A few months ago we wrote about Kristianstad, Sweden, an area that now uses biomass to generate all of its heat and some of its electricity. That city pioneered use of this renewable technology, and gradually biomass evolved from a niche component of its fuel mix to the backbone of its fuel supply.
A number of rural areas in Germany and the Netherlands have undertaken similar projects. As the article noted, while biomass could be deployed in similar agricultural regions in the United States, adoption has been slow in this country.
That looks as if it might be changing.
This week the federal Department of Agriculture announced a host of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in rural America, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is touring the Midwest, seeding biomass projects as he goes.
On Friday, the departments of Agriculture and Energy announced that up to $30 million would go toward supporting research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy and “high-value biobased products” over the next three to four years.
The money is to be dispensed through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, which started accepting proposals last year.
If properly produced, biomass heat and power produce fewer emissions than fossil fuels like coal or oil because much of the material used as fuel would otherwise sit in landfill releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as it rots. The use of biomass could also reduce the need to import oil. President Obama has called for a one-third reduction in the nation’s oil imports by 2025.
Biomass can include old tree cuttings, rice husks, corn stalks, manure -– almost any kind of biological farm waste. In the past these leftovers were typically left to rot. So a growing number of agricultural regions are burning them or degrading them through chemical digestion to produce biogas.
But new forms of biomass, like the algae biomass produced at the plant that Secretary Vilsack is visiting Friday afternoon, do not use agricultural leftovers; they rely on farmers or factories that grow plants specifically for use as fuel. That involves a different kind of trade-off, since those fields and farms could instead be growing food.