Human beings began the use of biomass for energy when our ancestors have learned about fire and how to use it particularly in cooking food. Biomass is any natural thing that has been grown or has lived, excluding fossil fuels such as coal, oil, natural gas and many more. Biomass can be in the form of wood, straw, biological wastes, waste paper, organic wastes from food processing, livestock farming and so many others. Biomass can be utilized to produce energy. These can be burned, agitated and absorbed to provide energy. All of these contain solar energy which combined into their carbon chemistry while they were still living. And that energy can be liberated for human beings’ use without adding up to the carbon dioxide burden (global warming problem) on our planet as long as we continuously plant, breed, and grow sources of biological mass or biomass.
Moreover, biomass can be grown as a crop for fuel use. If it has to be grown, it needs to be able to grow fast with little watering or fertilizer requirement and it has to be of high calorific value. However, it is not a wise idea to rely from these sources to produce biomass for fuel use because most lands are used for food productions. An increase in biomass production will mean decrease in food production. There has to be some other sources where we can obtain biological mass. Biomass can come in the form of biological wastes. Since the whole world produces so many wastes which we even finding it hard to properly dispose off, why not use it for fuel use to make it useful.
Nowadays, people are being trained to separate their wastes into biodegradable and non-biodegradable. Biomass can be segregated at source by the public by disseminating information through several mediums such as advertisements in televisions, announcements in newspapers and the like. Garbage collections have now a separate collection for biological wastes, including food wastes. Food wastes have the highest heat produce when burnt or digested, and they comprise between 15% and 25% of all household (domestic) waste by weight.
Unlike using fossil fuels to produce energy, biomass is a much less harmful to mankind and to our precious earth. Even if biomass fuels are readily available, people all over the world are hesitant to use it especially that most of it came from the biological wastes of the whole world. They feel that it is not safe for mankind and the earth. They may have adverse effects on our environment but if we will compare it with massive use of fossil fuels, the adverse effects of using biomass fuel are much less than that of using fossil fuels.
Yes really, more than and beyond the definition of the word ‘serious’. Used cooking oil from your everyday frying of chicken, fries and pork can now be used as fuel for your cars through recycling. These are called Biodiesel and it has started a revolution as an alternative to expensive fossil or mineral oil.
The first known and recorded use of vegetable oil as fuel in an engine was a demonstration of a diesel engine built by the Otto Company and was designed to burn mineral oil, which was then run on pure peanut oil at the 1900 World's Fair. After several years of research, Rudolf Diesel, inventor of the diesel engine, investigated using vegetable oil to fuel the engines he designed.
He presented this idea in 1912 to the British Institute of Mechanical Engineers and successfully cited a number of efforts in this area and he envisioned that though regular cooking oil or vegetable oil sources may seem insignificant back then, the fact that such oils would perhaps have the same importance as natural mineral oils and the tar products in due course of time.
From then on, numerous groups had started an obsession on the research into cooking oil as a diesel substitute. The use of vegetable oil in the mainstream had enjoyed its success during the early 1980s at the height of the spiraling prices and shortages of petroleum and other mineral oil.
How is it made to work with automobiles? Inventors and developers would say it simply as recycling the oil and applying the same concept in refining petroleum oil. They commonly joke as if it’s just like making coffee. The mixture is just simple: a used cooking oil of typically vegetable or coconut sources, a methanol and a catalyst which is composed of potassium and sodium.
The said mixture of three (cooking oil, methanol and catalyst) doesn’t require heating from expensive pumping stations and can be made easily, even at home provided one has the proper knowledge, tools and storage. A generally accepted mixture of 100 liters of cooking oil (costs around $0.50 per liter) plus 20 liters of methanol (usually at $1) plus one kilo of catalyst (costs around $3.5) can create 100 liters of biodiesel as well as an excess of 20 liters of glycerin (which can be used as main ingredient for everyday bath and laundry soap).
What’s more surprising is that it was tested in an unmodified older Mercedes Benz and ran for hundreds of miles during a 2006 University of Idaho invention exhibit.
Today, countries like Russia, Azerbaizan, India, Bulgaria, Paraguay and the Philippines have implemented extensive development of used cooking oil or vegetable oil to power up vehicles as well as other machineries. Major automobile manufacturers like Honda, Toyota, Ford and General Motors have slowly introduced newly designed automobile engines that support the use of Biodiesel fuel especially with the rising prices of petroleum and the collapse of the US and other European economy.
