Energy News  
Biomass Production - Careful Planning Can Bring Many Benefits

Growing plants for biomass energy production could be used to help solve other environmental problems, such as erosion.
by Staff Writers
Gotenborg, Sweden (SPX) Jan 18, 2008
One way of supplying energy is to grow plant material and burn it. If managed well most of the carbon released by burning the material will be captured by the growing plants, and so have a low impact on overall levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Better still, the growing plants could be used to help solve other environmental problems.

In a review of current systems, Goran Berndes from the Department of Energy and Environment at Chalmers University of Technology in Gotenborg, Sweden highlights several systems. The review is published in this month's edition of Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining.

One set of systems currently running in Sweden grows willow trees and irrigates them with sewage effluent. This helps purify the sewage outflow at the same time as providing fuel.

Other systems plant willow buffers between arable land and water ways. The willow trees use nitrogen that is being leached off the land, making good use of it instead of letting it simply pollute the rivers and seas.

A third system that Berndes highlights is the option of growing biomass on areas of wasteland in India. Along with providing fuel, this also stops the land becoming degraded by erosion.

"We can do biofuels right or we can do them wrong. If we develop them correctly, we can achieve great environmental, economic and social benefits. It is our responsibility to look forward and shape the emerging biofuels industry so that it actually provides these benefits," says journal editor Bruce E. Dale, Ph. D., Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering, Michigan State University. "With Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining we intend to shed light on the pathways by which biofuels and bioproducts can realise their enormous potential for good."

This edition of the journal also contains papers that review:

- Ways of pretreating cellulose containing materials so that they are more capable of releasing the energy they store.

- The different chemicals found in biomass. Cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin molecules contained in biomass will greatly improve the way that these resources can be exploited in commercial scale operations.

- The use of biomass for creating many different chemicals. At the moment oil is the source of chemicals that go into substances from paints to pharmaceuticals. Biomass could provide these, either by deliberately creating them, or by harvesting by-products of fermentation processes such as biofuel production. But to be ready for a biomass driven future we need start planning appropriate biorefineries today.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Related Links
Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Norway aims to be carbon neutral by 2030
Oslo (AFP) Jan 17, 2008
Norway's government said Thursday the country would dramatically slash its carbon dioxide emissions by 2020 and aim to be completely carbon neutral by 2030 -- 20 years ahead of schedule.







  • Babcock And Brown Acquires Seven US Wind Farms Under Development
  • Biomass Production - Careful Planning Can Bring Many Benefits
  • Norway aims to be carbon neutral by 2030
  • Unconventional Natural Gas Reservoir In Pennsylvania Poised To Dramatically Increase US Production

  • Bulgaria wants EU approval to reopen nuclear reactors: minister
  • 23 US groups forge coalition against India nuclear deal
  • Areva must transfer nuclear technology to China: source
  • Bulgaria, Russia to sign nuclear contract this week

  • New Model Revises Estimates Of Terrestrial Carbon Dioxide Uptake
  • A Breathable Earth
  • Researchers Find Origin Of Breathable Atmosphere Half A Billion Years Ago
  • Study Reveals Lakes A Major Source Of Prehistoric Methane

  • Rwanda's Gishwati Forest Selected As Site For Historic Conservation Project
  • China to plant 2.5 billion trees: report
  • PM pledges one billion dollars for struggling mining, forestry towns
  • No Convincing Evidence For Decline In Tropical Forests

  • FDA OKs food from some cloned animals
  • Greenhouse Ocean May Downsize Fish
  • Meat, milk from cloned animals appear safe for humans: EU agency
  • Micro-Grant Makes Business Boom For Iraqi Butcher

  • Renault to offer a 'green' Dacia Logan by 2010: report
  • Green-car market battle lines drawn at Detroit Motor Show
  • Germans, Japanese automakers push diesel in the US
  • Fisker Automotive Unveils Fisker Karma, First Ever Luxury Plug-In Hybrid

  • EADS offers to build military, civilian aircraft in US
  • Qatar Airways looking to natural gas fuel
  • Purdue Wind Tunnel Key For Hypersonic Vehicles And Future Space Planes
  • Antarctic ballooning hits milestone

  • Nuclear Power In Space - Part 2
  • Nuclear Power In Space
  • Outside View: Nuclear future in space
  • Could NASA Get To Pluto Faster? Space Expert Says Yes - By Thinking Nuclear

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2007 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement