Where is biomass energy found?
Today fossil fuels have largely replaced biomass as the major source of energy in industrialized countries, but biomass still remains an important energy source, supplying about 15 per cent of the world’s energy needs. Biomass is especially important as an energy source to developing countries that are not heavily industrialized or do not have abundant supplies of fossil fuels. In these countries biomass supplies about 35 per cent of energy needs.
Throughout the world biomass sources are used for heating (such as wood stoves in homes and for process heat in industries) and cooking (especially in many developing countries). But larger scale use of biomass to generate electricity or to fuel vehicles is a more recent development.
Since the 1970s and 1980s, when concerns arose over oil supplies and environmental quality, there has been a resurgence in interest in developed countries in generating electricity from biomass. In fact, biomass is the fuel source for 14,000 megawatts of installed generation, making biomass the world’s largest source of non-hydro renewable electricity.
The United States is the world’s largest producer of biomass power with about 9,700 megawatts of installed generation capacity. This capacity is dominated by industrial use, largely derived from forestry residues.
Other large developers of electricity from biomass include Japan, Germany, Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom.
Developing countries are also considered important markets for expansion of biomass power, because of their rapid economic growth, increasing demand for electricity and their significant amounts of agricultural and forestry residues.
Worldwide generation capacity from biomass is projected to grow to more than 30,000 megawatts by 2020. According to the International Energy Agency, biomass power will produce about 15 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by 2020, or 0.3 per cent of the world’s total electricity.
Since the first oil shock of the early 1970s, there has been a steady increase in the global use of fuels made from biomass.
In 2001, worldwide production of fuel ethanol amounted to just below 20 million litres. It is projected by industry observers to grow to 31 billion litres by 2006.
Brazil leads the world in ethanol production and use. In 2000, the country produced 11.4 billion litres of fuel ethanol. All vehicle fuels sold in that country contain ethanol, and more than four million cars run on 100 per cent fuel ethanol produced from sugar cane. The rest of the country’s vehicle fleet uses ethanol-blended gasoline.
Since 1980, Sweden has cut crude oil consumption in half through ethanol production. India is piloting several programs to promote ethanol-blended gasoline. And in the United States, biomass is seen as an important option in reducing air emissions and helping the country to reduce dependence on imported oil. A growing ethanol production industry has developed. Today ethanol-blended fuels account for about 18 per cent of all vehicle fuels used in the U.S. In 2003, more than 2.8 billion gallons of ethanol were added to gasoline in the country.
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