Solar Biomass Energy

FIGURE 1.6 Sprawling solar energy complex in San Luis Valley, CO. 

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D. L. Klass, ed., A. Directory of U.S. Renewable Energy Technology Vendors, Biomass, Photovoltaics, Solar Thermal, Wind, Biomass Energy Research Association, Washington, D.C., 1990, for U.S. Agency for International Development, 74 pp. 

By 2050 total energy demand may have increased by a factor of 2 or 3 from today s. So, in order to meet such a condition, carbon-fiee energy supply would have to have grown by a factor of nearly 15. In that time-span the only sources of carbon free energy are renewables, such as solar biomass and wind, sequestration (exclusion of C02 from the atmosphere) and nuclear fission. There is considerable debate, but no conclusion, how fat and how fast renewables might grow, but clearly, if economic and acceptable, here is a major potential opening for nuclear power. 

Renewable energy sonrces such as wind, solar, biomass and hydropower are important today, and they will be important in the future. Table 1.1 shows the global primary energy consnmption as shares of 10.2 gigatons of oil equivalent (Gtoe) by energy sonrce in 2002 (UNDP, 2004). 

The photoreductive synthetic process that promotes the assimilation of carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, other reduced metabolites, as well as ATP (synthesis of the latter is termed photophosphorylation). Photosynthesis is the primary mechanism for transducing solar energy into biomass, and green plants utilize chlorophyll a to capture a broad spectrum of solar radiant energy reaching the Earth s surface. Photosynthetic bacteria typically produce NADPH, the reductive energy of which is converted to ATP. 

FIGURE 3.5 Effect of solar energy capture efficiency on biomass yield. (1 is insolation and F is biomass energy content.)... 

Saterson, K. A., and Luppold, M. W. (1979). In 3rd Annual Biomass Energy Systems Conference Proceedings, SERI/TP-33-285, p. 245. Solar Energy Research Institute, Golden, CO, June 5-7. 

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