Biomass: Alternative Energy Source

With rising costs of petrol fuel and the various environmental issues that come with using fossil fuels, the hunt for better alternative forms of fuel energy still continues. From solar power to wind power, from hydroelectric sources to geothermal ones, the world has tried to be more environmental friendly with all these alternative forms of energy. Sadly though, our efforts still fall short of Mother Nature's expectations. We still burn a lot of fossil fuels, pollute the environment, and then suffer nature's wrath. However, our attempts are not that futile and we're getting there, slowly but surely.

Take for example a new power plant that sprung up in Benson, Minnesota. The new $200 million power plant uses turkey litter to produce electricity. It burns the turkey manure and mixes it with turkey-bedding materials such as sunflower hulls, wood chips and alfalfa stems. By burning the mixture, a massive boiler is kept hot to produce high-pressure steam which in turn powers a 55-megawatt generator. The facility is equipped with high tech equipment to make sure that it produces power efficiently and ensure that any side emissions contain pollutants at way below the required standards.

Biomass power plants, just like what we have in Benson, use living and recently dead biological materials as fuel. In a broader sense, biomass includes both plant and animal materials that are used to produce chemicals or heat. However, biomass does not include any organic material that has been converted by natural geological processes into other substances like coal or petroleum. The most common sources of biomass energy are agricultural crop residues, energy plantations, and municipal and industrial wastes.

The idea of using animal wastes as fuel is not really a new innovation. China, for example, has been using the fermentation process on animal wastes to create fuel for more than 20 years. However, before they encountered problems of utilizing or processing the wastes more efficiently. Getting rid or containing the pungent odors from waste matter is not a simple matter either. Nevertheless, through years of study and development various ways have been created to harness the full potential of biomass fuel.

No doubt about it, biomass fuel is renewable unlike the fossil fuels that we mostly use today. While fossil fuels are expected to last for only 40 or so years, biomass fuel is practically infinite. For countries like Germany, France and Holland and various poultry producing states here in the U.S., they get to address the growing problem of disposing animal wastes and finding alternative forms of fuel energy. Hitting two birds with one stone or in this case a big lump of animal litter.

However, biomass fuel energy is not perfect, nothing really is. It does come with a couple of disadvantages. One is that burning animal waste can still emit pollutants in the Earth's atmosphere when left uncheck. Among the possible emissions include sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrogen sulfide. Also, it seems to take a massive amount of animal manure to produce electricity.

Compared to coal or gasoline powered plants, given the same amount of fuel source, the former will produce more electricity than a biomass plant. And thirdly, care must be taken to ensure that biomass fuel will not compete with food production. You must remember that biomass fuel does not solely come from animal wastes. It can also come from plant wastes. And allotting more agricultural land to produce plants to go to biomass fuel plants should never be the case.