Backward on Biomass

In an associated article, the Globe documented the record demand for electricity in Massachusetts, which may (read - will) cause power shortages and possibly rolling blackouts.

No source of energy should be ignored in this crisis. Burning waste wood and waste sawdust to generate electricity reduces the need to generate it from imported petroleum and natural gas.

Until cellulose-ethanol technology is developed (maybe 5 years), burning waste wood to get needed electricity should be acceptable - if pollution emissions are controlled.

In Seattle two summers ago at Golden Gardens (Seattle doesn't always have green attached to everything) which is the park on Puget Sound, a guy was showing off his wood pellet fired engine which was in his pick-up truck. This is the type of fuel which was used in Australia during WWII. He made his own. Bought the fuel from the local lumber yard. No gas required. New England has a lot of mills. Hardwood usually. No ANWR then maybe we might need wood pellets. If recalling correctly it was about $1000 for the attachment.

The U.S. could produce a significant amount of its electricity using waste biomass, especially if waste-to-energy plants that burn or gasify trash are used. Most hazardous materials would be diverted through hazardous waste programs and the rest would be removed from the waste. Also, everything that could be recycled would be, as long as it does not take more energy and money to recycle the type of waste than is saved. With the latest pollution controls, emissions would be only slightly higher than natural gas plants and much lower than coal and oil. In addition, the plants reduce the waste's volume by several times, saving landfill space, and the ash is less toxic than the garbage if done properly. Finally, waste is already being widely burned indirectly by landfill gas power plants and flares. Burning or gasifying the waste in a plant would be far more efficient, produce far more electricity, and emissions per kilowatt-hour produced would be equivalent, if not better.

For now, biomass energy only makes sense when it is using waste materials, like sawdust, farm animal manure, pruning wood, sewer gas and non-edible plant parts. That takes the energy and resources used to produce the biomass out of the equation, as the waste would be produced whether it is used for energy or not. This greatly improves the cost and overall efficiency of the process. Also, additional farmland is not required when waste is used. Besides saving the water and resources (like fertilizer, pesticides, farm equipment and its fuel) that would have been used to produce non-waste biomass, it also prevents additional wildlife habitat from being made into farmland. This posted is continued below.