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It almost sounds as if you are not comfortabe with the term biomass/biomass energy. The “bio” portion of the word comes from biology. The “mass” portion refers to any object with mass or dimention. More often than not, biomass energy is used in conjunction with energy derived from living or dead vegetation from small plants to huge trees. In times past, fecal methane energy (poop power, or what causes the powerful smell of fecal matter) was certainly considered and discussed when biomass energy was mentioned; I’ve listed a couple of Wikipedia pages that better explain just what biomass energy is and is not. Also, a site that is sort of a clearing house and reporting group of biomass projects about the US. You will find additional links on each page/site. (By the way, entering fecal methane energy into the search engine gives a couple of good references too.)

If you’re speaking of chopping down trees and burning them in a fireplace, folks have been doing that for hundreds of years. It is often not considered the best “green” solution to household heating. For as many folks that have chopped or sawed down 60′-200′ trees for firewood through the history of all mankind, far more have gleaned an assortment of biomass materials for heating and cooking purposes. Dried animal dung/scat/poop has been gathered and burned on almost every continent of the world; it is still a routine practice in many areas of the world. Just as many people have gathered and burned fallen branches, dead trees, shrubs, and grasses for the purpose of cooking and heating. All of these fit the biomass energy definition.

Most of the gleaned items we’ve burned as fuel over the time of mankind have been waste or discarded products from some other element of our environment and ecosystem. I will guess that you are not living a nomadic life across the grass plains of the US where buffalo chips are littered across the ground. Rather, your environment and ecosystem is a some combination of “modern industrial society” and agrarian based food products. There is hardly a town in the industrial world that doesn’t have some type of a deep-fat frier. And, where there is a deep fat frier, there is a frier grease disposal need. Did you know that biodiesel can be made from this otherwise waste product? (Check out the fourth link below.) In fact, it is possible for individuals to convert their own vehicle diesel engines and manufacture their own biodiesel in the garage from frier fat?

Just what other biomass based products are readily available in your community, I don’t know. But, it seems as if most of the biomass energy being generated and used in the US today begins with some type of biomass that is the waste stream or by-product of another process, manufacturing plant, or agricultural production. The advantage of this type of biomass energy production is that it more completely or fully uses the materials and by-products of an existing process rather than discarding them unused.

Now, if you include fecal methane energy…where ever there are people or animals gathered, there is opportunity. Again, what the use of fecal methane energy does is more completely and fully use the waste or by-products of other processes. – In this case, it would be good to conjure up the concept of more completely and fully using the elsewise, underutilized, by-product energy of the process of fueling human or animal life.

One of the issues clouding the definition and the use of the term biodiesel is whether to include only plant, vegetation, and vegeartian masses. Or, does one also include things that are in whole or part ominivore or carnivore based?

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Renewable energy is energy generated from natural resources—such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat—which are renewable (naturally replenished)Renewable energy is derived from natural processes that are replenished constantly. In its various forms, it derives directly from the sun, or from heat generated deep within the earth. Included in the definition is electricity and heat generated from solar, wind, ocean, hydropower, biomass, geothermal resources, and biofuels and hydrogen derived from renewable resources.

Each of these sources has unique characteristics which influence how and where they are used.

Sustainable energy sources are most often regarded as including all renewable sources, such as biofuels, solar power, wind power, wave power, geothermal power and tidal power. It usually also includes technologies that improve energy efficiency

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[PDF] Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Certificate Trading: the …File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
1 Apr 2009 … The National Electricity Market works well. – The Tradeable Renewable Energy Certificate Scheme has worked well for low-cost RE: wind, …
Www.ceem.unsw.edu.au/content/userDocs/090331EEcertREC_Trading_Aust_Experience_APEC.pdf – Similar pages –

Energy use by sector – Sustainability VictoriaInformation about energy use by sector in Victoria.
Www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/1820-energy-use-by-sector-.asp – Cached – Similar pages –

