India leads in using biomass to develop clean energy

by Gargi Malik

Agriculture continues to support India, not only on the basis of providing sufficient food for the country, also providing bio mass on large quantity which is one one of the most cleanest source of energy. Biomass, which implies biological material from living or recently living organisms, can be used as an important source of energy. It is a renewable and carbon natural source of energy.

Keeping in mind the uses and potential of bio-mass, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has initiated various scheme and also promoted various NGOs to work in the field of energy from biomass.

Presently, biomass contributes to around 30% of the total primary energy supply in the country. The major source of energy for cooking for 85% of households in rural India includes firewood, chips, dung cake, etc. Moreover 20% of urban households still rely primarily on traditional fuels to meet their cooking needs.

Biomass resources in India are estimated to be about 565 million tonnes per year. It includes agriculture residues and forest residues.They include rice husk, bagasse, sugar cane tops and leaves, groundnut shells, cotton stalks and mustard stalks. Forest residues result from logging and wood processing. They include small trees, branches, tops and un-merchantable wood left in the forest.

The surplus biomass resources available for power generation annually are about 189 million tonnes, which could support roughly 25 GW of installed capacity.

Types of Biomass

Biomass includes three distinct categories:

- Solid Biomass, which includes tree, crop residues like rice husk, bagasse, coconut shells, jute waste, etc. and animal and human waste.

- Biogas which is obtained by anaerobically digesting organic material to produce combustible gas methane.

- Liquid biofuels which are obtained by subjecting organic materials to one of various chemical or physical processes to produce usable combustible liquid fuels.

 Benefits Of Using Biomass

- It reduces air pollution as biomass emits less Sulphur dioxide and Nitrogen Oxide than fossil fuels. Further, biomass fuels recycle atmospheric carbon, minimizing global warming impacts since zero net Carbon dioxide is emitted during biomass growth phase. Amount of carbon dioxide emitted is equal to the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed from atmosphere during growth phase of biomass.

- Biomass decreases animal and municipal waste. Through anaerobic digestion process biomass in the form of waste is converted into useful energy.

- Biomass as fuel reduces the landfill space required to dump the woody biomass, lumber mill waste, etc.

- It helps in creating local jobs in a rural areas.

 MNRE initiative can be classified in to two:-

Rural Areas Initiatives:-

The initiative includes implemenatation of smokeless chulha, family type biomass plants, biomass gasification system in the rual areas.

Urban Areas Initiatives:-

This initiative includes biomass in urban areas and commercial applications, programme to recover  energy from urban waste.

Both the initiatives by the government is going on smoothly and it is expected that the in near future  the bio-mass will gain more importance as the world is presently concerned about the growing global temperature.

(Courtesy: PIB Features)