Instead of filling up your car, truck or heavy machinery like tractors with regular diesel, consider a more “green” alternative that will also be nicer on your wallet. Biodiesel is an alternative to regular, fossil fuel based diesel and there are many advantages to using it. There are 4 main reasons that you should use biodiesel and if you know and understand them, then there is no chance that you will opt to use something else ever again unless it is absolutely necessary or no other choice is available.
The best reason to use biodiesel is that it is a renewable source of energy, unlike fossil fuels. Biodiesel is made with organic bases and therefore can be grown is the amounts necessary to supply the diesel vehicles on the road. The best crops for the production of biodiesel include rapeseed or coleseed, peanuts, soybeans, sunflowers and or oil palms. Other plants that have high natural vegetable oil content can also be used and the possibilities are practically endless since research is constantly developing better biodiesel from resources that are readily available in abundance.
Another good reason to use biodiesel is that also burns cleaner in a combustion engine than fossil fuel based diesel. This has immense advantages both for now and in the long term. Cleaner burning means less destructive emissions coming from diesel engines and that in turn leads to a reduction in greenhouse gases. There is also a reduction in pollution and if all diesel powered vehicles run on biodiesel there will be a noticeable improvement in the air you breathe. A little known fact is that biodiesel is the only alternative fuel source that has ever passed all the requirements of the American Clean Air Act.
Using biodiesel instead of fossil fuel based diesel will also probably leave you with more money in your wallet after a trip to the gas station. This is because as a general rule, biodiesel costs less than regular diesel. This is not only a real alternative for your car, truck or tractor, but it can also be used for home heating. People that heat their homes with oil burners will know that the “oil” in the tank is just diesel and that can be replaced with biodiesel without many problems. The savings can be great and who doesn’t want to save money.
Last but not least, biodiesel also has a better biodegradation rate than regular diesel and that means that it is less toxic and more quickly and completely be degraded. Since it is also more easily burned a car’s engine and all the parts will suffer less wear and tear than if regular fossil fuel based diesel was used. This means for the driver that the vehicle will need less maintenance, repairs and can be driven longer.
Bioethanol fuel is supposed to be the great alternative to fossil fuel bases gas and diesel. Many are praising its benefits and talk about all the good properties it has. This is true, but before making something out to be so wonderful it is also important to look at the other side of things and then compare them both. Only by weighing both the pros and cons will you be able to determine if bioethanol is all that it’s cracked up to be.
The biggest advantage to bioethanol is that it is made with resources that are renewable. This means that the supply is never-ending and once used more of the same resources can be harvested. This is so easy to do because biotethanol is made from recently dead biological materials or in other words, plants. There are tow kinds of crop types that are suitable for processing into ethyl alcohol which is nothing other than ethanol. It is referred to as bioethanol because it is based on biological materials and is a cleaner source of energy.
The crops that can be used as sources of bioethanol are all easy to grow inexpensive to buy and cultivate and are readily available in almost every country because of the diversity of plants that can be used for this purpose. The crops have to have high amounts of starch, sugar or vegetable oil. Commonly used plants are rapeseeds, peanuts, sugar cane, sugar beet, sweet sorghum, jatropha, oil palm, soybeans and corn. More recently plants with cellulose have shown promising results and bioethanol has already been made with switchgrass, but this is still in the testing phase.
Greenhouse gases and environmental pollution are other big problems linked to the use of fossil fuel gas and diesel used in vehicles or heating systems. Here bioethanol also has a big benefit. It reduces the amount of damaging greenhouse gases that the vehicle emissions contain. There is also less pollution and bioethanol fuels also degrade quickly and completely. This means that if it ends up on the land or water it will completely degrade and leave behind no traces that could ruin an ecosystem, something that has often happened if fossil fuel based gas or diesel spills or leaks out.
An engine that uses bioethanol actually needs around fifty percent more of the fuel than a standard fossil fuel combusting engine. This is first seen as a negative aspect, but once again bioethanol prevails. Even though more is burned, the bioethanol engines have increased power and get more distance for the amount which means they are more fuel efficient. Basically, a larger tank is required for bioethanol fuel but you will still get more mileage per gallon and will waste less energy overall.
