Can Biomass History Teach Us Lessons For The Future?

For the last fifty years the western economies have pretty much been dependant on fossil fuel energy to power their cars, heat their homes, transportation electricity, plastics and much much more. The history of biomass has taken a back seat role over this time, and been seen as more of a gimmick than a serious solution to heat, power and transportation. However, over the last decade, these prejudgments on biomass have started to change and the recent history of biomass is much more promising. Fossil fuels have been associated with a rise in global temperatures through carbon emissions, however this isn't the strongest case against the use of oil and gas. Over the last decade consumers have seen prices accelerate to record levels, price instability, supply issues and during a time of economic uncertainty exporting money out of the country to pay for these over priced products. And the future of oil and gas is no better, as the global population increases, and countries such a China and India develop a more western consumer life style, the price of oil and gas will only increase and supply become more of an issue for one simple reason. Only a few people control these supplies and there is not an abundant supply of these resources. As biomass is a renewable energy source, and much of the current fossil fuels can be replicated with biomass, the future looks positive for biomass fuel products.

Biomass Disadvantages and Upgrading

Biomass is a general description for all plant matter which can be grown and used for energy in some form or another. However, biomass in its raw form is not an ideal fuel to burn or transport. Therefore to remove the disadvantages of the biomass raw material, the material needs to be upgraded and processed into a new form. This could be a liquid, gaseous or solid form. Here we will focus on the solid biomass form of fuel pellets. By compressing the biomass material into a fuel pellet removes its flaws with combustion and transportation. Pellets have uniform shape and size, and due to these facts they can flow similarly to water. As the fuel can flow and each pellet is relatively small, this means that a hopper with an automated auger feed system can feed the fire on demand with pellets to maintain a set desired temperature.

Biomass Heat Through Pellet Burners

The history of biomass is mainly with basic wood log stoves and such like, which were very high maintenance and were not very fuel efficient for the amount of usual heat they generated. Modern pellet burners, such as wood pellet stoves and wood pellets are very automated and low maintaince. A standard fuel hopper will keep the burner running for at least a day. Some pellet burners can hold up to a weeks supply, while others have large external hoppers. Through a standard wall thermostat these heating systems can meet any consumer heating needs.

Biomass Fuel Pellet Production Solutions

The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Can Biomass History Teach Us Lessons For The Future?