Green Energy

GREEN ENERGY

When burned, the chemical energy in biomass is released as heat. If you have a fireplace, the wood you burn in it is a biomass fuel. Wood waste or garbage can be burned to produce steam for making electricity, or to provide heat to industries and homes.

Some examples of Green energy are wood, crops, manure, and some garbage. The most common form of biomass is wood. For thousands of years people have burned wood for heating and cooking. Wood was the main source of energy in the U.S. and the rest of the world until the mid-1800s. Biomass continues to be a major source of energy in much of the developing world. In the United States wood and waste (bark, sawdust, wood chips, and wood scrap) provide only about 2 percent of the energy we use today.

About 84 percent of the wood and wood waste fuel used in the United States is consumed by the industry, electric power producers, and commercial businesses. The rest, mainly wood, is used in homes for heating and cooking. Many manufacturing plants in the wood and paper products industry use wood waste to produce their own steam and electricity.

This saves these companies money because they don't have to dispose of their waste products and they don't have to buy as much electricity. The photograph to the right is of biomass fuel, probably wood chips, being stored and dried for later use in a boiler.