Ali Alhamaly

Biomass is the oldest source of energy known to humanity. Sources of biomass are
various, and they exist all around us. Energy extracted from biomass comes from wood, waste,
alcohol fuels and landfill gasses. Biomass are collected and harvested using many methods like
cutting old trees and planting new plants that can be used in future as wood materials. Another
method is used in the landfill areas, this method is based on the idea that when garbage is burned
it will produce methane gas which then is collected using pumps and delivered through pipelines
to power plants to generate electricity.
Biomass energy is extracted through decomposing the materials that exist in the biomass
sample to its original components. This process usually occurs by burning the biomass sources to
generate heat that can be used to boil water. This boiled water is used to drives turbines that can
generate electricity. Nowadays another method called co-firing is used to extract the biomass
energy. Co-firing is a method where coal is mixed with biomass and burned together. This
approach increases the efficiency of biomass and can substitute up to 20 percent of the coal used
in coal power plant.

Biomass unlike fossil fuel doesnt produce new CO2 into the environment, because
biomass is just another form of solar energy. Biomass created originally from sun when plants
use solar energy with CO2 to create hydrocarbons. After the plants grow, we can use them as
biomass energy, so the amount of CO 2 emitted from the burning process is the same that was
previously used to create hydrocarbons. And this is one of the advantages of using biomass, that
it is not making any contribution in increasing the amount of CO 2 in the environment.
Biomass energy has a lot of advantages such as renewability, balanced CO 2 cycle and
sustainability. Biomass is renewable because humans will continue to create waste which will be

Ali Alhamaly

recycled into biomass. So as long as we reuse the amount of our waste, the energy will sustain
forever. As any source of energy, biomass has disadvantages associated with using it. Collecting
sufficient amount of biomass materials sometimes become a problem because certain materials
arent available all the time.
Sources

Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP). 2004. Biomass Cofiring in coal-fired

boilers, DOE/EE-0288. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy. Online at
http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/pdfs/33811.pdf
http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/01335/biomass.htm
http://www.biomasspelletmill.com/How_Does_Biomass_Work.html
http://www.renewable-energy-expert.com/how-does-biomass-energy-work-.php