Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.

Science 10 March 1978:
Vol. 199. no. 4333, pp. 1041 - 1048
DOI: 10.1126/science.199.4333.1041
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Articles

Solar Biomass Energy: An Overview of U.S. Potential

C. C. Burwell 1

1 Research engineer at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37830

The U.S. annual biomass production for food, lumber, paper, and fiber, if used exclusively for energy, would provide 25 percent of current energy requirements. The collection of unharvested wood residues and cull trees for direct use as fuel for small nearby space-heating applications—especially for peak winter conditions—is an important near-term solar energy opportunity. Improved management of hundreds of millions of acres of productive forest land is an important opportunity for the long term. Harvest of cropland residues for energy values, new biomass production using intensive short-rotation silviculture, resubstitution of natural products for petroleum-based synthetics, and forest management for large-scale production of electricity and synthetic fuels are judged to be less appropriate directions for the U.S. energy system to take.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Alternative energies: alternative geographies?.
A. Hoare (1979)
Progress in Human Geography 3, 506-537
   PDF »


To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)