Benefits of Biomass Energy

As our society experiences high and volatile energy prices as well as issues of national security, power generated from biomass material is becoming increasingly important.

Biomass power facilities benefit:

• local communities
• the national economy and
• the environment, including significant climate change benefits.

Economic Benefits of Biomass Energy

Biomass energy plants make a substantial, positive impact on local and regional economies by generating well-paying jobs in:

• construction and operation of the plant and
• collection and transportation of biomass material.

Biomass energy plants support local industry and businesses and encourage new investment in rural communities.

• Biomass energy facilities can help stabilize the local timber and forestry industry by providing stable demand for biomass material, which allows loggers, harvesters, processors and transporters to make capital investments.
• Biomass facilities also increase the local tax base without requiring substantial services from the local community.

Unlike many other energy fuels, the dollars spent on biomass material stay in the local, state and regional economies since biomass plants primarily use fuel sources that are within 75 miles of the plant.

During peak construction, a 100-MW biomass power facility will create approximately 400 construction jobs. Once operational, the facility will create approximately 40 direct full-time positions at the site, and will also generate approximately 700 indirect jobs throughout the region.

Social Benefits of Biomass Energy

As demand for power increases, many regions of the country face potential supply shortfalls. These shortfalls could result in significantly higher electric prices and potential blackouts. Biomass power generation can help address this issue by providing a source of electricity that is:

• reliable,
• domestically-produced,
• dispatchable,
• economically-competitive and
• environmentally sustainable.

Unlike other forms of renewable energy such as wind and solar energy, biomass energy plants are able to provide crucial, reliable baseload generation. In addition to providing baseload generation, biomass plants provide fuel diversity, which protects communities from volatile fossil fuels. Since biomass energy uses domestically-produced fuels, biomass power greatly reduces our dependence on foreign energy sources and increases our national security.

Besides these economic development benefits, biomass plants help ensure a sustainable market for forest products. The jobs created as a result of these facilities help to protect and preserve the unique culture of many rural communities.

Environmental Benefits of Biomass Energy

Biomass power facilities have numerous attributes, which benefit the environment and world climate change.

Environmental benefits include:

• cleaner air and
• better forestry management.

Biomass plants produce far less particulate matter than the alternative method of open burning wood wastes.

Beyond providing cleaner air, biomass energy plants:

• encourage better forestry practices which in turn lead to increased protection of critical wildlife habitats,
• produce ash which can be used for soil enhancement in farmland,
• reduce the impact of invasive species,
• reduce wildfire risk,
• improve solid waste management by providing an outlet for land-clearing debris, diseased/infected trees and other wood wastes rather than open burning or depositing in already crowded landfills and
• reduce the impact of natural disasters by providing an outlet for storm debris.

Climate Change Benefits of Biomass Energy

Unlike energy derived from fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, biomass energy does not contribute to climate change. The carbon, which is stored in biomass material as it grows, is already part of the atmosphere. Biomass energy does not add new carbon to the active carbon cycle, whereas fossil fuels remove carbon from geologic storage.

Carbon emissions from biomass facilities would have been released back into the atmosphere through natural decay or disposal through open-burning. The advanced emissions controls on a biomass energy facility significantly reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere along with other emissions such as particulate matter.

In addition to not emitting new carbon into the active carbon cycle, biomass energy has additional climate change benefits.

• Like all renewable energy technologies, biomass energy displaces the production of an equivalent amount of energy from fossil fuels. However, biomass energy is not just carbon neutral but actually carbon negative.
• In the absence of biomass energy, a large portion of biomass material would be left to decompose naturally, be open-burned or landfilled. Landfilled or naturally decaying biomass material releases carbon in the form of methane as well as carbon dioxide. Methane is 20 to 25 times more potent as a greenhouse-gas than carbon dioxide.
• Biomass energy contributes to forest health and fire resiliency, which increases the amount of carbon stored on a sustainable basis.