BIOMASS

PRAGATI
SHRESHTHA
STUTI GOYAL
ASHA SINGHAL

OVERVIEW

Biomass is a renewable energy source that is

derived from living or recently living organisms
and numerous sources, including the byproducts from the timber industry, agricultural
crops, raw material from the forest, major parts
of household waste and wood.
Biomass includes biological material, not
organic material like coal.
Biomass can be chemically and biochemically
treated to convert it to an energy-rich fuel.

SOURCES OF BIOMASS
WOOD FUEL

CROPS

SOURCES OF BIOMASS
RUBBISH: Burning solid waste reduces the
amount of garbage dumped in landfills by 60 to
90 percent, and reduces the cost of landfill
disposal.
LANDFILL
GAS

ADVANTAGES
It is cheap in contrast to the other energy sources.
Price of biomass could vary from zero to 1000 Rs per
ton depending on the source as against the coal price
of 1700Rs/ton.
Raw materials used to produce energy are renewable
and use waste, e.g. wood, dung and crop residues.
Alcohols and other fuels produced by biomass are
efficient, viable, and relatively clean-burning.
Biomass is always available and can be produced as a
renewable resource.
The use of waste materials reduces landfill disposal
and makes more space for everything else.
It provides manure for agriculture purposes and
gardens.
Heat energy that one gets from biogas is 3.5 times

DISADVANTAGES

Inefficient as Compared to Fossil Fuels : a certain

weight of biomass would generate roughly half the
amount of energy/power that a similar weight of coal
would generate.
It is difficult to store biogas in cylinders.
Transportation of biogas through pipe over long
distances is difficult.

Harmful to Environment : Increases methane gases

harmful to the Earths ozone layer.
Unpleasant smell attract unwanted pests (rats, flies)
and spread bacteria and infection.
Using trees and tree products to power machines
causes deforestation.
Require More Land : Energy crops like Bamboo
grown over 300 400 acres of waste land.
Combustion of biomass products require some land

APPLICATIONS
1. Direct burning for domestic heat: This is the
traditional method of burning wood, peat, dung, etc.,
for cooking and heat. It is still widely used,
especially in developing countries where it is
responsible for many respiratory illnesses and
deaths.
2. Electric generation: Biomass is used to feed a boiler
which then provides steam to a turbine which is
connected to a generator. Feedstocks are mainly
forest wood residues, and urban/industrial waste
wood.EIA predicts that by 2020, biomass will
produce 0.3 percent of the projected 5,476 billion
kilowatt hours of total generation. Roughly
19,786,000 Mw hrs of electricity were
created from biomass last year.

3. Gasification: The biomass is heated in an

environment where it breaks down into a flammable
gas. After the gas is cleaned and filtered, it can then
be used as natural gas, usually in a combined cycle
turbine..
4. Anaerobic Digestion: The biomaterials go through a
fermentation process that converts the organic
materials into biogas, which is mostly methane (60%)
and carbon dioxide (40%) biogas.
5. Biofuels: This category includes any kind of biomass
that is converted into liquid fuel, primarily for
transportation. Most common are ethanol and
biodiesel. Ethanol can be produced from food crops
such as corn in this country, sugar cane in Brazil and
sugar beets in Europe.

POTENTIAL ENERGY SOURCE

FIGURES IN MW

POTENTIAL ENERGY
SOURCE
India has a biomass availability of 150
million MT per annum which gives us a
potential to install 16,000 MW of biomass
based power plants. but only 600 MW is
installed and another 600 MW is under
implementation. To realize this huge
potential we need an investment of
Rs.1,00,000 crore.
Some reasons of lack of investments:
costs about rs.6 crore/MW for biomass
plant in contrast to rs.4.5cr/MW for
thermal.

THANK YOU