Biomass fuels use living or recently deceased plant materials and other organic products, such as industrial, domestic and agricultural waste to produce electricity, heat and oil. Most bioenergy resources are readily available throughout the world and are directly used to generate biofuel. Sources include poplar, sugarcane, switchgrass, corn, miscanthus, willow, hemp, sorghum and eucalyptus trees, to name a few. Other resources are waste products left behind after plant materials have been recently consumed by animals or plant waste left behind from other various purposes. In 2002, biomass supplied about 47 percent of all renewable energy used in the US and has supplied more energy to the country than any other form of clean renewable energy. Biomass supplied almost six times the amount of energy of geothermal, solar energy, and wind power sources combined. Globally, biomass meets about 14 percent of the world’s energy needs (SOURCE: OREGON BIOMASS ENERGY).

Plants and other organic by-products that are not burned as biofuel can be developed in many other ways, such as composting (to make soil fertilizers), fermentation, distillation (to produce ethyl alcohol), anaerobic digestion (using decaying plant matter to produce methane gas and fertilizers), destructive distillation (producing methyl alcohol from high cellulose wastes), hydrogenation (to convert biomass to oil using carbon monoxide and steam), thermal depolymerization (to convert biomass into liquid hydrocarbons), acid hydrolysis (using wood to produce sugars), pyrolysis (using heat on organic wastes to produce gas and char), and hydrogasification which produces methane and ethane for energy. Burning biomass or fuel created from biomass may also be used to produce electricity and heat by a process called electrification. (SOURCE: WIKI BIOMASS) Other functional uses for biomass (besides using it for compost and fuel) are building materials for construction and biodegradable plastics/paper. The plastics created using biomass are less costly to manufacture and meet most performance standards set in place, but may lack the same durability as conventional plastic. In addition, the use of biomass for energy causes no direct increase of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere, making it a renewable source of green energy; however, this excludes unrefined plant materials that have been naturally altered during environmental processes**. Algae biofuel is actually reported to consume 3kg of CO2, which means strips of the biofuel could be placed near burning clean coal factories and comparable carbon expenders to lend a hand in reducing carbon emissions.

** Fossil fuels are not considered biomass when looking at it from a green energy standpoint because they have been out of their carbon cycle for a long period of time; therefore, the combustion of these materials upsets the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere and directly contributes to the ongoing problem of global warming.

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