Biomass – What is it?

Biomass is the name given to the kind of energy source that comes from recently dead organic matter.  Most fossil fuels were originally biomass but the carbon in them have been locked up for so long that it had ceased to be part of the current climatic cycle.  The problem comes from releasing CO2 in a relatively short period of time that has been locked away, often for millions of years.

The simplest form of biomass energy is a wood fire.  Biomass can also be used for producing flammable gas, which can be burned to generate power.  The residue from gasification is a product similar to charcoal that can also be used to produce heat for steam turbines; the only waste from this process is a fine ash that can be added to soil treatments so that the waste from this kind of process is negligible.

Another useful by-product of the biomass process is a “Green” plastic, an example of which is a biodegrable product that5 dissolves in sea water, which addresses another environmental issue, that of the huge amount of plastic that finds it way into our oceans and destroys wildlife.
Sources of biomass include miscanthus, switchgrass, hemp, corn, poplar, willow and sugarcane.  Some of these are grown specifically for energy generation; others are a great way to deal with the waste from other agricultural activities.

Other biomass sources include some kinds of household waste that can be burned safely, which also helps with another pressing environmental problem, that of landfill.