Escalão A2 | Article in english

Biomass - a source to potentiate
Filipe Xavier Resende Dias
Escola EB 2/3 C. Ângelo Azevedo05/03/2009

Resumo

«Energy from biomass contributes in a significant way to the national energetic balance and it's from far the largest renewable energy source all over the world», as professor Isabel Malico, from Évora University says. Being our region very rich in forest it seems to us to be more and more relevant the exploitation of all its resources including wood waste till now completely unexploited.

Artigo

«Energy from biomass contributes in a significant way to the national energetic balance and it's from far the largest renewable energy source all over the world», as professor Isabel Malico, from Évora University says.

Central Biomass

Being our region very rich in forest it seems to us to be more and more relevant the exploitation of all its resources including wood waste till now completely unexploited. The Biomass Central Terras de Santa Maria, in Carregosa, Oliveira de Azeméis, appears precisely in this geographic context, trying to do a rational use of our forest resources. During a visit, on 4thFebruary, we were able to notice the important contribution to the spread of renewable energies in our region ( Oliveira de Azeméis). This facility uses as fuel several vegetal materials, particularly those which come from cleaning the surrounding bushes. According to Miguel Figueiredo, the person responsible for the Central, the aim is that Biomass gets collected in a 50 km radius. This Biomass Central will burn forest residues, producing ten megawatts of electricity per hour, and thus being able to meet the needs of forty thousand homes and one hundred and forty thousand inhabitants. The forest area of the region occupies around fifty four per cent of the region's area, and it is frequently affected by several fires. Since Biomass comes essentially from forest residues, a significant improvement is predicted in the cleaning of bushes and consequent decrease of forest fires. The system works from the burning of the biomass, which produces a water steam in high pressure. This water steam moves a generator that produces electrical energy. The water steam goes through a process of refrigeration that enables, not only, to reuse the water, but also to optimize the environmental costs. The Central is also equipped with powerful filters which reduce the dust coming from the burning. The most concerning aspect is the production of carbon dioxide that is thrown into the atmosphere. Nevertheless, this energy is considered as a renewable source of energy as the carbon dioxide produced is clearly counterbalanced with the maintaining of the forest that produces oxygen. Thus, the environmental balanced is always maintained. It is true that the traditional use of biomass used to cause many problems untitled (jpg/visita-2.jpg) as the gathering of wood without reforestation causes floods, erosion and loss of nutrients in the soil. But, in this case, this problem does not exist, because all the agents involved in the process do not want to interrupt the production chain.

Filipe Xavier Resende Dias, Young Reporter from the Environement; EB 2,3 Comendador Ângelo Azevedo - Portugal.