The information on this page was prepared by:
| Austin Davis | williamd@usc.edu | Civil/Environmental Engineering |
Biomass: Its Future
Today according to the National Energy Policy, biopower accounts for 76% of renewable electricity generation and 1.6% of the total U.S. electricity supply.
What does the future hold for biopower? According to the National Energy Policy of 2001, advancing technology along with greater utilization of existing resources is expected to increase worldwide biopower generation by more than 30,000 MW by the year 2020. The Department of Energy says that presently unused quantities of economically available biomass may exceed 39 million tons per year in the U.S. which is enough to supply about 7,500 MW of new biopower.
Challenges for future use of biomass include the need for further research and development to improve the quality of raw biomass and to increase the efficiency of current biopower technologies. Biopower simply needs to be more cost-competitive with current fossil fuel energy sources. Another challenge will be the diversification of biomass use, possibly including the genetic engineering of energy crops to increase yield and decrease growth time. Diversification is a necessity because if facilities in an area rely heavily on one type of biomass, such as wood, it could lead to a shortage of that particular biomass source. Also, a large infrastructure needs to be developed in order to plant, harvest, collect, store, and transport biomass resources and fuels.