Biomass Power
Biomass power is an alternative fuel source that many people hold out a lot of hope for. In theory there are a lot of benefits to biomass, it is renewable and in the best possible world it would allow us to generate power out of our garbage. It is also popular politically because a lot of people, particularly farmers would benefit financially from a switch to biomass power. Unfortunately there are a lot of obstacles that will need to be overcome before biomass becomes a major source of power.
Biomass power simply refers to generating electricity from biological material. The obvious advantage of this is that biomass provides a renewable source of energy since it can be repeatedly grown. The two most common biomass fuel sources are wood and alcohol fuels. However other plants and garbage are being used more and more. Ultimately the goal is that we will be able to generate all of our electricity needs using biomass however we are a long way from that happening. There is however a great deal of potential with biomass to be used as a fully renewable source of energy.
There are a number of ways that biomass can be turned into a fuel source but right now the overwhelming majority of biomass power is produced by burning it. This would be primarily by burning wood or alcohol as a fuel source. However the real potential of biomass fuels is that they can produce electricity through a chemical conversion. Usually this is done by taking the heat of the chemical conversion and turning it into electricity although in some cases the conversion will produce electricity directly. This is the basis for fuel cells; hydrogen is converted to water and produces electricity as a side effect. The ultimate goal of biomass is to be able to get living organisms to produce the fuel themselves through a biochemical reaction. This would be similar to the way that yeast is used in fermentation. A good example would be organisms that can turn vegetable oil straight into biodiesel. It is even possible to create a biochemical reaction in which micro-organisms produce electricity directly.
Unfortunately biomass is not the solution to all of our energy problems. Although biomass would solve the issue of running out of fuel sources it doesn't solve the problem of pollution. In many cases biomass causes more air pollution than our current energy sources. The biggest pollutant being carbon monoxide which is a major contributor to the green house effect. Solving these problems is going to be a major issue that will need to be overcome if we are ever going to use biomass as a major power source. It isn't going to be easy since carbon monoxide is going to be produced in almost all biochemical reactions but there is hope that with enough research the problems can be overcome.