Biomass is an important alternative source of energy because, while burning it does release carbon, the carbon is all recent and so is part of the current carbon cycle. This makes biomass effectively carbon neutral , meaning it doesn't add any carbon to the atmosphere that wasn't already there. Burning fossil fuels releases stored carbon, which is millions of years old, adding it to the current carbon cycle, and increasing the total amount of atmospheric carbon.
Biomass is commonly used as a fuel in underdeveloped countries for cooking and heat , but even in developed countries like Canada, biomass is used to create electricity.
There is a distinct difference in the types of biomass used in different areas around the world. More developed countries use biomass like virgin wood and energy crops for energy, especially for use as biofuels. Comparatively, developing countries use primarily agricultural residues e. These types of biofuels are used by people who often lack access to non-solid fuel , and the use of these fuels often has significant health concerns.
The graph below shows energy production by energy type for countries around the world. Search for or click on different countries to see how much biomass they produce as a fraction of their total energy production. To see countries that use a great deal of biomass, look for less developed countries.
It also plays a role in reducing our dependence on imported oil, extending the supply of U. The aviation industry is also taking biofuels to new heights. BETO sponsored an award-winning research project that involved the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Skokie, Illinois-based LanzaTech, which can recycle industrial waste gas from steel making and other heavy processes and convert it to a revolutionary form of jet fuel with dramatically reduced levels of emissions.
The project received awards from the Innovation Research Interchange in and the Federal Laboratory Consortium in Biobased feedstocks can be used to produce a range of personal care products, such as skin cream, shampoo, mascara , and more. For example, the acetone in your nail polish remover can be produced by fermenting plant sugars, while the palmitic acid that gives your hair that glossy shine after you condition is one of the most common saturated fatty acids found in microorganisms and plants.
Public demand has renewed industry interest in biobased cosmetics, and innovations in biotechnology are making these products cheaper and more efficient to manufacture. Algae are big-time oil producers capable of generating up to 5, gallons of oil per acre. The oil collected from algae can be converted into renewable fuels or used in a variety of applications. For example, a number of nutritional supplement brands are extracting omega-3 fatty acids, typically found in fish oils, directly from algae.
In addition, some food flavors can also trace their source back to biomass. Removing forest thinnings and burning them to produce energy is therefore viewed as better than leaving them on the forest floor to rot. However, Sterman argues that this fails to take account of the entire system.
In she used a model to calculate the net emissions impact — the difference between combustion emissions and decomposition emissions, divided by the combustion emissions — when forestry residues are burned for energy. Booth was so concerned by what she found that she co-ordinated a lawsuit against the EU in March eubiomasscase. Currently she is waiting to hear if the court will accept the case. Currently around two-thirds of renewable energy in Denmark is provided by biomass, and it plays a vital role in keeping district heating systems running, particularly when the wind fails to blow.
In Scott Bentsen in Copenhagen calculated the carbon debt and payback time for a combined heat and power generation plant in Denmark. His results suggested that the carbon debt was paid back after just one year, and that after 12 years greenhouse-gas emissions were halved relative to continued coal combustion Energies 11 These numbers are vastly different to the plus years of payback time estimated by Sterman, so what makes Danish biomass energy different to the kind of process seen at Drax?
Calculating the carbon payback time for a specific supply chain can play a significant role in helping to fine-tune management practices and minimize emissions. Scott Bentsen explains that there are a number of key differences. In this Danish study, the plant burns wood chips rather than pellets, which reduces processing energy.
Furthermore, the wood is sourced locally from mixed forests in a cold temperate region, which have different growing characteristics from trees in a warm temperate region. And the energy it produces is maximized, producing both heat for local houses and electricity. He believes that calculating the carbon payback time for a specific supply chain can play a significant role in helping to fine-tune the management practices and minimize emissions from individual biomass energy plants Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 73 Sterman accepts that there are arguments for using timber industry waste as a biofuel.
Energy form: UK biomass plants use wood pellets of leftover material from managed forests. Instead, McQueen Mason is investigating ways of making gas and liquid fuel from biomass, by getting micro-organisms and bacteria to munch their way through woody material, and collecting the resulting gas and liquid produced as the bugs digest the biomass.
Pilot plants using sugar cane residue are already proving promising and could provide a solution to the vexing problem of de-carbonizing the petrochemical industry. But even if living trees can claw back these carbon-dioxide emissions relatively quickly, there is a danger in front-loading our emissions in this way. And even if it remains as forest, wild fire, insect damage, disease and other ecological stresses including climate change itself may limit or prevent regrowth, so that the carbon debt incurred by biomass energy is never repaid.
Kate Ravilious is a contributing editor to environment and energy at Physics World , www. Close search menu Submit search Type to search. Topics Astronomy and space Atomic and molecular Biophysics and bioengineering Condensed matter Culture, history and society Environment and energy Instrumentation and measurement Materials Mathematics and computation Medical physics Optics and photonics Particle and nuclear Quantum.
Sign in Register. Enter e-mail address Show Enter password Remember me. Sign in to Unlock all the content on the site Manage which e-mail newsletters you want to receive Read about the big breakthroughs and innovations across 13 scientific topics Explore the key issues and trends within the global scientific community.
Enter e-mail address This e-mail address will be used to create your account.
0コメント