5.089

If we are really going to practice being a responsible society, making use of biomass should be a top priority. The word “biomass” can seem a little large until you break it down to understand what can constitute biomass. Waste materials, things normally thrown away, is what biomass is all about – making use of trash, or garbage, or waste by-products to generate electricity and provide a source of power.

The items that have no other good home can find a very useful vocation to create energy from biomass products. Old tires – everyone wants to know how technology can make use of old, used tires. Biomass can. What about wood chips, sawdust, yard trimmings, tree branches, dead trees, left-over crops, the parts of crops and plants that people don’t consume? All this, and more, can constitute biomass. Livestock manure can be used as biomass. All these waste materials can create energy. Why, why, why should it be dumped in a landfill, to take up needed space and not be put to good use, when . . . it CAN be of very beneficial use? More and more cities are looking for more space to use as landfills. It’s not necessary when you use the materials you have at hand for a constructive purpose.

Here’s how it works: it is very straightforward. A biomass plant is constructed with huge bins or containers in which to load the biomass materials. A company, with large container trucks, can collect biomass from assorted places where it is stored until it is ready to be used. All the biomass materials (extras, leftovers, waste by-products) are dumped into large bins or vats waiting at the power plant to be fed into a very large furnace which burns the biomass. The heat that is produced from the material that is burned in the furnace is used to heat water to the boiling point in a boiler. The energy produced in the steam from the heat is then used to power the generators and turbines that produce electricity.

An alternate method provides for the burning of waste materials at a landfill site. If all the biomass materials are collected at a landfill, the waste can be burned on-site. Decomposing garbage at a landfill produces methane gas. Natural gas is composed of methane. By running a pipeline to the landfill, the methane gas can be accumulated. The pipeline can run directly from a landfill to a power plant and can generate electricity in that way. This is referred to as “landfill gas.”

The same thing can be done where animals are raised, using the manure of cows, chickens, and other farm animals to produce methane as it decomposes. The farm can then be self-sufficient and generate all its electricity needs to run the farming operation and, presumably, the farmer’s home, simply by utilizing a similar structure as indicated above to turn the methane gas, or landfill gas, into power that can generate electricity.

Consequently, this method is also helpful to the environment as it is a “natural” way of generating electricity and it uses materials that would be discarded anyway. Now you no longer have to have more and more space to “store” waste that isn’t used and isn’t going to be used. You have a solution.

The only problem with this scenario is this: Biomass does emit carbon dioxide when burned, which global warming does not need any more of. However, by planting and replanting crops around the area where the material is burned, you eliminate this issue as the plants “take in” the carbon dioxide and use it to grow. With careful planning, you can productively use waste materials and not increase the carbon footprint of the planet.



Sherry Irvin
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany


Source: The Energy Story – Chapter 10: Biomass Energy

Recommend or share this page: