Biomass Energy

Among the many things that show a great deal of promise as a substitute energy source, is biomass energy. Biomass energy is the conversion of already available sources, such as livestock manure, woodchips, and generally anything else that might get thrown into a compost pile. Then, it is processed, and converted into energy as needed. Here are some reasons why biomass energy may be considered a major energy source of the future.

One reason that biomass energy shows good promise is because it is already available in large quantities. The materials needed for this type of energy is woodchips (which can easily be obtained from sawmills), chipper trucks, municipal dumps, dead trees, left-over crops, yard clippings, tree bark, and even tire chips. The primary places for much of this is on farms, and landfills.

Another great feature of biomass energy is that massive quantities of the raw materials are already being produced every day. While our natural resources are possibly renewable, there already is an abundance of biomass material - more than can be used for now. Things like crops, manure, tires, etc., are produced in large quantities every year - enough to eventually offset the need for oil dependency in this country.

While you may already have heard of some developments of biomass energy, chances are that you are not familiar with the fact that research is ongoing to discover more ways to tap into it. Probably the most commonly heard of use is the making of ethanol for cars. Beyond this, though, a number of states take dry biomass materials and burn it in large hoppers. The heat is then applied to make steam and electricity is now being generated for many households and businesses. Also, landfills use the methane generated from the material dumped there, and it is used to generate power - this is also being done on farms.

Carbon dioxide from the plants is released when it is burned. But by replanting the crops the carbon dioxide gets reabsorbed by the new plants, instead of building up in the atmosphere.

Already there are a number of biomass energy refineries built that take the biomass materials and convert it into a number of useful energy-producing products, besides also producing energy. Other uses are being developed at a rapid pace and factories are being converted now to be able to take advantage of biomass energy along with their processing of raw materials for better energy conversion and cleaner burning.