The continued reliance on fossil fuels over the centuries has led to these resources being almost completely exhausted. Furthermore, their use has had extremely negative effects on the environment, namely pollution and global warming as a result of the build-up of greenhouse gases. It is therefore essential to consider alternative, cleaner energy sources. It was decided that six renewable energy sources should be researched in order to determine which are most suitable for use in the West of Scotland.
Biomass Energy
Biomass is biological matter originating from living or recently living organisms, and it is the oldest source of renewable energy. The biomass used for energy normally comes from plant-based material.1 During photosynthesis, the chlorophyll in plants captures the sun’s energy, in order to convert carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates. Subsequently, combusting these carbohydrates produces water and carbon dioxide, hence releasing the energy initially captured from the sun.2
The most widely used method of converting biomass to electricity involves burning it to produce steam, this then causes rotation in a turbine, and this kinetic energy produces electicity.2 This process is shown below:
Biomass is a completely renewable source of energy: in addition to the energy it stores being from the sun, biomass can re-grow over a reasonably short time period.2 It is widely available and can be sourced from within the UK, and in fact every
One of many possible renewable sources of energy is biomass. Biomass energy is the power that is contained within plant and animals.
The United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, has created quite a stir within the European Union, EU. UKIP wants to break away from the EU, and with UKIP’s rising popularity, one day it might happen. Many factors have gone into the rise of UKIP and this rise has created some major effects. The main causes of the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party include tax changes, immigration, and the popularity UKIP’s leader. The main effects include Labour Party losing voters to UKIP, the creation of the anti-UKIP Party, that is the Green Party, and UKIP trying to make the United Kingdom independent from the European Union.
Biomass is the use of organic matter to make electricity. Organic matter such as trees and plants are burned and heat water to create steam. The steam created from boiling water is used to turn turbines to create electricity. Biomass can also be used to create Methane which is used to create even more electricity.
How does biomass work? Our project is on Biomass Energy. Biomass energy is a renewable energy resource from living or recently living plants or animals materials which can be used as fuel. Many different types of biomass is wood, dead plants, dead animals, garbage, corn. Biomass is a renewable energy source because the energy in it comes from the sun, but also because biomass/bioenergy can grow again over a short period of time compared with the long time that it takes to grow fossil fuels. Through the process of photosynthesis, chlorophyll in plants captures the sun's energy by converting carbon dioxide from the water and air from the ground into carbohydrates. When burned, they turn back into water and carbon dioxide and release the energy
Biomass is the entire mass of organisms in a certain area or section, which can be used as fuel to convert to electricity. When plants absorb energy from the sun and carbon dioxide from the air, the chlorophyll in the plants transform this raw energy into food, which is called photosynthesis. The process of photosynthesis gives the plant the needed energy to live, which is passed to the next consumer of energy. Because the energy used to keep every organism on Earth alive comes from the sun, when the organic matter is burned it releases the stored energy from the sun, which can be transformed into electrical energy. Although burning biomass to obtain the heat energy used to receive the needed electrical energy releases carbon dioxide, the energy source is available anywhere, unlike wind, hydroelectric, ocean, geothermal, and solar energy, which makes it available to anyone and cuts back on expenses to transport the energy. If
Biomass contains stored energy from the Sun. An energy pyramid shows energy transfer in feeding patterns. Each level
An example of biomass energy is oilseed rape (yellow flowers you see in the UK in summer), which produces oil.
The Biomass energy is an organic matter that is used by photosynthesis. This is used to generate energy and the most common energy is coming from the wood of the trees, corn, municipal solid waste, and sugarcane. The biomass is used to create ethanol, biodiesel, bio oil and biogas. This in turns create electricity with steam turbines and gasifies to produce heat. The advantage of using the biomass over the fossil fuel is that biomass is a renewable carbon source, zero net carbon dioxide emissions, lower methane, sulfate, and hydrocarbon emissions, and the most important is no dependence on foreign oil. Another is the geothermal energy, in which it uses the heat from the earth to warm things up. The common source is cost effective, reliable, and environmentally friendly. The main sources of uses are to heat homes, greenhouse, industrial process heating mineral recovery, fisheries and also mitigate global warnings. Geothermal energy is more valuable than the fossil fuels because it is an inexhaustible energy source, lot less emissions in the atmosphere, more efficient than solar energy, work under any kinds of weather conditions. The fossil fuels are irreplaceable, create massive environmental pollution and are also causes the major factor of the global warming and the ozone layer depletion. Also the Biomass and the Geothermal are very inexpensive compare to the fossil fuels by almost 50 percent.
