Michael+Gautreau+Brett+Fredericks+wiki+project2009

__**BIOMASS** __

What is the problem at hand?
The problem is that the human race is currently using up too many fossil fuels as a resource for energy and water purification. The high levels of fossil fuels we burn each and every day are contributing to climate change and the polluting of the air and surrounding environments We need to start thinking about new ways to generate energy and to save water. These huge amounts of fossil fuels that we burn every day are contributing to climate change and they are polluting the air and the environment. 

What is the driving force of the problem?
Humans are the number one driving force of this problem at hand. Humans are the ones who are using fossil fuels rather than the more efficient biomass products, such as wood, solid waste (garbage), gas from landfills, etc.



The use of more natural and renewable energy sources is needed to take the burden off our current dependency on fossil fuels. Biomass fuels provide about 4% of the energy used in the United States. We are currently opening waste to energy plants. Waste to energy plants take municipal waste and turn it into steam and electricity. There are also new laws being made to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. The Semass Facility in Rochester, MA is one of these waste to energy plants.
 * What are people currently doing or not doing to solve the problem?**

**Explain how it works** Biomass is made up of solar energy, carbon dioxide and water. Plants produce biomass through the photosynthesis process where the plants absorbs the sun's energy by converting carbon dioxide from the ground into carbohydrates. Plants draw from the air and water stored in the ground in the making of carbohydrates. When the carbohydrates are burned, they convert back into carbon dioxide and water, where they release the sun's energy back into the atmosphere. When burned, the chemical energy in biomass is released as heat. In a fireplace for example, the wood that is burnt is a biomass fuel. Wood waste can be burned to produce steam for making electricity, or heat for industries and homes. Along with wood, coal, and solid waste can also be burned for these same reasons.



Biomass material contains about 40% carbon by weight, with the remainder of 6.7% hydrogen, and 53.3% oxygen. Nitrogen takes up 0.3-3.8%, and sulfur takes up 0.1-0.9%. 9% depending on the nature of the biomass material. The nature and the amount of the combustion products depends on the characteristics of both the fire and the biomass material burned. Hot, dry, fires with a good supply of oxygen produce mostly carbon dioxide with little CO, CH4, and NMHCs.
 * Determine the amount of CO2 it produces**



Activated carbons made from biomass like charcoal are used to purify water and air. Scientists have developed an air oxidation process that produces high-yield activated carbons from biomass charcoal. Activated carbon can be found in everything from aquarium filtration systems to pitcher-style drinking water filters to larger home systems. However, the best quality systems will employ a multi-stage filtration process, with an activated charcoal water filtration purifier as the first step of the treatment.
 * Determine the amount of water it can purify**

**Quotes from scientists**

=**“ Biomass is the promise and the hope that you don't have to use a food source, or anything near a food source, to create a greater good. You can use agricultural material that would be thrown away. . . it would be a great way to lower the cost, and that's really the bottom line”.Ann Tucker quotes. “The result is that about 50 percent of the biomass carbon is retained. By sequestering huge amounts of carbon, this technique constitutes a much longer and significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide than most other sequestration options, making it a powerful tool for long-term mitigation of climate change. In fact we have calculated that up to 12 percent of the carbon emissions produced by human activity could be offset annually if slash-and-burn were replaced by slash-and-char”.Johannes Lehmann **=


 * From [|http://www.scientificamerican.com] “According to the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists biomass is not only a renewable energy source but a carbon neutral one as well, because the energy it contains comes from the sun. When plant matter is burned, it releases the sun’s energy originally captured through photosynthesis”. “In this way, biomass functions as a sort of natural battery for storing solar energy,” reports UCS**

The technology called processed refuse fuel patented in America was going to be international. Energy Answers Corporation of Albany New York established the recycling technology of waste to energy in the early 1980’s. Once patented, the technology has been in use at the SEMASS incinerator in Rochester, Massachusetts. The processed uses recycled materials to generate energy. The four hundred million dollar SEMASS incinerator in Rochester, Massachusetts processes more than three thousand tons of waste materials a day and serves sixty-two communities. There is many facilities like this around the world like the Nishi-Nippon Environmental Energy Co of Fukuoka, a resource recovery facility in Japan. The facility recycles municipal solid waste into electricity or steam similar to SEMASS incinerator of Rochester, Massachusetts. Using these waste to energy plants recycles our waste and uses our biomass instead of wasting our nonrenewable fuels. These plants help to save our atmosphere. They also help to slow down the climate change that is rapidly occurring in the world.
 * Explain Who What and How**

What I would do next to change how biomass energy is used is try to have more towns become involved. If full towns could participate in using transfer stations to generate energy from their waste then the amount of biomass used throughout the United States would increase greatly. If more towns and cities did this across the country then we could increase the meager 4% of energy that is made up of the biomass fuels to much greater amounts, in the long run, saving our surrounding environment and the air we breathe.
 * What would you do next to change how its used?** [[image:biomass.jpg width="508" height="472" align="right"]]


 * [|Carbon offsets]**