What is Biomass

Simply explained, biomass is vegetation such as trees, grasses, plant parts such as leaves, agricultural waste products, and ocean plants. Being extremely efficient solarcollection systems, plants produce and store energy in the form of carbon as they grow.

During photosynthesis, plants combine carbon dioxide from the air and water from the ground to form carbohydrates, which form the building blocks of biomass. The solar energy that drives photosynthesis is stored in the chemical bonds of the structural components of biomass. If we burn biomass efficiently (which extracts the energy stored in the chemical bonds), then oxygen from the atmosphere combines with the carbon in plants to produce carbon dioxide and water.

Before 1875, the United States' primary energy supply was biomass. And back then, an acre of native grass provided the energy to fuel a horse, then the country's only means of transportation. (That's roughly what it took to pasture one.) Today, using that same quantity of native grass as a biomass resource, enough fuel can be created to drive a car 10,000 miles.