Bioenergy

Bioenergy

Bioenergy is renewable energy made available from materials derived from biological sources. In its most narrow sense it is a synonym to biofuel, which is fuel derived from biological sources.
In its broader sense it inclues biomass, the biological material used as a biofuel, as well as the social, economic, scientific and technical fields associated with using biological sources for energy. This is a common misconception, as bioenergy is the energy extracted from the biomass, as the biomass is the fuel and the bioenergy is the energy contained in the fuel.
Biomass is any organic material which has stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy. As a fuel it may include wood, wood waste, straw, manure, sugar cane and many other byproducts from a variety of agricultural processes.

Advantages:
As an energy source biomass is nearly 'CO2 neutral', that is (assuming it is grown in a sustainable way) any bioenergy crop will fix as much CO2 from the atmosphere as it grows as will be released when it is burnt. Growing bioenergy crops can give a boost to rural economies, providing an alternative market for existing crops. Biomass also has the advantage that it can be mixed in with other fuel sources.

Despite all these advantages, bioenergy is not without controversy. Biofuels, or fuel production from agricultural products, has been the subject of much debate in recent years. The argument of food vs. fuel has sparked from the call of energy engineers and scientists to shift to renewables like bioenergy. This is because biofuels are sourced from agricultural food products, such as corn, wheat, sugar cane, palm oil, cassava, and jatropha. Apart from using the food materials as source, there is also debate on the use of agricultural land for planting sources of biofuels.

Luisa and Janine