Our banana peels, nut shells and other left-over foods
can actually power the device you're watching this on.
It's called biomass energy and it's not only leftovers you can use.
Wood, plants, or even animal feces can be a source of electricity or heat as well.
We are surrounded by biomass, and as such, by opportunities.
Unlike coal, the source of power can be regrown.
Companies and governments around the world
are ramping up investments. But at the moment, only around
4% of agricultural space is used for biomass energy crops.
So, how big is the potential of biomass energy really?
Let's start with how our trash becomes treasure.
One of the ways organic matter is turned into energy.
Suitable waste can be anything, from
leftover food and manure, to crop waste.
It's collected from farms, restaurants or homes and
then put into a processing plant to clean it from other materials, like plastic.
The next stop: the bioreactor.
It's where bacteria eat up the waste in a
so-called 'digester,' which is sealed off from oxygen.
This process is called 'anaerobic digestion.'
At temperatures of around 55 degrees Celsius,
the organic waste is fermented over several weeks.
In that time, biogas is produced.
The gas contains high quantities of methane.
It's a powerful source for generating electricity and heat
once it's been fed into the gas grid.
It can also be used to power natural gas vehicles.
The left-over biomass can be used as compost for farming, for example,
making the whole process circular.
Biogas plants of this type exist all over the world.
In Europe, there are around 20,000.
There are estimates that biomethane could cover
up to 40% of the EU's gas demand by the middle of this century.
There are 2,200 biogas plants in the US.
And about the same in Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia combined.
Biogas plants produce only a quarter of the CO2 emissions that coal plants emit.
Biomass energy has one large advantage over solar and wind.
And that is that it is on demand.
"So, you don`t care if the wind is blowing or the sun is shining."
Steve Kelley has spent years studying biomass energy.
All sounds good so far, but there is a catch.
Biomethane can leak from these facilities.
This gas's ability to warm the planet is much greater than that of CO2.
And biogas facilities are only sustainable as long as waste is used.
If crops are grown for the purpose, it's not viable.
Biogas facilities are one way of generating energy from biomass.
What else can we use biomass for?
Fuel! To run cars, trucks, or even planes.
Last year, for the first time, a flight avoided 20 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
Because for the route from Paris to Montreal,
the jet fuel was mixed with used cooking oil.
One biofuel is bioethanol.
Plants, such as corn or sugarcane, are fermented and distilled to produce it.
Bioethanol can replace 10 to 20% of the gasoline used to power a vehicle.
Then there's biodiesel. It's made by combining
animal fats or vegetable oils, like rapeseed or soy with alcohol.
As with the ethanol, the produced biodiesel is added to normal diesel fuel.
Biofuels are used at gas stations worldwide.
But according to the International Energy Agency,
they only account for 3% of transport fuel demand.
The problem with biofuels: The crops for them need to be grown.
And that takes away space for food crops.
Or even depletes forests or biodiversity.
As is happening with palm oil trees in Indonesia, sugar cane in Brazil, and rapeseed in Germany.
A study carried out in Germany found that using biofuels
can help save 9.2 million tons of the country's annual CO2 emissions.
But 16.4 million tons could be sequestered
if natural vegetation was allowed to grow on crop fields instead.
One possibility is replacing crops with algae, which can be grown in space-saving containers.
It is a promising field which isn't quite economically viable - yet.
For more on that, watch our video on algae's superpowers.
The simplest form of biomass energy is our most ancient way of producing it.
Just burning stuff. Like wood, leaves or waste.
Though it is slowly decreasing,
it still makes up 6.7% of energy consumption worldwide.
Especially among low-income communities with little access to other energy sources.
It's the least efficient way of using biomass.
And the particulate matter that is
released is bad for people's health.
Nevertheless, burning stuff is also part of the
carbon neutrality strategies of governments around the world.
And by stuff, we mean good old trees.
And that happens in the form of wood pellets.
The past decade, the demand for them as an energy source has steadily risen.
With a market share of 62%, the USA is the world's biggest exporter of such pellets.
They are usually made from wood residues, like sawdust or wood chips.
Usually...because here's the thing,
think tanks and NGOs have gathered evidence that
shows that natural forests and habitats in
Eastern Europe and North America are being destroyed
by the rising demand for wood pellets. Through illegal logging.
The main customer for them is the United Kingdom.
But South Korea, Japan, and the European Union are also takers.
Some wood pellets are used in households for heating with modern stoves.
But the bulk of them go to larger power plants.
Some of which use wood pellets to co-fire with coal,
meaning both materials are burned together to rely less on fossil fuels.
The US, EU and UK policymakers have classified woody biomass as renewable
and therefore, governments are subsidizing the
production and burning of wood pellets.
In 2021, the biggest power plant in the UK received
around one billion euros in such subsidies, according to an energy think tank.
Many countries are not obliged to count the emissions from wood-fired power plants.
Mainly because trees can regrow.
Producers are required to reforest areas.
So, the Co2 that is released while burning pellets is re-absorbed.
"Now, in the United States, depending on what state you are in,
you plant two to four trees for every one you cut down.
You plant two to four new ones.
But they are this big. They are little, tiny pine trees."
Researchers, like Kelley, suggest that the immediate impact of
substituting wood for coal is an increase in atmospheric CO2.
A study found that depending on the type of forest,
it could take 44 to 104 years until newly planted trees absorb the same amount of carbon
sucked up by the ones that were cut down.
"Over a hundred years period, hands down,
trees, pine, anyway, any of these ag-crops, are a good source of energy.
Over a hundred years.
Over 25 years, over 40 years, frankly, they probably aren't."
Especially when forests play another crucial role.
"Forests capture about one third
of all anthropogenic carbon emissions.
So, they are critical to staving off global warming."
Elly Pepper is campaigning for the protection of forests.
"Older trees store more carbon.
So, there are certain forests that are even more
critical to combating climate change than others.
Unfortunately, these are some of the forests
being plowed down for biomass energy."
A study by the Institute of Physics suggests that
replanted forests with fast-growing tree species absorb less CO2 than natural forests.
We will not reach carbon neutrality by burning wood
in big power plants, like this one in the UK.
"Countries are spending money they should be spending
on true renewables, like wind and solar, on this energy source.
That's not going to get us where we need to be as a planet."
Fast growing plants are seen as another option because the carbon emitted could be absorbed again
much more quickly than with trees.
"Can we grow industrial hemp on old land that used to be tobacco or cotton?
And produce a hemp-based pellet you burn in Europe? Sure.
Can you make biomass sustainable and make sure it has a positive carbon impact?
The answer is yes. But then you have to get into the details
of what kind of biomass, what kind of land."
The 4% of agricultural land that we are
currently using for energy plants worldwide is not enough.
But most space is needed for food crops.
Most forms of biomass pretend to be better than they are.
Burning wood to replace coal is not a solution.
Because even if the wood comes from sustainable forestry, or is wood waste, it still produces emissions.
Wood waste can however be digested by bacteria at a biogas facility.
And organic products, like that banana peel powering your phone,
can help manage waste cycles.
But today, biomass energy covers only a small part of our worldwide demand.
It can work in combination with other renewables.
But it's not scalable to be our main energy source in the future.
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