LIBRARY
PHI 346: Environmental Ethics: BioMass Fuels
What is BioMass?
To many people, the most familiar forms of renewable energy are the wind and the sun. But biomass (plant material and animal waste) is the oldest source of renewable energy, used since our ancestors learned the secret of fire. Materials range from agricultural residues to algae, grasses, oils and fats.
Unlike other renewable energy sources, biomass can be converted directly into liquid fuels - biofuels - for our transportation needs (cars, trucks, buses, airplanes, and trains). The two most common types of biofuels are ethanol and biodiesel.
eBooks
- Biofuels, production, application and development byPublication Date: 2009
- Biofuels: Refining and Performance byPublication Date: 2007
Web Resources
- Carnegie Melon University Green Design InstituteResearch on Energy and the Environment.
Alternative Fuels from Biomass / Rebecca Lankey and Lester Lave - National Renewable Energy Lab: From BioMass to BioFuelsResearch with enzymes, thermochemical processes, etc. [NREL]
- Oak Ridge National LaboratoryBiomass Fuels, Energy, Carbon, and Global Climate Change
- POETethanolThe world's largest ethanol producer.
- Sierra Club PoliciesConservation: Biomass fuels
- Southeast AgNET : Florida Energy Summit“....will advance the expansion of the production of renewable energy in Florida by bringing together leaders in energy development, agriculture production, government, academic research, technology and finance...”
- WFPA Washington Forest Protection AssociationThe biomass carbon cycle fundamentally differentiates biomass from fossil fuel.
Forests are a key domestic source of renewable energy.
Energy from Waste
BAGASSE is the dry dusty pulp that remains after juice is extracted from sugar cane or similar plants.
Florida Crystals Corp. produces 1.4 million tons of sugarcane waste, or bagasse, from its Everglades Agricultural Area fields. Bagasse is burned in power plant boilers today. But the company is researching how to turn the biomass into ethanol. ... Here, amid what was a vast Everglades marsh a century ago, is North America's largest biomass power plant. [Environment and Energy Daily]