Energy

What is it?

The vegetation that covers our planet is a natural storage of solar energy. The organic matter composing it is called biomass.
Biomass is produced through the photosynthesis process, when carbon dioxide from the atmosphere combines with underground water to produce sugars, starch, cellulose, lignin, protein substances, fats, etc. The same solar energy that activated the photosynthesis is contained in the chemical bonds of these substances. In this way 2 x 10¹¹ tons of carbon are fixed each year, with a corresponding energy content of 70 x 10³ megatons of oil.
By burning biomass, atmospheric oxygen combines with the carbon contained in the biomass, freeing carbon dioxide and water, and producing heat. Carbon dioxide goes back into the atmosphere and is ready to be re-used in the photosynthesis process to produce new biomass. Therefore biomass is a renewable resource.
The term biomass indicates several types of products: agricultural and forest residues, waste of wood processing industry (wood shavings, sawdust, etc.), waste of the zoo-technical industry, agricultural and food residues (residues of crops for the production of human and animal food (straw), “energy cultures” aimed at the production of fuel, and organic biomass from other sources, such as the green fraction of solid urban waste and other types of heterogeneous industrial waste.