Fossil fuels are finite resources and once those are used up we need a way to continue living regularly, as our lives are built upon the ability to harness energy and produce electricity. As technology increases, alternative types of energy have become more and more enticing. Renewable energy is a very controversial topic today and has been around since the industrial revolution. Prior to the Revolution, which started in Britain in the late 1700s, manufacturing products was often done through the use of hand tools or basic machines in people’s homes. From the 18th to 19th centuries industrialization marked a shift to powered, specialty machinery, factories and mass production, all of which are used today to help with the processing of renewables.
Bioenergy is a form of energy that is taken from biological sources known as biomass. Materials like manure, wood and wood manufacturing wastes and other biodegradable by-products from the agricultural industry are some examples of biomass. Biomass can also be derived from waste products from industrial, commercial and domestic activities (EECA, 2014).
Biomass energy is made from any form of previously-living material. This includes any animal material or product, all vegetation, and even human waste. Scrap lumber, forest debris, crops, manure, and even industrial wastes can all be utilized and turned into renewable energy through biomass. Often leftover materials from factories such as paper mills are used to help sustain the renewable resource. However, this process tends to be inefficient and unreliable (Mary, Booth), so frequently biomass energy is instead produced by cutting down forests or converting crops such as sugar or corn into combustible fuels. Biomass is considered a renewable resource because organic material and waste will always exist. Whether this is through forests, crops, or animals, as long as humans inhabit the earth there will be waste to utilize. [figure 2]
Biomass is a term defined as plant based material. Biomass energy is derived from five energy sources: garbage, wood, waste, landfill gases, and alcohol fuels. Forest residues such as dead trees, branches and tree stumps, yard clippings, wood chips and garbage are often used. It can be used for energy production through combustion or direct burning. Raw plant and tree materials can also be refined in order to create what are called biofuels. One example of a potential biofuel would be wood. Wood contains a lot of potential energy but in order to create the biofuel wood energy is derived both from the direct use of harvested wood as a fuel and from wood waste streams. The largest source of energy from wood is pulping liquor, a waste product from the industrial processes of the pulp, paper and paperboard industry.
Biomass is the organic matter in plants which can be burned to create energy. Forms of biomass include wood, charcoal, farm crops, and different forms of waste. Some biomass can be burned directly, while others are converted to methane gas or ethanol which can be burned or used to power different things such as vehicles. Chiras states that Biomass is considered renewable, but it only is to a certain point, it cannot be used faster than it is produced to avoid depleting the resource (2016). Biomass can also be used in a variety of ways to produce energy such as burning it directly, converting it to ethanol, or converting it to natural gas. There are many pros and cons of using biomass over fossil fuels to produce energy. Biomass is great for undeveloped countries where they can’t afford other alternative energy sources because they can reduce pollution by not using fossil fuels. One of the most significant pros of biomass as it relates directly to humans everyday life is that ethanol created from biomass costs roughly 60 cents per gallon, and dropping, which means fuel for vehicles can be produced much cheaper than fuel made completely from fossil fuels (Chiras, 2016). Not only is this form of fuel cheaper, it is also cleaner and does not release as many pollutants into the atmosphere. Although biomass is relatively clean in comparison to fossil fuels, it can release many pollutants into the air such as dioxins and creosote (Chiras, 2016). Biomass can also lead to an
Biofuel is a fuel that contained energy from once living organisms. Biofuel is created by biomass conversion. Biomass is recently deceased organisms. These recently deceased organisms are converted into a substance called biomass that contains the energy. The biomass will be converted into a fuel using one of these methods: thermal conversion, chemical conversion and biochemical conversion. Thermal conversion is also known as thermal depolymerization, a process using high heat to produce biofuel. Chemical conversion uses various chemicals to produce biofuel. Finally, biochemical conversion uses enzymes, microbes, and catalysts to make biofuel.
Biofuels are fuel sources that come from biological mass or plant forms. Whether or not it is from the sugar or starch of said mass, oil or the mass itself, it can be used or converted into a biofuel. Everything from algae to wheat can be used to make “Biofuel”. It also comes in many liquid, gas or solid form.