Is it renewable?

Fossil fuels are not a renewable energy resource. Once we've burned them all, there isn't any more, and our consumption of fossil fuels has nearly doubled every 20 years since 1900. This is a particular problem for oil, because we also use it to make plastics and many other products.

Ok, you could argue that fossil fuels are renewable because more coal seams and oil fields will be formed if we wait long enough. However that means waiting for many millions of years. That's a long time - we'd have to wait around for longer than the time that humans have existed so far! As far as we today are concerned, we're using it up very fast and it hardly gets replaced at all - so by any sensible human definition fossil fuels are not renewable.

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Coal, [?] and natural gas (chemical name: [?]) are called fossil fuels because they were formed from the remains of plants or [?] long ago. We [?] the fuels in power stations, releasing the stored chemical [?]. The heat turns water into [?], which drives [?], they drive the [?]. Are fossil fuels renewable? (yes/no) [?] Do they cause pollution? (yes/no) [?]

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U nit 3. Biomass - energy from

organic materials

About biomass energy

We have used biomass energy or bioenergy— the energy from organic matter— for thousands of years, ever since people started burning wood to cook food or to keep warm. And today, wood is still our largest biomass energy resource. But many other sources of biomass can now be used, including plants, residues from agriculture or forestry, and the organic component of municipal and industrial wastes. Even the fumes from landfills can be used as a biomass energy source.

The use of biomass energy has the potential to greatly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Biomass generates about the same amount of carbon dioxide as fossil fuels, but every time a new plant grows, carbon dioxide is actually removed from the atmosphere. The net emission of carbon dioxide will be zero as long as plants continue to be replenished for biomass energy purposes. These energy crops, such as fast-growing trees and grasses, are called biomass feedstocks. The use of biomass feedstocks can also help increase profits for the agricultural industry.

NREL performs research to develop and advance technologies for the following biomass energy applications:

Biofuels Converting biomass into liquid fuels for transportation.

Biopower Burning biomass directly, or converting it into a gaseous fuel or oil, to generate electricity.

Bioproducts Converting biomass into chemicals for making products that typically are made from petroleum.

Biomass

Biomass power, derived from the burning of plant matter, raises more serious environmental issues than any other renewable resource except hydropower. Combustion of biomass and biomass-derived fuels produces air pollution; beyond this, there are concerns about the impacts of using land to grow energy crops. How serious these impacts are will depend on how carefully the resource is managed. The picture is further complicated because there is no single biomass technology, but rather a wide variety of production and conversion methods, each with different environmental impacts.