Sunday, December 19, 2010

Important factors that can not be overlooked by using biomass as renewable energy sources

It is believed that burning biomass will not contribute carbon dioxide to the atmosphere because replanting harvested biomass ensures that CO2 is absorbed and returned for a cycle of new growth, i.e biomass emits roughly the same amount of carbon during conversion as is taken up during plant growth. But people have to realize that there is the time lag between the instantaneous release of CO2 from burning biomass energy and its eventual uptake as biomass, which can take many years. Therefore, there is a need to recognize this time delay and take appropriate action to mitigate against the lag period. Most imortantly, the action of consuming biomass resources for fuel  and replacement planting needs to occur concurrently so that the overall resultant from the use of biomass does not contribute to a build up of CO2 in the atmosphere from a long term.

Unforfunately, not amny people realize the time lag and many countries have not implement a programme of replacement planting when they already started harvesting the biomass.

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