Energy use in Victoria – Sustainability Victoria7 Nov 2008 … A key challenge for Victoria is the significant growth in the demand for energy. Our energy consumption has doubled since 1973. …
Www.sustainability.vic.gov.au/www/html/1819-energy-use-in-victoria.asp – Cached – Similar pages –

[PDF] Modeling Renewable Energy Certificate PricesFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
23 Apr 2007 … The Victorian Mandatory Renewable Energy Target (VRET) …. Works reasonably well in terms of project selection (picks the right sort of …
Www.amsi.org.au/images/electricity/pdfs/Wallace.pdf – Similar pages –
by S Wallace – 2007 – Cited by 1 – Related articles

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Ten Tips to Go Green

1) Turn down the thermostat. Lowering it by just one degree can reduce heating energy costs by about four percent.

2) Use ceiling fans in the summer AND winter. By reversing the direction of the blades, warm air is pushed down, helping to keep rooms warm in winter.

3) Conserve energy by purchasing major appliances with an Energy Star rating. Compared to a 1990 model, an Energy Star-qualified refrigerator would save enough electricity to light a home for more than four and a half months.

4) Repair leaky fixtures: one drop per second from a leaky faucet can waste as mush as 10 gallons of water each week.

5) Install low-flow showerheads, faucets, and toilets. Low-flow faucets reduce water consumption and the cost of heating water by as much as 50 percent; using a low-flow toilet can save Americans 2.1 trillion gallons of water and $11.3 million nationwide every day.

6) Choose carpeting, rugs, window treatments and other textiles made from natural fibers, such as cotton or wool, which are untreated and free of toxins, such as pesticides or chemical cleaners.

7) Ask for flooring products made from rapidly renewable resources, such as bamboo. Bamboo is one of the fasted growing plants in the world, requiring no replanting and little fertilization or pesticides.

8) Select solid woods harvested from sustainably-managed forests, when possible, for furniture or cabinetry, rather than pressed woods or composites that may contain formaldehyde or other chemicals that may be toxic and hazardous to your health.

9) Eliminate waste by choosing products that are biodegradable or recyclable. Consider the “lifecycle” of furnishings and accessories before purchasing: Are they made of materials that can be reused or recycled when the item eventually wears out or is no longer needed?

10) Recycle packing and shipping materials from any newly purchased items, and safely dispose of paint cans and other containers with contents that could potentially contaminate the ground or water supply

admin answers:

Actual learning is a very personal activity performed by the individual…

There are three ways to educate one’s self: 1) go to school and following the instructions given by the teacher/professor 2) get a job in the industry and learn through a combination of the on-the-job instruction provided and personal experience 3) seek your own information. In the very real world in general, and in particular those career/job areas that are more technically oriented, the people who perform best and have the best longevity do all three on a continual basis.

Back to your very real problem of learning more about solar energy…The principles of solar energy, how the technology works, and how the technology generates electricity or powers things up are all based in physics. Of course, calculus was developed/invented/written to mathematically describe physics. And, in the past couple of hundred years, on a increasing rate, it is being discovered that many things in the physical world (the world of physics) are related to the chemical world (the world of chemistry); the converse is also true although, the division lines between physics and chemistry have not blended as well as the lines between psychology and sociology. Being able to communicate is also critical so, a little drafting and English/writing are probably called for. Depending upon what you want to do in the world of solar energy, you may even want some engineering which is ok because, physics, chemistry, calculus, being able to draw a bit, being able to write a memo, and draft a report are all things that are important in engineering too.

