information about biomass energy and biomass fuels.

Biomass fuels come from any organic waste material that can be converted into energy, including wood, crops, dead trees, tree branches, yard clippings, wood chips, bark and sawdust from lumber mills, and left-over crops. Biomass fuels can even include used tires, manure and the organic components of ordinary garbage.

Your trash, paper products that can't be recycled, and a variety of other household trash is usually hauled off to a dump. But as the saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." Your trash contains some materials that can provide biomass fuels. When you consider how much trash is generated in industrialized countries, you can appreciate the potential of biomass energy and biomass fuels in filling the renewable energy needs of the future.

Recycling trash and other biomass and converting it to biomass fuels also reduces the need for landfills to hold garbage.

At this point, biomass energy accounts for less than 5 percent of the energy produced and used in the United States. This includes cars that run on biodiesel and bioalcohol, and electricity produced by wood product plants burning their waste products to create their own electricity.

Wood is the most commonly found form of biomass, and of course can be burned to create steam, which can be used to generate electricity. However, wood is not a particularly portable or easy to use form of biomass, and burning biomass as fuel directly can cause air pollution and other complications.

Vegetable oil is a great biomass fuel source because it can be converted into biodiesel. Biodiesel is particularly attractive because it can be run in diesel engines without converting those vehicles for biomass fuel. Crops and sugar cane can be fermented to make ethanol, which many people feel is a good substitute for petroleum-based gasoline. These are all promising forms of alternative fuels.