Our forefathers have been using biomass for energy when they learned bout fire and use it for their cooking. Biological mass are materials that has been grown or has lived. Biomass can take the form of wood, straw, biological wastes, waste paper, organic wastes from food processing, to name a few. Biomass can be used to produce energy. When these materials are burned, they produce energy. Fire converts biological mass into heat.
What are the pros and cons of using biomass? Since biomass take the form of biological wastes, and the whole world produces so many biological wastes, these wastes can be used and burned to obtain biomass energy. If we use biomass to produce energy, that is, biological wastes to produce energy, we can lessen to a great amount all our garbage that has to go to our landfills. By recycling through use of biological wastes to produce biomass energy, we can help in the preservation of our nature. At the same time, we can also help our economy because we will not have to buy more fuels to operate our machineries and the like because we can make use of the many available biological wastes as a source for biomass and in turn to produce energy.
However, to comprehend the problems of biological mass as a form of energy, one needs to know the biomass cycle that exists on the planet. To simplify, the biomass cycle controls the amount of carbon in our atmosphere. The biomass, basically in the form of plants, takes in carbon to live and grow and the living creatures of earth efficiently act as a sponge for carbon. However, the efficiency of this sponge effects has limited capacity. It can only absorb carbon to some extent at a time. When there is so much carbon in the atmosphere, consequently, heat will be trapped thus creating global warming which has now being felt on all parts of the world. Even if burning of biological mass brings about a much smaller extent of carbon gases over a short period of time, we still are not cutting down or lessening our carbon emissions to the atmosphere. With the global warming being obviously felt now in almost all parts of the world, what we need is reduction of emissions of carbon gases.
But if we will compare biomass with fossil fuels as to which is a better energy source, biomass is still a better choice. Fossil fuels emit more carbon gases than the biomass fuels. Furthermore, with the growing amount of garbage the world has accumulated everyday, if we will use biomass to produce energy this will greatly decrease the amount of trash to be thrown into our landfills. In this way, we still help preserve our environment.
Biomass is one form of alternative energy that has grown in use in many different households across the globe. These are plant and animal materials that have been conveniently available since the dawn of time. There are a number of these materials that are good candidates for the combustion or digestion process used to make energy. Sources of Biomass include the following:
1. By-products from the Forest: sawdust and other by-products of arboriculture.
2. By-products of Agriculture: The usage of litters, animal slurries and other residues to produce energy.
3. Energy Crops: Kinds of crops that is grown specifically to be used as a source of energy.
Perhaps, the most popular manner in which a household use biomass is through the use of a wood stove. When compared with an open fire, stoves are much more efficient, and technology and innovation has brought about appliances that burn clean. This innovation allows for the combustion of wood even without any smoke present.
It is necessary that the fuel used by a wood stove is from a sustainable source in order for it to be considered a renewable energy source. The use that you will be putting the stove to will determine the type of stove you will have installed. For example: for purposes of heating a single room then many of the stoves out there will be more than adequate. If you live in an urban area be sure to use appliance and fuels that are appropriate for that environment.
If for example, you not only want to heat your room but also hot water through your pipes as well as central heating, you’ll need a stove that has an integrated boiler. Stoves that come with large back boilers are usually the ones used in providing and meeting the hot water requirements of any normal sized home.
Aside from the typical wood stove, researches and continuous application of other natural fuel sources such as corn and other crops have created a variety of ways of Biomass for home use. Biomass from corn energy is produced using only dry shelled corn for power. Different from the variety that is consumed, the corn does not necessarily have to be of high quality.
Practically any shelled corn can accomplish the job but they must be dry and wit no husk fibers. Corn is then turned into heat for a home exactly the same way as wood. The whole process involves a fired stove using corn as fuel instead of the typical and commonly used wood. Currently it is common for shelled corn to be delivered to the home and is stored there in a storage container or a tank.
When the heating system needs more fuel, a thermostat will automatically sense the temperature reduction and will then open a storage container door. A set quantity of corn would fall into the furnace and zap! – You have more fire as well as more heat. Heat will then be piped into the house.
The use of Biomass for heating at home has become very much popular and is starting to take center stage thanks to the continuous efforts of numerous environmentalists, energy saving-oriented groups as well as former US President Bush’ push on its usage.
