Biomass
What is biomass?
Biomass is material usually thought of as rubbish. For example:
- Dead trees
- Tree branches
- Grass clippings
- Housing rubble
- Left-over crops
- Bark and sawdust from timber mills
- Household rubbish, paper products and other waste you'd normally send from your house to the tip in your weekly rubbish collection
Biomass makes electricity
This stuff that nobody wants has many uses.
For example, biomass in the form of wood waste can be burned to make hot water and steam for drying timber.
It is this process which Energy for Industry, a Meridian Energy subsidiary is using in its Blue Mountains Lumber project in South Otago.
Biomass has many other uses
For example, it can:
- produce compost (decayed plant or food products) to promote plant growth, gardening and food production
- be recycled and made into other products such as paper and fertiliser
- be used to produce ethanol as a fuel for cars
- be turned into wood-based biomass pellets for burning in a wood fire to produce heat energy for your home.
Biomass is environmentally friendly
The use of biomass is environmentally friendly because rubbish and waste is reduced and then reused.
There are many places in factories, for example, where heat is used only once and then wasted.
And because biomass is reused, less rubbish is sent to the tip.