Your Questions About Biomass Energy Pros And Cons

admin answers:

It depends on what kind of biomass you are talking about. For a while, biofuel was just converting corn to ethanol, which in itself takes a lot of energy to produce. It also drove up the price of corn, posing the question: should we be driving up the price of a food staple for energy consumption? Also, it takes a lot of land and water to grow corn, which encourages deforestation.

Nowadays, a lot of biofuel options involve human and agricultural waste, or other types of biochemical waste that doesn’t involve using up our resources that we can eat. Reusing Methane as a biofuel is also being considered.

However, the problem is to use biofuel, a combustion still has to take place, converting hydrocarbons to CO2. This still produces greenhouse gases which isn’t entirely fixing the whole problem.

admin answers:

It has advantages of being a renewable energy source, unlike coal, oil, or natural gas, which will eventually run out (although over millions of more years, it will eventually be created in new places, but that isn’t exactly renewable).

On the other hand, biomass energy (which comes from burning organic matter) releases almost the exact same amount of carbon dioxide and methane as burning any fossil fuel, which would just increase the problem of greenhouse gas presumptively global warming.

Proponents of biomass energy insist that the carbon dioxide emitted during the combustion process would be absorbed back into the healthy ecosystem by simply planting new trees, crops, and other plants, which use carbon dioxide in photosynthesis. However, this may not actually be realistic, as the logging community has long been trying renewable logging, planting a tree for each tree they fell. The problem is that trees don’t grow quickly enough to be continually harvested. So the possibility of “scrubbing” the atmosphere of the new carbon dioxide gas might not be a realistic concept.

The methane is even worse, because there is no large-scale natural method for taking it out of the atmosphere. There are mechanisms to artificially remove it and store it (which doesn’t fix the problem, it just hides it), but if these machines were actually good enough to do the job, then we’d already be using it to take the current harmful methane out of the air.

admin answers:

To say that any of this is free is to misunderstand economics. The raw material, be it electromagnetic radiation, heat, kinetics, gravity, or chemical is readily available. The cost is in the effort to make it usable. In other words wind may be free, windmills are not.

Geothermal works only in places where there is hot magma near the surface. Iceland has made great use of geothermal power.

Solar is the most promising. Sun is readily available in much of the world (polar regions during their winter being the exception). Biggest drawback is that it isn’t available at night, however power usage surges during the day so it is most available when most needed. The cost is a bit prohibitive, but technology is slowly making solar power competitive. We will see the day where in more tropical latitudes every square inch of rooftop is covered in solar panels.

Wind is unsteady and usually the most available where it is least needed. The high plains have lots of wind potential, and not many people to consume it. This means long distance transmission, with its attendant costs.

Hydroelectric, most of the good rivers in the west already are dammed, though there is plenty of potential in the rest of the world. Tidal and ocean currents have great potential, but the cost and technical challenges are prohibitive.

Biomass, similar problems to coal and oil, puts carbon particulate matter into the air. Waste from crops or garbage is a good use of otherwise unused material, but when we go to corn or cane we are taking food supplies generally from the poorest and diverting it to energy generally for the richer world.

For all these ideas, coal and oil are going to be king for quite some time to come.

Actually the biggest source of untapped energy is in reducing usage, better insulation, telecommuting, smarter homes and appliances for instance.

admin answers:

A WISE combination of renewables (i.e. Clean, SAFE energy),
to include:
1). Mini wind turbines fitted onto / nearby buildings
(no metal blades to cut, for safety),
2). Corporation strength solar storage cells, (with magnifying mirrors / recollect light too), (also use lasers…)
3). Water wheels in mains water pipes, in rivers, along coasts etc.,
4).kinetic energy on moving vehicles – cars, planes, ships etc.,
5) + some human power (optional) EG excercise bikes that generate elec.

admin answers:

Crops for renewable energy are generally a bad idea. They appeal to those who think there must be a way of solving our energy and climate change problems without interfering with business as usual. As such they appeal to our politicians who would otherwise have to announce the end of economic growth. Naturally politicians fear that they would lose votes conveying such a message and they latch on to any alternative.

Why are energy crops a bad idea? Because they push up the cost of food and they encourage further deforestation. Increased food costs impact more on the poor and lead to social unrest and war which impacts on everybody. Deforestation adds to global warming which will also cause economic and social upheaval.

The only real solution to the energy crisis and global warming is to adopt simpler, less wasteful lifestyles and to generate energy from sustainable sources such as wind, wave, tide, geothermal, solar and hydro sources. The good news is that we can make a start individually. We will find simpler, less wasteful lifestyles more fun than trying to keep up with what the neighbours spend and we will demonstrate to governments that there are votes in adopting more sustainable policies instead of jumping from one crisis to another.

Best wishes