Biomass Boilers

What is Biomass?

Biomass energy is energy from plants and plant-derived materials and has been in use since people began burning wood to either cook food or keep warm. Biomass sources include food crops, grassy and woody plants, residues from agriculture or forestry, organic components of municipal and industrial wastes and animal waste such as cow manure and chicken litter.

Biomass is an attractive renewable energy source for a number of reasons. It is readily avalible all over the earth unlike fossil fuel energy sources, and may be harnessed using more cost effective technologies. It provides us the opportunity to be more energy self-sufficient. It helps to reduce climate change (global warming).

Using biomass to create energy has positive environmental implications. Burning wood and other biomass as a fuel is classed as carbon neutral: plants and trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere when they are growing, and release the same amount when they burn or decompose naturally on the forest floor. In contrast, fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, release carbon dioxide which has been locked away for millions of years and increase atmospheric CO2 levels, the main cause of global warming.

Before the use of fossil fuels, the carbon dioxide cycle was stable; the same amount that was released was sequestered, but it has since been disrupted. In the past 150 years, the period since the Industrial Revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen from around 150 ppm to 330 ppm, and are expected to double before 2050!

The development of an efficient and reliable wood-fuel supply chain creates badly needed jobs in the countryside, strengthening rural communities and re-establishing links between urban dwellers and their surrounding landscape. It can also help certain companies dispose of their unwanted by-products whilst reducing costs and helping the environment.

Active and careful management of woodland and forests for the production of wood fuel ensures their survival and helps to create a diversity of habitats for plants and animals. Farmland is being converted to less-intensive energy crop production, further improving the environment.