# Biomass power **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 19, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636 "2016-04-19T12:03:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/21 "2016-04-20T14:03:08Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > Aren’t solar panels almost maintenance free? I have read that they can run for decades without maintenance. Sure, if a storm breaks them, or a criminal steals parts of the system, they will need maintenance. But they are mostly just set and forget. I don’t know the current state of the art of solar panel ruggedness, but I had understood that, while they have no moving parts, they need to be at least cleaned off from time to time, and since they are substantially made of glass, breakage is pretty much a continuous process. Maybe low-maintenance compared to a nuclear power plant, but compared to a field of plant that will just grow there on its own and that doesn’t have to be attractive, nourishing, or tasty I think the solar farm is going to require more effort to maintain. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/22 "2016-04-20T17:45:57Z")
There is a small place for biofuels: if you are going to cut down plants anyway because they’re in the way or if you have parts of plants grown for other purposes that are waste, you can burn those for energy. Although if you care about CO2 production it could easily be better to bury those plant parts somewhere so they’re out of the carbon cycle and then use natural gas rather than those plants as an energy source. I haven’t seen the calculations, but I have a hard time believing solar panels are very problematic to manufacture: they’re silicon, which is basically sand, which is rather easy to mine, and once they’re made and installed they don’t require any additional energy, unlike fuels which need to be mined/harvested and then processed and burned in a facility that absolutely needs a lot more maintenance than clearing off the dust once in a while. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/23 "2016-04-20T18:01:39Z")
They’re _mostly_ silicon, but all of silicon’s interesting properties come from various impurities, some of which are considerably less common. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/24 "2016-04-21T03:20:40Z")
Remember newspapers? There was a breed of (dogwood?) tree grown on a massive scale to produce the newsprint. If the “Biomass” trees are the same technology and scale, where is the problem? These “trees” were about 1-2" diameter and 10’ tall. Not exactly old-growth forests. p.s. - the mink being used for clothing are not wild creatures trapped in pristine wilderness. ---
**Author:** ![HelenGreene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HelenGreene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HelenGreene)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/25 "2016-04-21T07:17:24Z")
Biomass, a renewable energy source derived from organic matter such as wood, crop waste, or garbage, makes up 50% of all U.S. renewable energy. Ninety percent of all existing biomass power plants use wood residue and there are currently 115 power plants in development that will burn biomass to generate electricity. ---
**Author:** ![iljitsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/77aa72/32.png) [@iljitsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iljitsch)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/26 "2016-04-21T13:10:23Z")
The point is that the paper had more important uses than to be burned. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/27 "2016-04-21T14:11:51Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Most biomass grown for fuel is quick-growing scrub trees. They’re farmed much like any crop, just a bit slower: You re-plant the trees where you cut them, and in a few years those trees are ready to be cut again. It takes a lot of land, but it’s sustainable. … Nit sure what you mean by “sustainable”. Does this mean the soil doesn’t become exhausted over time and same plot of land can be used for the same purpose indefinitely? In terms of supply and demand, it’s only sustainable if we deliberately limit the demand by policy. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636/28 "2016-04-21T16:06:23Z")
> [@leahcim](#): > > … > I’d agree with that assessment for current ethanol production methods (especially American corn-based ethanol, which is a product of crop subsidies more than anything else). But if [cellulosic ethanol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulosic_ethanol) becomes more mainsteam, we can then produce ethanol out of the part of the plant that we _don’t_ eat, and food manufaturers can make fuel out of what would otherwise be waste. And we might be able to make it out of stuff like switch grass - there is an enormous amount of land in the the CRP program, which it might be possible to harvest from without destroying the purpose of those lands. Not to mention all sorts of waste paper and wood - landfills and old telephone poles / railroad ties, etc. I think that all gasoline vehicles currently being manufactured should be flex-fuel in case this ever works out. The cost of making a vehicle flex fuel compliant is minimal, and it’s not going to be that much wasted effort if it never works out. The cost of converting an existing vehicle to burn E85 is considerable. (don’t be mislead by some of the “kits” out there that only include the appropriate conversions for the computer - the real problem is your fuel lines, fuel tank, fuel injectors and fuel pump components. Ethanol and methanol attack materials that gasoline doesn’t, in particular aluminum and rubber. You have to make everything the fuel touches out of something that won’t get attacked by the alcohol.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/biomass-power/752636.md?page=1)