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Biomass Thermal Energy FAQs
About Biomass
- What is biomass thermal energy?
- What is biomass then?
- Why use biomass for energy production?
- What types of energy can biomass produce?
- Why should biomass be used for heating?
- What is the potential of biomass heating in the U.S.?
- What technologies are available for biomass heating?
- Why should Congress be interested in growing the market for biomass heating?
- Why are tax incentives necessary?
What is biomass thermal energy?
Biomass thermal energy is the use of biomass for space and domestic water heating, process heat, and the thermal portion of combined heat and power.
What is biomass ?
In general, biomass is organic matter. When mentioned in the context of energy, biomass is renewable plant material and vegetation growing above the earth's crust or agricultural waste.
Why use biomass for energy production?
Some forms of biomass can be utilized to produce energy. Using biomass to produce energy has economic and environmental benefits, because biomass energy is:
- Renewable with sustainable forestry practices
- Carbon-neutral over a certain time frame
- A domestic resource
- A substitute for fossil fuels
- A source of economic development and rural job creation
What types of energy can biomass produce?
Energy use in the US is almost equally divided between electricity, transportation, and heating. Biomass is an option to produce all three:
- Electricity
- Transportation
- Thermal (Space heating and air conditioning, industrial process heating, domestic water heating)
Many forms of biomass can be used for the most efficient option: heating, including: densified biomass such as pellets or briquettes, wood chips,
agricultural residues, fast-growing woody energy crops such as willow and poplar, and grasses such as switch grass or
Miscanthus.
What is the potential of biomass heating in the U.S.?
In northern states that rely heavily on imported fossil energy for home and business heating, biomass has the potential to
greatly reduce our consumption of heating oil, propane, and natural gas. The Northeast in particular is extremely vulnerable
to heating oil price shocks and supply disruptions; there, biomass could sustainably offset as much as 25% of oil, or over 1
billion gallons annually, used to heat homes and businesses.
What technologies are available for biomass heating?
Extremely clean and highly efficient biomass combustion technology is rapidly becoming available in the domestic US
marketplace. Efficient fuel distribution systems are in place to expand the adoption of central heating systems in home and
business heating, industrial process heat, district heating of whole communities, and combined heat and power. This proven
technology has been widely deployed in Europe in homes, schools, municipal buildings, factories and any other large
institutional, commercial or industrial setting.
Why should Congress be interested in growing the market for biomass heating?
Thermal energy, or heat, represents roughly one-third of total U.S. energy consumption. It is used daily by homes,
businesses, and industrial facilities across the country, most frequently for space heating, water heating, or industrial
processes. Biomass can be an extremely efficient source of renewable energy for all of these heating needs.
To date, nearly all of the government grants and incentives for renewable energy support the electricity and transportation
sectors. Renewable sources of thermal energy, like biomass, have largely gone forgotten.
Encouraging the use of biomass for heating would help fill in the missing pieces of our nation’s energy policy. Biomass
thermal energy fulfills the same public policy objectives that are the basis and justification for renewable energy tax
incentives or subsidies. These include:
- Reducing consumption of foreign fossil fuels, and thereby increasing energy security
- Lowering emissions of greenhouse gases
- Strengthening local economic development and job creation through the domestic production of fuels, system
installation and service, and fuel distribution.
Why are tax incentives necessary?
Incentives are necessary to make biomass heating more competitive in the marketplace with non-renewable sources of
thermal energy. Because of relatively small market penetration, biomass heating systems can cost twice the amount of a
similarly sized oil or gas system. Additionally, fuel transport logistics have yet to reach critical mass with few customers
spread over large geographic areas, thus increasing the unit cost of fuel distribution. In time, with increasing market
penetration, these incentives can be scaled down or eliminated. |
