Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Biomass - Energy from Nature
Man has been using energy from fi rewood for the last 790 000 years - ever since
Stone Age people discovered how to make fi re (Figure 12.1). This makes biomass
the oldest renewable energy source by a huge margin. In fact, biomass was the most
important energy supply worldwide well into the eighteenth century. Even today
some countries like Mozambique and Ethiopia use traditional biomass to cover over
90% of their primary energy needs.
As the use of fossil energy supplies grew, biomass use was almost non-existent in
the industrialized nations. In 2000 the share of biomass in the primary energy supply
in countries such as Britain, Germany and the USA was not even 3% .
Figure 12.1
People have been using the energy from fi rewood for thousands of years.
