Sources of biomass   


Plants

Agricultural waste

Industrial waste

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Plants

Plants are the most common source of biomass. They have been used in the form of wood, peat and straw for thousands of years. Today the western world is far less reliant on this high energy fuel. This is because of the general acceptance that coal, oil and electricity are cleaner, more efficient and more in keeping with modernisation and technology. However, as you will learn if you read on, this is not really the right impression. Plants can either be specially grown for energy production, or they can be harvested from the natural environment. Plantations tend to use breeds of plant that are to produce a lot of biomass quickly in a sustainable fashion. These could be trees (e.g. Pine or Eucalyptus) or other high growth rate plants (such as sugar cane or maize or soybean).

Agricultural waste

Agricultural waste is a potentially huge source of biomass. Waste from agriculture includes: the portions of crop plants discarded (including forestry waste), whether damaged or surplus supplies, and animal dung. When wood is used as a fuel, there are low sulphur and nitogen oxide emsissions, but, there is concern about the by-products of using pesticide treated materials (as with straw). There is some potential to use more wood waste, especially residues arising from forestry operations. This could be collected, dried and used by rural industry. If the residues produced by sugar cane, forestry, and grain manufacture, plus all animal dung were converted to energy this would supply 30% of the world's energy needs.

Industrial waste

Industrial waste that contains biomass may be used to produce energy. For example the sludge left after alcohol is made (known as vinasse) if this is processed it can produce flamable gas. Other useful waste products include, waste from food processing and fluff from the cotton and textiles industry.