Biomass in new Daylight

It can hardly have escaped your notice this fall, energy prices are skyrocketing. Gas and electricity are becoming much more expensive, in some households as much as two hundred euros per month! What can you do about that now? One solution is to stop using natural gas and other fossil fuels throughout the Netherlands. An alternative to fossil fuels could be the use of biomass. You can read here how biomass works, what it is used for, whether it is really as useful as thought and whether you can save money with it.

What exactly is biomass?

First we need to form a picture of what biomass is. Biomass consists of wood and products/waste from arable farming. For example, we only eat the corn, but the rest of the corn plant is not eaten. You can also use it as biomass. Here you can read about generating electricity from biomass. Electricity can be generated from biomass by burning it.

Figure 1 Stack of woody biomass https://pixabay.com/nl/photos/wood-biomass-cases-825792/

But why would this be better than burning natural gas as we use it now? That is because burning wood would be CO₂ neutral. How about that?

CO₂ neutral

When oil and natural gas are burned, the gas is released CO₂ (also called carbon dioxide). This is a greenhouse gas, it contributes to global warming. Check out the video on our site to see exactly how this works. To inflict less damage on the environment, it is better to emit less CO₂. Unfortunately, when wood is burned, CO₂ is also released. Why is wood combustion still CO₂-neutral?

That’s how it is: plants on our planet have a very nice function. They absorb CO₂ and turn it into O₂, or oxygen. Oxygen is needed by humans for breathing and is therefore vital to us. And while plants and trees produce oxygen, they also extract CO₂ from the air. Plants fix that CO₂ in their leaves and stems, and trees make wood from CO₂. So if we burn that wood again, the CO₂ will be released into the air again. Burning wood is CO₂ neutral because the released CO₂ has recently been removed from the air. In total, burning wood does not add CO₂ to the air.

Figure 2 Carbon cycle biomass combustion. The CO2 released during combustion is stored in trees again.

The CO₂ released during the combustion of oil and natural gas was stored millions of years ago in the plants of that time. Those plants of that time have turned into oil and natural gas over millions of years. So if we now burn oil and natural gas, CO₂ is released into the air that has been in the ground for millions of years. As a result, CO₂ is added to the air, the total amount of CO₂ increases due to the combustion of fossil fuels. That’s the greenhouse effect you’ve probably heard about. This addition of CO₂causes the earth to heat up, with all its consequences. When the CO₂ is recorded, the difference is between burning fossil fuels and burning wood.

Are there also disadvantages?

But why are we still burning fossil fuels? This is because burning biomass has a number of disadvantages. Fossil fuels are often used for the transport of biomass. If the truck that transports the biomass runs on diesel, fossil fuels are still used, so that the entire process is no longer CO₂ neutral. Burning wood also pollutes the air in the area due to particulate matter. So don’t just replace your CV with a wood stove! They pollute the air and save little or no money.

This is what we can do!

Shouldn’t we have anything to do with biomass at all? Of course we do! Biomass cannot only be used for electricity production. Electricity is only one form of energy and biomass is suitable for many more types of energy, such as heavy transport using biokerosene. And besides energy, biomass has many applications that are researched now such as bioplastics, building materials, chemical applications and even biodegradable coffee cups.

An important distinction that we have to make when we talk about the use of biomass is that between production and application. For example, you can have a sustainable application of biomass (see above), but the production of that biomass cannot have been sustainable. The use of biomass is only sustainable if production and application are both sustainable. We therefore have to pay close attention to where biomass comes from and how it is applied.

That is also the opinion of former Utrecht PhD student Chun Sheng Goh, who now lives in Malaysia again. He believes that there is no one size fits all solution for biomass. Because there are so many applications, not all of which have to do with energy, it is always necessary to look for the optimal application for the situation. He therefore believes that biomass should not be lumped together as solar panels and wind energy. They only deal with energy, biomass goes further.

How do we proceed?

Biomass is therefore a lot more versatile than many people think. But is it also the solution to the energy problem? Perhaps not, mainly because of air pollution and transport. Other applications of biomass, on the other hand, could offer attractive sustainable solutions in the future. Sticking to fossil fuels is also not the solution, of course. For more information about other alternative energy sources, read the other articles on our site.

Science to Share

Sustainable transitions

Biomass in new Daylight

Science to Share

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Sustainable transitions

Biomass in new Daylight