There is an increasing amount of thrust to find energy sources which are natural to ensure that the traditional energy sources which are carbon-based energy sources are actually reduced in consumption so that the pollution can be reduced as well.
One such source of energy is the biomass energy and it has actually been around for quite some period of time in the traditional form but these days modern technology is being used to harness the power of biomass energy so that it is able to replace the traditional forms of energy like coal or gas only in on some of the applications at least.
Biomass energy is nothing but the potential energy which is contained in the organic matter and this organic matter is actually of no use to earth and in most of the cases you would find that a lot of such organic matter is actually thrown into the garbage because we do not know the value of the biomass energy.
This energy can be easily harvested from the organic matter with the help of burning that odds with the help of decomposing that organic matter.
You can also link the biomass energy to the solar energy since a lot of the organic matter which gives us biomass energy is nothing but the plants and grass. The energy which is stored in the plants and grasses nothing but the solar energy with the help of photosynthesis process.
Biomass energy is not just contained in plants and grass but it is also contained in wood and other such natural organic matter.
When someone speaks to you regarding renewable forms of energy you would start imagining wind turbines and solar cells and solar power plants but you have to understand that biomass energy is actually the largest source of renewable energy which is present and which is being widely used as well.
You might have already used biomass energy in some form or the other specially in the form of wood burning and in the form of ethanol as well.
The reason that biomass energy is considered to be a renewable source of energy is because it is in our hands as to how many plants and trees we actually grow and with the help of these plants and trees we can easily get the biomass energy as well.
With the increased use of biomass energy one thing which you would surely realise that we can reduce our dependence on the conventional sources of energy like coal and gasoline.
Wood burning stove:
You might be thinking that there is nothing to explain in a wood-burning stove but over the years there has been a lot of changes in some of the simpler technology which is being used in this stove to increase the efficiency of this stove. One of the main changes which have taken place is to ensure that there are primary as well as secondary combustion in this stove to ensure that there is no unreleased energy which goes wasted because if there is only primary combustion then you would not is that the combustion process is not perfect and smoke would be released and the smoke is nothing but unburned carbon and this is a waste of energy and therefore if you look at the modern stove you would realise that there are two outlets for the gases to come out and one of the outlet is directly below the place where the combustion actually takes place and this is because when you are the primary combustion takes place and the smoke along with the carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere the gases actually moved towards the combustion area and therefore the unreleased energy in the form of unburned carbon is again forced to go through the process of combustion and therefore the entire energy is actually released and none of the energy goes waste. This is the way in which the efficiency is increased of the modern wood burning stove.
How does biomass furnance work?
As we have explained about the most simple form of getting energy from the biomass is to just burn the world and get the heat energy but this can actually eat only a single room and this can need only in small scale but what if you need a large amount of energy from a large amount of biomass and this is where the biomass plants and the biomass furnance actually comes in. This furnance can actually help you in heating big structures like buildings and instead of just heating a single room.
The fuel which can be used in this can change from natural gas to electricity or even oil. Due to the modern technology which is being used in the furnance you would find that it actually does not need a lot of maintenance and there is no manual process which you have to follow to get this energy.
You had to just ensure that you have proper biomass which you can feed to the furnance and from time to time you had to take out the ash of the biomass feed as well and rest of the process is fully automated.
One of the ways in which this system actually differs from the traditional system of burning wood to get heat is that you do not have to worry about the fuel and neither do you have to worry about the fire as well because there is always a ingestion of fuel whenever required and therefore you do not to do anything manually.
Is biomass completely clean?
You might have noticed that we mentioned above that there is release of unused carbon as well during the process of harvesting biomass energy and then you might be thinking that whether biomass energy is actually a completely clean process and the answer to this question is no but when you factor in the carbon cycle you would realise that even though there is some air pollution which is being done because of the process of biomass energy harvesting still it is neutral because of the process of carbon cycle.
This is because the amount of carbon dioxide which is released in the process of harvesting of biomass can be again recycled by the same amount of plants which were burnt to get the energy and the carbon dioxide as a byproduct while the process of biomass energy harvesting and therefore the process of biomass energy harvesting is a net neutral when you factor in the process of carbon cycle.
Also, if you compare it with the emissions which are released during the burning of the traditional fossil fuels you would realise that biomass energy harvesting is still a much more cleaner process than the traditional combustion of the fossil fuels.
So, biomass energy is one of the best options which we have got when we are talking about the renewable sources of energy.