Renewable Energy

According to the scale drawn up by Hoogwijk and al. biomass production can be split into 8 different categories:

• Biomass produced due to surplus agricultural land, that is not used for human or animal consumption: Energy crops,
• Biomass produced as a result of deforestation (forest maintenance), or cleaning up agricultural land,
• Agricultural residues from cereal crops, vineyards, orchard, olive trees, fruit and vegetable, residues from the food industry,...
• Forest residues from silviculture and wood processing,
• Agricultural residues from breeding (solid and liquid manures, dung,…),
• Organic household waste (fermentable fractions of household waste, paper, cardboard, plant waste,…),
• Biomass used directly for purposes other than food (wood for paper),
• Common organic industrial waste (paper, cardboard, putrescible waste,…).

In summary, the sources of biomass can be split into three categories: Forest, food and urban.

Some distinguish dry biomass from wet biomass:

• Dry biomass including the various wood waste and referred to as energy wood,
• Wet biomass including organic waste of agricultural, food and urban origin that can be transformed into fertiliser or soil improvements (fertilising matter used to correct the inadequacies of a soil and to make it more amenable to cultivation).

Thus, biomass may be considered as a fuel and can be used in many sectors to meet energy requirements (production of electricity and heat). It may also be used to produce fuel for motor vehicles.