What type of resources does biomass come from

A growing number of foresters are giving voice to this e. Burning trees is only carbon neutral in the very long term averaging over many centuries. Very little carbon will be captured by a young, small tree; most effective capture will be nearer the last years of its life — just around the time someone will cut it down to burn it.

A far greater percentage of the time it will exist as uncaptured CO2. Article says a pro bio mass argument is that thinning forests is constructive. It is always complete cutting and clearing. No timber company walks around selecting only the dying and fallen trees. Burning bio-mass as being environmental friendly, only because of the CO2 compensation is a farce.

If the coal stays in the ground, so do those carbon emissions. Photo credit: rebuildingdemocracy. Tags: biomass climate change eco matters forests Greenhouse Gas Emissions renewable energy Soil Fertility. Notify of. I agree to help cultivate an open and respectful discussion. Oldest Newest Most Voted.

Inline Feedbacks. Where was this data sourced from? Jon A Normandin. Reply to Keith 28 days ago. Marcel van der Knaap. Reply to Jon A Normandin 20 days ago. Plants and plant waste are to not to be burned, but to be used to refertilise the soil. Annie Nelson. Krista Hiles. Reply to Krista Hiles 1 year ago. Bengt Andersson. Reply to samuel katenda 1 year ago. Paul Elias. Biomass energy need to be developed, biomass energy has many advantages. Carlos M. Somebody knows some scientific paper that say about biomass is not a renewable energy?

Stephen Mikesell. Jonathan Guerrero. I just wanted a yes or no answer…. Michael Gainey. This article is trying very hard to distract from this simple fact.

Herbaceous energy crops are perennial plants that live for more than 2 years grasses that are harvested annually after taking 2 to 3 years to reach full productivity. These include switchgrass, miscanthus, bamboo, sweet sorghum, tall fescue, kochia, wheatgrass, and others. Short-rotation woody crops are fast-growing hardwood trees that are harvested within 5 to 8 years of planting.

These include hybrid poplar, hybrid willow, silver maple, eastern cottonwood, green ash, black walnut, sweetgum, and sycamore. Many of these species can help improve water and soil quality, improve wildlife habitat relative to annual crops, diversify sources of income, and improve overall farm productivity.

Agricultural Crop Residue There are many opportunities to leverage agricultural resources on existing lands without interfering with the production of food, feed, fiber, or forest products. Agricultural crop residues, which include the stalks and leaves, are abundant, diverse, and widely distributed across the United States. After this fermentation, the resulting product is distilled to extract the ethanol.

The three bioethanol production chains. This process therefore requires the production of enzymes from bacteria and fungi , and the availability of appropriate yeasts. These enzymes and yeasts are difficult to select and exploit if we want to benefit from high yield and large-scale production conditions, using, in addition, various raw materials; this is why this process, developed in particular at Pomacle Bazancourt Futurol project , is still in the pre-industrial stage.

Tableau 3: Yields and costs of bioethanol production from various plants. To perfectly adapt bioethanol to the operating constraints of engines, oil companies react it chemically with a well-known product, isobutene, to obtain the ETBE molecule. However, it should be noted that at equal mass, the calorific value of bioethanol is only 0. Biodiesel can be made from oilseed crops, either on a large scale or on the basis of cultivated plants, which differ from region to region: sunflower and rapeseed in Europe, maize mainly used in the United States, soybean and palm kernel oil in Asia product derived from the fruit stones of oil palm trees, their pulp providing palm oil.

In all cases, the oils from these plants must first be extracted by crushing, followed by filtration. The waste from this operation is oilcake, which is energetic and rich in protein, and is highly valued particularly for animal feed. The crude oils are then semi-refined by a degumming and neutralization treatment. To make them usable in engines, the oils are then chemically treated by one or the other of two distinct processes:.

It is also interesting to note that 1st generation biodiesel can also be made from animal fats, and even waste oils. There is also a 2nd generation biodiesel sector, using dedicated plants grasses or wood waste. In this case, a thermochemical process is used. It involves pre-treatment by roasting, followed by gasification and purification, followed by a Fischer Tropsch reaction.

Algae and cyanobacteria are photosynthetic organisms with particularly interesting properties: they fix about half of the carbon dioxide absorbed in the entire biosphere, while their biomass production per unit area is several times higher than that of terrestrial plants.

They could therefore play an essential role in the resource mix of the future. The living environment of plankton phytoplankton and zooplankton , of which there are thousands of species, forms the basis of the food chain of all marine organisms: fish and other seafood products, consumed in large quantities. But there are also many algae and aquatic animals in fresh waters rivers or lakes and aquaculture pools.

Food outlets for fisheries and aquaculture products already play a major role in the global economy, but what is of even greater interest to researchers and industrialists today are the materials found in these algae.

