By Gargi Malik
Assistant Director (Media & Communication)
New
Delhi, Jan 17, 2012 (Washington Bangla Radio / PIB India) Agriculture
continues to be the main source of livelihood for a large part of
population in the country. Biomass, thus, is readily available widely
across the country, thereby, overcoming regional limitations. 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.
Biomass
resources in India are estimated to be about 565 million tonnes per
year. It includes agriculture residues and forest residues. Agriculture
residues result from crop harvesting and processing. 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. Further,
co-generation plants provide both heat energy, used in the mill, and
electricity, which is typically sold to the grid. It is estimated that
about 15 GW of electricity generating capacity could be achieved through
adding cogeneration capabilities in various industries including sugar
mills, breweries, textile mills, distilleries, fertilizer plants, pulp
and paper mills, and rice mills. In addition, there exists a potential
of setting up 12 million family type biogas plants.
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.
Biomass Conversion To Useful Energy
A
number of technological options are available to make use of a wide
variety of biomass types as a renewable energy source. Conversion may
release energy directly in the form of heat/electricity or, may convert
it into another form such as liquid biofuels or combustible biogas.
There are basically three types of conversions:
· Thermal Conversion- A process in which heat is used to convert biomass into another chemical form.
·
Chemical Conversion - A range of chemical processes may be used to
convert biomass into other forms so that fuel may be used more
conveniently, transported or stored.
· Biochemical Conversion- It involves anaerobic digestion fermentation and composting.
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.
· Using
biomass decreases animal and municipal waste. Through anaerobic
digestion process biomass in the form of waste is converted into useful
energy.
· Using 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.
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. The Ministry of New and Renewable
Energy (MNRE) has initiated various schemes and also promoted
various NGOs to work in the field of energy from biomass. The
initiatives can broadly be classified into two categories:
·
Rural Areas Initiatives: National Biomass Cookstove
Initiative(NBCI); Family Type Biogas Plant; Biomass Gasification
System.
· Urban Areas Initiatives: Programme for
Energy Recovery from Urban Waste; Biomass Gasifiers and Biomass
Cogeneration (Non-Bagasse) Projects.
Rural Areas Initiatives
National
Biomass Cookstove Initiative(NBCI): In rural areas a large
percentage of population continues to depend on biomass. Clean
and efficient energy is provided for energy deficient section
of population through smokeless chulha, where different types of
fixed and portable cookstoves are made available to rural
household. In a case study on various Dhabas and roadside hotels
in Andhra Pradesh, it was observed that fuel efficient stoves
installed were able to conserve about 50-60% of fuel as
compared to traditional stoves. There was reduction of smoke
and thus increase in productivity with a positive impact on
environment.

Smokeless Chulha