Biomass and bioenergy

Biomass is expected as a promising environmentally friendly alternative energy resource in the 21st century, because of the following characteristics: that is, renewable, abundant, storable and substitutive and carbon neutral. The importance of its role is emphasized in the IPCC report and Kyoto Protocol (COP3). In this paper, we review the characteristics of biomass and energy from biomass (bioenergy) briefly and introduce the bioenergy scenario by IPCC and other countries (U.S.A. and Sweden). We also introduce biomass-to-energy conversion technologies and pick up promising technologies, such as biomass power generation, ethanol fermentation, methane fermentation, gasification and so on. An appropriate use of biomass and bioenergy largely contributes to energy supply and CO2 mitigation, and the ways to promote its use should be explored.