Biomass energy, or biopower, is electricity produced from a variety of plant and animal products, from food production residues and animal wastes to grasses grown specifically as energy crops. U.S. energy forecasters predict that by 2030, biomass will generate about 4.5 percent of the kilowatts consumed nationwide, compared to 2.5 percent for wind; solar will come in third.
Believe it or not, burning wood, as dirty as it may sound, is turning out to be one hot new source of biomass energy. Case in point: the USDA just provided $1 million in stimulus grants to four Colorado projects that convert wood waste into energy.
These projects, each of which received a grant of $250,000, include a biomass boiler heating system at a state prison; wood pellet production for wood-heating stoves at a mill; biomass co-firing of a coal-fired plant in Colorado Springs; and a biomass collection center and biomass heating system at the Boulder County Parks Department.
All over the world, wood is being used as a clean, reliable source of energy. And in the U.S., because state and federal environmental agencies consider biopower carbon neutral, it has many advantages over traditional power sources. Much of the wood being utilized as biomass is residual wood waste from forest floors.
In Colorado, the four facilities developing wood biomass systems will use or process trees cut down during wildfire mitigation that dealt with the state’s mountain pine bark beetle epidemic. In general, U.S. cities currently produce roughly 30 million tons of wood from trees that have been trimmed or removed from forests. The resulting debris could be using in wood combustion power plants rather than being mulched or sent to landfills.
In advanced wood combustion power plants, very hot, controlled conditions ensure that most of the carbon in wood is broken down into energy-rich flammable gasses that are ignited and burn more cleanly than a typical home fireplace or woodstove. After a feasibility study by the Biomass Resource Center (BERC), Vermont’s Middlebury College broke ground in 2007 a wood-fired power plant to provide the primary heating and cooling for the school’s district energy system. Middlebury has the goal of being carbon neutral by 2016.
Trees drink in CO2 from the air as they grow and then release about the same amount of CO2 when they’re burned in an advanced wood combustion power plant, according to Jack Byrne, director of Middlebury’s Sustainability Integration Office. Byrne said by switching to advanced wood power the college has a 40 percent reduction in carbon emissions. Middlebury has planted ten acres of fast-growing willow shrubs on college-owned, fallow farmland in the hopes of raising enough biomass to meet nearly half its system’s needs. For now, Middlebury is obtaining wood chips from a New Hampshire wood-products broker nearby.
The city of Joensuu, Finland is also being powered by advanced wood combustion, heated with a mixture of wood and peat that has replaced small fireplaces and oil burners. An expert with the Finnish Forest Institute said that wood power is possible without depleting forests as long as wood harvesters leave behind nutrient-rich leaves and needles on the forest floor.
And in the U.K., Exeter, Devon-based Wood Energy Ltd. has installed large biomass boilers at two sites, the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh, and the Devon County Hall in Exeter. The John Hope Gateway, Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh (RBGE) biodiversity and information center is expected to open this summer, and will feature a biomass boiler provided by Wood Energy Ltd. In Devon, a wood chip boiler installed by Wood Energy will help the county hall reduce its energy costs and carbon emissions by 60 percent.
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