Biomass

Landari maintains professional networks within plantation forestry and selected agricultural sectors to evaluate, source and supply biomass for heat or electricity production, to a range of manufacturing facilities across Australia.

In Australia biomass commonly refers to plants or plant-based materials that are not used for food or feed.

Biomass resources are typically the by-product of other processes such as plantation timber harvesting or sugar, wheat, rice or corn production, and can include various waste streams.

As an energy source, biomass can either be used directly via combustion, or indirectly after conversion to various forms of solid or liquid biofuels. These biofuel forms include ethanol, woodchips, pellets, briquettes, charcoal and char.

Biomass-to-energy systems are deemed to be essentially carbon neutral and are classified as renewable energy sources. This is due to the intrinsic processes of vegetation growth that use water, nutrients and sunlight to extract atmospheric carbon via photosynthesis, and then store it within the living biomass. The stored carbon and energy are released again during the combustion of the bioenergy product.

It is like temporarily storing solar power in the biomass, without any net increase in atmospheric carbon when it is released.

Bioenergy is not perfectly renewable or 100% carbon neutral, but it is a marked improvement on releasing carbon from fossil sources such as coal, oil and gas that have been out of circulation for millions of years. Fossil carbon energy is neither renewable nor carbon neutral.