Biomass is organic material which is stored sunlight in the form of chemical energy.Biomass is matter usually thought of as garbage. Your trash and other household waste are normally sent to the dump. Your trash contains some types of biomass that can be reused. Recycling biomass for fuel and other uses cuts down the need for landfills to hold garbage. This stuff nobody seems to want can be used to produce heat, compose, electricity or fuels. Composting material is decayed plant or food products, mixed together in a compost pile and is spread to help plants grow. As you can see I have begun a bag of compost. In this bag I have placed 11 different items: ham bone, onions, lettuce, tomato, banana leaf, dirt, ashes, tangerine, chow mien, orange peals and fruit tree leaves. I am going to leave this outside, in our back yard, next to the woodpile. When we return from Christmas break, I will bring the bag back for us to see what changes and possible decomposing has begun. A compost pile actually takes a full season to complete its break down process. California produces more than 60 million bone dry tons of biomass each year. Of this total, 5 million bone dry tons is now burned to make electricity. If all 60 million tons of biomass was used in California, it could make closed to 200 mega watts of electricity. That�s enough energy to make electricity for about 2 million homes!
When garbage decomposes, it gives off methane gas. Natural gas is made up of methane. Pipelines are put into the landfills and the methane gas can be collected. It is then used in power plants to make electricity. This type of biomass is called landfill gas.
So, the use of biomass is environmentally friendly because the biomass is reduced, recycled and then reused. It is also a renewable source because plants to make biomass can be grown over and over. (You can plant more trees, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, and the like, and use this wasted material over and over each year that you grow it.)