Already used for a long time for biochemical pharmaceutical and cosmetic uses, some of them contain molecules that are particularly rich in poly-saccharides, proteins, polyphenols, lipids and mineral salts. In energy use, microalgae are extremely interesting, because their surface productivity is potentially very high, liters of oil per hectare, compared to 6, liters for palm oil!

In the future, using natural or artificial photosynthesis processes, these organisms could convert CO2 from the atmosphere or from the CO2 collected at the exit of large plants, in dedicated installations, off-shore and off-land for agricultural purposes, in brackish or alkaline basins or lagoons operating directly or indirectly with solar energy. Energy-rich carbon molecules, particularly biofuels, could be developed Figure But we have yet to reach this stage.

Although pre-industrial test and demonstration stations have been actively developing and testing high-efficiency cultivation and extraction processes for energy materials mainly oil for several years, these prospects are still distant at least 20 years on a regional or national economy scale. Biofuel production process based on microalgae. Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of two different energies in the same process.

The most frequent case is the production of electricity and heat, with heat coming from electricity production or the reverse. In practice, the wood is burned in the furnace of a boiler, which produces high-pressure steam that drives the axis of a turbine. This axis in turn drives an alternator, which produces electricity. The low-pressure water vapor from the turbine passes through a condenser, which provides heat Figure The supply, in cogeneration-biomass, of 1 MW of electrical power implies, on average, the prior production of 5 MW of thermal energy, i.

For an operation of 7, H per year, or 42, MWh PCI supplied, the installation therefore requires, for 1MWe of power supplied, the annual combustion of approximately 14,t of fresh cellulosic biomass.

Heat network Fig. Co-generation installation. Ravel, CEA. To avoid further global environmental degradation, including serious climate risks, all countries are called upon to make their economic development as sustainable as possible. In terms of energy supply, this objective means greater control of demand, through greater moderation where possible and more efficient use of energy, and a reorientation of supply towards energy sources that are less polluting and emit less greenhouse gases GHG than fossil fuels.

What role should bioenergy play in the energy balances that could ensure an energy transition? Given the massive use of fuelwood in countries that are still less industrialized, this position is already by far the most important in the world. It is expected to grow further and win new countries in view of the many advantages of this energy resource:. Faced with all these advantages, which advocate in favor of a very wide use of bioenergy, several limitations may take form in some countries more than in others, from the following disadvantages:.

Ultimately, a precise assessment of the advantages of each bioenergy in relation to its potential competitors will be the only way to make the decision. It is however likely to be favorable in many situations, particularly in countries rich in biomass, but still very poor in the use of modern and efficient energy sources Read: Energy supply to off-grid African populations.

Sourisse — p — March — Editor: Covabis www. Legalland — J. Lemarchand — — Editions Technip. Local energy communities. The notions of energy communities are very disparate. There are communities that originate from local initiatives and physically occupy a small piece of territory, neighbourhood, village, or campus.

This is the type of community referred to below. But there are also other communities of the virtual type, with geographically dispersed energy resources, which are not…. Oersted, previously dong energy: catching mighty north sea winds. Dong is not a Chinese company. It is the acronym for Danish Oil and Gas Company, created in for managing oil and gas resources from the North Sea Danish sector, and for producing and distributing electricity as a utility owned by the Danish Government.

Incidentally, they developed and constructed in the first offshore…. Solar cookstoves for adaptation to degrading natural conditions. Thematics theoretical bases energy uses fossil sources Nuclear hydraulic other renewables electricity environment new technologies Energy economics and policy World energy history statistics Authors Institutions Bibliographies Who are we? Presentation Sponsorship correspondents abroad your suggestions Contact. Biomass and energy: from primary resources to final energy products.

Local energy communities other renewables Electricity new technologies The notions of energy communities are very disparate. Properly treated renewable natural gas has the same uses as fossil fuel natural gas.

Researchers are working on ways to improve these methods and to develop other ways to convert and use more biomass for energy. In , biomass provided about 4, trillion British thermal units TBtu , or about 4. Of that amount, about 2, TBtu were from wood and wood-derived biomass, 2, TBtu were from biofuels mainly ethanol , and TBtu were from the biomass in municipal wastes. The amounts—in TBtu—and percentage shares of total U. The industrial and transportation sectors account for the largest amounts, in terms of energy content, and largest percentage shares of total annual U.

The wood products and paper industries use biomass in combined heat and power plants for process heat and to generate electricity for their own use. Liquid biofuels ethanol and biomass-based diesel account for most of the transportation sector's biomass consumption. The residential and commercial sectors use firewood and wood pellets for heating.

The commercial sector also consumes, and in some cases, sells renewable natural gas produced at municipal sewage treatment facilities and at waste landfills. The electric power sector uses wood and biomass-derived wastes to generate electricity for sale to the other sectors. Biomass explained. What is energy? Units and calculators.

Use of energy. Energy and the environment. Also in What is energy? Forms of energy Sources of energy Laws of energy.