Solar energy, renewable energy, alternative energy, and even traditional energy all rest on the same, very fundamental concepts. Even if your search is more based in actual installation concepts, having a fundamental understanding of electricity will serve you well; how many times have vehicle mechanics struggled over the wiring in of a sound system or trailer lights because they lack an understanding of electricity, how to read a wiring diagram, or how to use electricity measurement equipment? If your search is more along the lines of being able to decide how many solar panels are required and/or at what angle then you will need both the skills and the language of mathematics. But, if as you indicate above, your interest lies more in honestly understanding the renewable energy technologies – These are all specialized applications of the basic principles and learning a bit about the basic principles are critical to understanding the specialized applications. You can think of it as being somewhat like learning how to drive different types of vehicles. The rules of the road are pretty much the same regardless of what vehicle you drive; all have some sort of steering, acceleration, and braking system that are operated pretty much similarly; as you start to divide yourself into automatic versus manual transmissions things start to change a bit although on many automatic cars you can “shift on the gas pedal” pedal; and so on. True, an automatic golf cart seems hardly similar to some of the older split axel semi’s but, there are still a number of similarities as they take off from a stop.

Check in to your local CC and/or Voc Tech to find out if there is a program in the pipeline. Also, discuss what your goals are and find out what they are able to provide you in terms of valuable background education, information, and certificates/degrees. If possible, try to get to talk to an actual instructor, program director, or department head; physics and/or engineering are good candidates. Mean while, turn to your local library, the school library if you are able, and the internet to read, read, and read all you can about solar and other alternative energies.

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Buying a renewable-energy credit allows an individual or business to financially support wind energy even if it is not available locally. The credits technically represent the environmental benefits of using renewable energy instead of traditionally produced power.

To understand how the complicated concept works, it’s helpful to realize that the various attributes associated with producing electricity can be separated into partsIn the case of wind power, there is the actual electricity generated — which is fed into a power grid where it is mixed with electricity that may have been generated by coal, natural

gas or even nuclear reactions — and there are the environmental benefits of the way the electricity is produced.

Unlike burning fossil fuels, wind generation does not produce dangerous particulates, sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides or carbon dioxide. Renewable-energy certificates represent the value of not dumping those pollutants into the atmosphere.

Separating the electricity from the environmental benefits allows people who are actually receiving the wind power — but who don’t want to pay the added costs of renewable energy — to pay the same rate they would pay for traditionally generated electricity. It also gives people who do not have direct access to wind-generated power the ability to purchase renewable-energy credits, which helps the wind company to stay competitive even without willing customers in the area of the wind farm.

One renewable-energy credit is created for each kilowatt-hour of energy generated from a wind farm. Those credits are often sold by the wind farm to a third-party broker, who then resells it to customers for a profit.

Businesses or residents who buy the same number of kilowatt-hours’ worth of renewable-energy credits that they use each month often say they are 100 percent wind-powered. The electricity they actually are using, however, probably comes from traditional sources, such as coal or natural gas.

What the critics are saying:

Renewable-energy credits are just a form of checkbook environmentalism, which allow people with money to soothe their consciences without making any real efforts to reduce environmental problems.

Many companies aren’t transparent about where the RECs are coming from and how much of the consumer’s money actually makes it back to the wind farm.

They allow the middle man to make a handsome profit without substantially benefiting the wind farms.

They advertise benefits that aren’t real in the short term — like eliminating carbon dioxide and adding new wind power to the grid.

What supporters are saying:

Renewable-energy credits provide important revenue for wind farms, which must compete with the heavily subsidized oil and gas industry.

They are a first step for the concerned public in the fight against greenhouse gases — they give the individual some power instead of waiting for the local utility to develop renewable energy.

Once you’ve taken all the energy-efficiency measures you can, it makes sense to buy credits to cover the electricity you have to use.

They are bringing the discussion about wind energy into the mainstream dialogue.

Some big names

buying RECs:

The University of Colorado purchased 11.2 million kilowatt-hours’ worth of RECs from Community Energy, which roughly equates to between 9 percent and 12 percent of the school’s energy use.

Vail Resorts, based in Broomfield, bought 152 million kilowatt-hours from Renewable Choice Energy, which officials say offsets 100 percent of the conventionally produced electricity they burn at all five of their mountain resorts in a year.

Whole Foods Market purchased 458 million kilowatt-hours to offset all the energy used in its stores, facilities, bake houses, distribution centers, regional offices and national headquarters in the United States and Canada.