Biomass for energy
[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Class Discussion Groups ] Posted by Neil on September 18, 1997 at 14:29:22:
In the lecture on 09/18, Elana mentioned that growing biomass for the purpose of energy production may not be as effective at absorbing CO2 as the original forest/marsh/whatever that existed before in the same location.
I think this is potentially misleading, and affects the environmental credentials of biomass energy (not that any energy source is perfect!)
I wanted to stress that burning biomass has the added value of displacing conventional fossil fuel production (either gasoline in Brazilian Ethanol cars, or coal in expesnsive and hence displaced power stations).
Also, if short crop rotation is used then the younger plants use up more CO2 and I don't think that would be much less (if any) than the previous land use (especially in the US or EU).
In addition, biomass is a useful fuel as it is similar to conventional fuels in that it needs to be stockpiled or supplied and can be converted to conventional combustion systems etc, or used in dual fuel applications.I was using this debate in a discussion with an electric utility represenattive who suggested that fossil fuel users could simply buy and protect forests and hence become net CO2 absorbers.