what is biomass? Biomass is anything that is alive. It is also anything that was alive a short time ago.

Trees, crops, garbage, and animal waste are all biomass. Most of the biomass we use for energy today is wood. We burn wood to make heat. Biomass gets its energy from the sun. Plants store the suns energy in their leaves and roots. When we eat biomass, we use the energy to move and grow. When we burn biomass, we use the energy to make heat. We can also change the energy in biomass into gas and liquid fuels.

How is electricity created with biomass?

Direct combustion is the simplest and most common method of capturing the energy contained within biomass. Usually these facilities (boilers) produce steam to use either within an industrial process, or to produce electricity directly. They can also produce heat, which is then captured for one purpose or another.

Direct combustion technology is very similar to that used for coal. Biomass and coal can be handled and burned in essentially the same fashion because coal is simply fossilized biomass heated and compressed over millions of years. The process which coal undergoes as it is heated and compressed deep within the earth adds elements like sulfur and mercury to the coal elements which produce noxious emissions when burned. Since biomass does not contain these dangerous elements, combusting it produces no dangerous emissions.

Gasification is another method to generate electricity from biomass. Instead of simply burning the fuel, gasification captures about 65-70% of the energy in solid fuel (as compared to 20-30% for traditional combustion) by converting it first into combustible gases. This gas is then burned, as if it were natural gas, to create electricity, fuel a vehicle, power industrial applications, or be converted to synthetic fuels. What are the environmental benefits of biomass?

The use of biomass energy provides a multitude of environmental benefits. It

can help mitigate climate change; reduce acid rain; prevent soil erosion and water pollution; minimize pressure on landfills; provide wildlife habitat; and, help maintain forest health through better management.

The use of biomass will greatly reduce the nations greenhouse gas emissions. Fossil fuels emit vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere upon combustion, carbon that would ordinarily remain trapped underground. Biomass also releases carbon dioxide as it burns, but the plants need CO2 to grow thus creating a closed-carbon cycle. All the CO2 released during the combustion of biomass materials is recaptured by the growth of these same materials. Unlike fossil fuels, with biomass combustion there is no net increase in carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. In addition, substantial quantities of carbon can be captured in the soil through biomass root structures, creating a net carbon sink.

Biomass has other environmental benefits as well. The nation has many vast tracts of unused agricultural land the byproduct of increasingly efficient agricultural techniques that might otherwise be converted to residential or industrial use. These lands could instead be used to grow biomass crops that will restore soil carbon, reduce erosion and chemical runoff, and enhance wildlife habitat.

Of course not all forms of biomass produce all of these benefits and the use of some forms can actually produce significant environmental damage. Defining environmentally preferable biomass is a crucial step in capturing these benefits. Here are 5 tips you can follow to reduce your electricity bills:

Clean or replace air filters on a regualr basis Turn off items when yo are not using them especaily the TV and the computer Turn off lights when you are not using them If you have a dishwasher wait until it is full before washing Consider towel drying you hair instead of blow drying it.