Biomass Production

Our energy consumption for the last 50 years has been pretty much exclusively from fossil fuel derived energy. This dependence on not only fossil fuels, but also foreign fossil fuels is not beginning to cost us not only in monetary terms but also with respect to the impact of using these fuels on the environment. As the economy is trying come out of recession, exporting money to pay for this fuel is not helping to support the economy. Therefore there needs to a move towards more locally sourced energy from biomass production.

Biomass Potential and Wood Fuel Pellets

The fact is biomass holds huge potential to provide us with a sizeable chunk of our energy needs. Biomass can help in all areas of energy production, from generating both heat and electricity to transportation fuels. With regards to heating applications, one of the simplest and most practical methods is to use wood pellets and other forms of biomass pellets. Biomass in its raw form is very bulk, generally contains a lot of moisture and has a low density. These features are not ideal for combustion, and as a result, burning unprocessed biomass will generally lead to excessive smoke, corrosion issues and poor heat generation. The solution is to compress the biomass and to remove the majority of the moisture it contains. This way efficient combustion can take place. Though energy is obviously used to compress the biomass into pellet form, the advantages outweigh the negatives. However, to try and keep the biomass a carbon neutral fuel source, the energy used to process the biomass should also be from a renewable energy source. For example the electricity could be generated from biomass or from wind and solar energy.

Transportation is another area where the costs of biomass production and are crucial. As biomass has a low bulk density transporting the material is costly. Therefore setting up a large pellet plant with only a small local biomass supply is not economical. Also pellet transportation adds cost and carbon, therefore without a sufficient local market, a large pellet plant will struggle to make a profit. Therefore as the biomass market is still getting established it makes more sense to set-up small regional based biomass pellet production faculties. Reducing transportation costs.

Biomass Combustion and Pellet Fires

Depending on the type of biomass processed into fuel pellets will influence the available potential market. for example many pellet stoves and boiler today can only burn low ash content wood pellets. However the future market will have to adapt to use a wider variety of fuels. This means that focusing purely on the wood pellet side of things is a falsehood, and getting a head start now in the market for other biomass fuel pellets could bring huge rewards in the future.

Biomass Plant For Fuel Pellet Production

The Wood Pellet Production Guide © PelHeat Ltd - Biomass Production