[Footprint] Biomass Energy Systems

Previously I commented on supplying and storing energy. Biomass appears to be both a good supplier and a good source of energy, partly because it comes courtesy of nature and does not need much in the way of manufactured systems to support it. However, one big show stopper for biomass can be a lack of land! My apologies in advance if circumstance has worked against you and you do not have access to land, however, I am going to go ahead with a discussion of biomass because land is traditionally fairly cheap when compared to other systems of energy generation.

The aim of using biomass is to take sunlight, mix it with a bit of water and come up with a combustable plant product, where heat is the obvious simple energy output. So basically we are storing the sun's energy and using it at another time that suits us.

Different plants grow in different areas at different rates. For any given location there is an optimum photosynthesiser. One of my favourites is bamboo, it converts sunshine into woody material very swiftly and doesn't need too many nutrients. An area of 20m by 20m in the UK will typically produce enough biomass to heat a typical home. A plant in Staffordshire is now fuelled by a type of bamboo - see article.

As with any form of environmental manipulation there are risks. It is important not to allow the bamboo to take over or to damage the environment in other ways.

So we come to burning the biomass. Our desired energy forms are heat and (a small amount) electricity. The heat we will use for space heating, water heating and cooking. In summer we will not need the largest component of this - space heating. It is probably unnecessary to get into the heat side of things too much - some useful information can be found here: www.woodheat.org

We will look at biomass to electricity conversion in the next Footprint article.